To celebrate the students and all their hard work this year, CWU hosted events for Student Appreciation Week from May 19 through May 24.

The week started with a field day and an outdoor movie on Monday. The field day offered many activities, games and sports for the students to play. Some of the activities included dodgeball, corn hole, spikeball, soccer, tie dye and coloring. This event was followed by CWU’s weekly Monday Movie Madness event, which showed “Shrek” at the Recreational Sports Complex. 

Tuesday had a Geek Out, Game Out “Super Smash Bros” Tournament. This event offered students the opportunity to play and win prizes with peers.CWU shook up the week with the Wildcat Wednesday Karaoke Competition. Students were welcomed to get up and sing or watch from the audience.

The festivities of the week led up to Sweecy Day on Thursday. Sweecy Day started off with tree planting, which was followed by a Wildcat Farm work party. The afternoon was filled with live music in front of the SURC and a food festival. The evening wrapped up with a casino night in the SURC Ballroom. These events were all free for CWU students in honor of their hard work this academic year. 

Through events like Student Appreciation Week, CWU has tried to show students that their work is appreciated, but the sentiment may not accomodate their efforts. “No I don’t feel like [CWU does] anything, they’re like good job for your work and you’re almost graduated but it’s just that,” Kayla Gumke, a senior law and justice major, said. “I don’t feel like they appreciate MY hard work.”  

This sentiment is shared by Kara Cook, a senior psychology and deaf and sign language studies major. “I don’t feel like my hard work is appreciated, I feel like just one of thousands of their students and like they don’t even know I exist,” Cook said. “I think it’s hard to really feel appreciated in the power dynamic that students have with colleges. They appreciate me for the effort and money that I give them and I appreciate them for giving me my degree I guess. I just don’t see how I can truly be appreciated in this dynamic. With all of the effort, hard work, hours, sweat, and tears that I have given central I feel very little appreciation for it all and it seems like they don’t care. I think they do an okay job at recognizing students for very specific accomplishments, but not student success as a whole.” 

Events like these may benefit students morale, and benefit with feelings of validation. “More fun events would help, I know that they do a lot, but I feel like a lot of them are so specific to groups,” Gumke said. “I’d rather have more broad events, like the movie night.”