Joanna Shaver has been Coordinator of Campus Programming in the office of Campus Life and Event Services for six years. She has also been coordinating Southeast Missouri State University's homecoming parade for two years. Shaver gave insight about how the office is preparing for homecoming 2011 on Oct. 22.

What does your office do?

At Campus Life and Event Services we cover so many areas on campus. We house Greek life, we house leadership programs, student government, Student Activities Council and then pretty much any other programming that comes to mind. We coordinate the University Speakers Series. We coordinate Family Weekend, at least the day of Family Weekend. And then the student aspect of homecoming we coordinate.

Is your office involved in the floats that participate in the parade?

We kind of coordinate the choosing of themes for the week. Which usually it plays into the yard art competition and it plays into Mock Rock and it plays into the parade. You don't have to have a theme to participate in homecoming; it just makes it a little more fun I think. And this year our theme is "Southeast: Your Path to Fame" and each of our groups chose a musical legend or icon, a game changer.

We try to choose a theme that is pretty universal because the Alumni Services office will use that theme as well. So we want to make sure that it reaches everybody, not just our students.

How is Homecoming Committee working to increase participation in homecoming?

I think it's something we're trying to do every year, and it just depends on the Planning Committee of that year how much effort goes into it to be honest. I don't know that we've done any special promotion other than we try to plan that you can come and do as an individual. ... We want people to feel like they could come as an individual or they could come as a residence hall floor or they could come as a Greek organization.

The Chinese Student and Scholar Association came to the homecoming meeting. I'm not sure they're participating, but they at least came to get the information! We want to make our activities seem very welcoming to any student who wanted to participate.

There is kind of that stigma that this is a Greek event but we want to show that it's not just a Greek event. We have two non-social Greek groups [Gamma Sigma Sigma and Alpha Kappa Psi] that have paired with a social Greek organization to do a large float. So that's exciting. That's something new.

What do you do to correct the "Greek only" stigma surrounding homecoming?

We just try to correct people as we're talking. Like if somebody says, 'Oh, I can't do homecoming because I'm not Greek' we just make the conscious effort to say, 'Oh no, yes you can! Here's what we're doing. Come volunteer or register to do some of these activities.' So it's more verbal. We just try to correct things.

The Homecoming Planning Committee, which is a group of students, they present a budget to student government. And student government has been funding homecoming, at least the student portion, the last couple years.

They're paying for some publicity costs. Field day supplies. Just general recreational supplies to put on the events no matter what they are each year. This year we're having a spirit rally followed by an after party. So they are paying for a band and refreshments for that. We buy t-shirts. For Man and Woman of the Year there's plaques and sashes for them. And then cash prizes for float winners.

Who is on Homecoming Committee?

We have three advisors to that. All three advisors come out of our office. But then there are students on each of the committees. For chairs, we have the president and then we have seven student chairs. We are currently taking applications for a support team that will kind of help with hands-on the day of the event ...

We're struggling with how to reach out to student to want to get them involved with planning homecoming.

What has been one of your most memorable moments?

I do enjoy coordinating the parade. In past years my favorite was probably the window painting, despite some of the issues. But this year we have some pretty new events so I'm looking forward to seeing how those go and maybe I'll have a different answer for you next year.

What role do you play in coordinating?

We actually start planning in the spring semester -- we select our committee. Early in the spring semester we start to work with them and kind of go over the events from the previous year, decide what events we want to continue and then we kind of just go from there. But we start early.

We handed out applications for businesses at the Welcome Back Picnic, so that was probably the earliest we would reach out to them. Then probably that first week of September or so we sent out emails to the people that participated last year to see if they'd be interested again. They're just coming out of the woodwork.

How do you handle being in charge of so much without going crazy?

Luckily I have two good student coordinators helping me and I just have to take it in stride, like we set deadlines. I have three separate deadlines. I have one for students then one for businesses then one for bands. They have now become on big deadline because people are turning them in late, but having those three separate deadlines gives me about a week to kind of get each section in the spreadsheet, ready to go. And then you just take it day by day.

Where will you be the day of the event?

We start setting up at about 6:30 a.m. and the whole committee comes out. That's when we number the stakes. And then each category is supposed to be in the park at a different time. Like the larger floats have to be there by 8 and then the class B floats have to be there at 8:30. And then the bands have to be there by 9. So we try to stagger it. And then at 9:30 we start the show!

Any advice for students attending the homecoming parade?

I think many students know there's this stigma of alcohol usage along the parade route. We cannot say what people can or cannot do, however we would encourage people if they see obnoxious, rude, harassing behavior toward participants in the parade that they either notify Cape PD or DPS, or ask those people to stop if they're their friends. Because there were instances where obscenities were yelled at them by drunk people. We have live animals sometimes in the parade, I've heard of people throwing things at the animals, which could be a safety hazard if that animal was not controlled and ran into the crowd. So I guess we're really trying to encourage people to be responsible for their friends and the actions of those around them that they can help.

How does the Homecoming Committee handle cleanup?

We are actually working with the Community Counseling Center. They contacted us and asked if they could work and clean up along the parade route for a small donation. So we're doing that. And so they're just going to follow along behind the parade route and pick up trash in public areas and in front of the businesses that are closed.

The Homecoming Committee pays for it. The student committee has done it in the past and this year this opportunity came up and we're like, "Yes!"

Why has yard art replaced window painting?

We, to be honest, were struggling with businesses. Many of the businesses we partnered with enjoyed the window painting. They liked working with the students. We had some business that had some rough interactions, whether it was blocking... [Did you take out words here? Otherwise use a comma.] the groups weren't supposed to block access points but sometimes it just happens that way. We had a couple windows broken in years past. And then we had several groups who chose not to clean their windows and it was just becoming a large cost to our office and the Homecoming Parade Committee. We just decided we better stop before we completely ruined our relationship with downtown business owners. Last year we did a banner competition and this year it's the yard art. The yard art will probably stick around a while.

I did love it though because it just showed all the spirit going down Broadway. I think the plan is still kind of up in the air about yard art. [I find myself wondering what yard art is after all the mentions.] We were talking about scattering them around campus during homecoming week. They're rather heavy, so we may just put them in front of Houck Stadium on homecoming day. We're not quite sure where they going to be yet.

How does each organization fit into the theme?

What we like to do is when they come to the meeting [pre-homecoming meeting] they draw a number at the door and we start with number one and they come up and ... [awkward editing here. I'm confused.] This year they were all given this list and No. 1 [AP style] came up and they chose Lady Gaga. So instead of drawing something out of a hat that you may or may not be interested in, we like to give them a little bit more opportunity to choose something that they would be interested in. We've done that the last couple years.

I was very excited by the range because you have Elvis to Lady Gaga. And a little bit in between. And there's some different genres in there.

What does the "student aspect" of homecoming consist of? [Hanging preposition...rewrite.]

That would be the parade on homecoming day, Man and Woman of the Year and spirit activities -- like we have a spirit rally the week of and we also have special events, such as the field day that seems to be pretty standard. We have a yard art competition, trivia. We have Mock Rock this year. Sometimes it's been a talent show or something like that. Just general events to get the students excited about homecoming.