(This story was originally published in print on Feb. 28, 2019).

Biola’s inaugural “I Heart Biola” week, put on by the Student Alumni Association, took place during the week of Feb. 25-28. This week of events, held in conjunction with Biola’s 111th birthday, was created to provide a space for students, faculty and staff to come together and appreciate one another for all the hard work that gets done for the students on Biola’s campus.

AWARENESS AND APPRECIATION

The week of events initially started as a way for students to appreciate all of Biola’s staff and faculty, but when the thank-you card table was put out on Tuesday, it turned into an appreciation across departments, according to SAA president and senior business administration major Kipper Wagner,

“The goal of ‘I Heart Biola’ week was to have all facets of Biola appreciate all the other facets of Biola,” Wagner said.

Wagner said that one of the great things about this week is that it is eye-opening for the students to see that the faculty who work in Metzger are not just the people who take their money, but who work consistently to help students.

Biola alumna and admissions recruiter Micah Elmore has worked at Biola for over a year and says one of her favorite parts of her job is the interaction she gets to have with the student workers in her department.

GRATITUDE IN ACTION

By working in admissions, Elmore interacts with several departments and noted that having a positive relationship with them is key to working efficiently in her position.

“We have some of the best employees here and it is really cool when we get to interact,” Elmore said.

During “I Heart Biola” week, she says she especially loved the thank-you writing stations and expressed that she enjoyed seeing her faculty members writing to each other across departments.  

Junior elementary education major and SAA member Alicia Perez said that this week has been exciting because she has seen all the hard work that both Wagner and senior public relations major and SAA vice president Braden Martin have put into this event, including getting students to appreciate the work that the staff and faculty do for the student body.

“It’s really all about getting students to understand how much the people who work for the university really care about them and… getting the students to appreciate the different people that work at Biola as well,” Perez said.

Throughout the week, students were able to celebrate Biola’s 111th birthday with cupcakes, write thank-you cards to the staff and faculty on campus and receive a free “I Heart Biola” stress ball. To close out the week on Thursday, there will be a Chick-fil-A giveaway between the women’s and men’s basketball games, which will later be followed by a Glow-in-the-dark Campus Fun Run.