Eastern Michigan University will welcome a new leader in student engagement next semester. On Jan. 5, 2025, Emma Wuetrich will assume the role of Director of Campus Life, stepping into a position that has been vacant since the summer of 2024. Wuetrich, an EMU alum and the current Coordinator of the LGBT Resource Center, was selected following a months-long search that concluded this fall.
Since joining the university in May 2023, Wuetrich has become a familiar presence on campus, especially within the Office of Access and Opportunity, which houses the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Resource Center. Her move into Campus Life marks the next step in a career spent supporting student involvement and identity-based services across multiple Midwestern institutions.
As director, she will oversee major areas of student engagement including student organizations, campus events, and fraternity and sorority life, while also guiding long-term planning, budgeting and campus-wide programming.
In an interview with The Eastern Echo, Wuetrich spoke about why she pursued the role, what she hopes to bring to Campus Life and how the LGBT Resource Center will continue its work during the transition.
Q: What made you want to apply for this position?
A: I've had the opportunity to have a progressive career in student affairs for some time now. I've had the opportunity to work at many institutions in the Midwest advocating for students outside the classroom. I've had experience in campus activities, in fraternity and sorority life, in orientation, in LGBT student services, community service, I mean, I've had a lot of experience, so I've been wanting to do more, and this was just a great opportunity to finally do that.
Q: What are the new roles and expectations that you'll have as campus life director?
A: This position will require a different type of leadership than my current position. I get the opportunity to oversee professional staff members who are doing some of the pragmatic work where I get to help (...) lead the charge, in terms of curriculum and budget and vision for the university.
Q: What kind of work are you hoping to do with the students?
A: I hope to be able to engage with students in big campus-wide projects. You know, the ways a student engages with the university's mission or traditions. So I'm kind of on a big campus-wide level.
Q: Will you still be working with the LGBTRC? What are they planning to do in your absence?
A: In most ways no. The staff is going to comprise of the current graduate assistant and a really great undergraduate internship team that has been working for the center for years now, so I'm wrapping up this semester and helping them be prepared to do it (...) in my absence … They'll have lots of support from the professional staff members of the Office of Access and Opportunity too. So although I won't be doing it, they'll be (...) continuing out the things that I've already started for the semester.
Q: As the new director of campus life, what changes are you hoping to make? What projects are you hoping to start?
A: Yeah, I mean I can't like tell you exactly what it is because I, you know, I'm not going to shoehorn my ideas without having a greater understanding of what the students are asking for, what the staff are asking for and the administrators guiding above me are going to be asking for. I just know that I'm excited to do what we need to do to move forward and to (...) change up things that aren't working and I'm just really pumped.
Q: Are there any departments or people that you will be working closely with as Campus Life?
A: I hope to work more with faculty than maybe I have in the past, or campus life has in the past … Campus life is comprised of so many student organizations and they have such great ties with faculty. I just hope to increase that.
Q: Can you tell us about some of the big events that campus life has done in the past or maybe are planning to do?
A: Yeah, I mean the machine that is student orgs is prolific. I mean, it extends so many programs that the students do, so many responsibilities to them and so many different types of students and organizations. I mean, that is a huge machine. Fraternity and sorority life is a huge machine with so many different types of organizations, councils, and alumni who are really invested. I mean that is just a huge machine too. And then campus activities just has this incredible output so they each have their own kind of big footprint. I'm just hoping to help them all have their own sort of direction.
Q: Do you want to tell us anything else about the new position, about what you're hoping to do, or about what's important to you?
A: I really hope that the students and the professional staff members in that space who have gone without a director immediately feel supported. That's kind of the first priority is having those folks feel supported right away. I hope to be able to, in all parts of campus, kind of tell the student story. That might be a big part of my job is telling the stories of the student experiences and kind of getting out and doing that more. I'm not a big “hey look at me” person. I like to work from the background, and so that's going to be one of the bigger changes in this position: I have to step up and grab the mic more than I've been doing.
