Meet the Event Coordinators
Ani Mehnert '22
Hello, all! My name is Ani Mehnert and I am in my final semester in the Public Health program here at UMD. I am a member of the Public Health Students Group as well as the YOUMatter club where I hold the secretary position. I am interested in sexual health education, mental health advocacy/promotion, and the effects the arts have on health. Before holding this position as an Events Coordinator, I was a Research Assistant for Dr. Tornabene where I researched Arts in Health programs throughout the midwest. That position stemmed my passion for the arts in health. After graduation, I hope to find a career in events coordinating or another area of health I am passionate about.
Samantha Hildebrandt '22
Hello! My name is Samantha Hildebrandt. I am a junior at the University of Minnesota Duluth, and I am majoring in public health with a minor in health and wellness coaching. My health interests include occupational health and safety, women’s health, reproductive issues, and food safety. This was my first semester as an event coordinator under Dr. Amy Versnik Nowak. Outside of school, I enjoy spending time outdoors hiking in the Duluth area and being with friends and family. After I graduate, I plan to find a job in the public health field that focuses on one of my areas of interest. I would also love to pursue my field of study in other parts of the U.S. or globally.
Assistantship Description
Event assistants typically register for 3 credits over 2 semesters (total 6 credits) that can be applied toward their internship, health content/skills, or electives requirement. The commitment is 120 hours, or approximately 8-10 hours per week. This position is a two semester commitment. During the first semester, you act as an associate event coordinator and then move on to being the lead event coordinator in the second semester.
Primary responsibilities include: leading the planning, implementation, and evaluation of the fall/spring Public Health Student Showcase; working with the SOPHE Collegiate Champions, Public Health Student Group, and faculty to develop additional events that support professional development for students; collaborating with the communication team to promote and market events, and other duties as assigned.
Qualifications include: successful completion of HLTH 3300, time management, records management, attention to detail, teamwork, ability to meet deadlines, ability to apply design elements and principles for effective design, high quality work, initiative, giving/receiving feedback, willingness to teach or help others, respect for privacy.
Event coordinating process
The event coordination process began for our Coordinators by creating necessary professional documents. These documents included; Meeting Minutes, Media Calendar, and Event Brief templates. The Event Coordinators also used Google Sheets to track their hours and which Areas of Responsibility for Health Education represented their tasks.
Meeting Minutes documents were used by the Communication Team to keep track of task progress, new business to discuss, and action steps for each group to take between meetings.
For each event put on by the Event Coordinators, Ani and Samantha would create an Event Brief based on a template that Allison (Spring 2021 Event Coordinator) created. The Event Briefs allowed the Coordinators to keep track of event information, social media content, email drafts, graphics, and more for each event.
Overview of Events
The Event Coordinators, Ani and Samantha planned multiple different events throughout the semester. Listed below is a brief schedule of events we planned.
- The CDC Public Health Associate Program Informational Session with Sadie Shervheim: Thursday, January 20, 2022 at 10:30 to 11:00 am.
- National Public Health Week Follow-up Grad Panel Video Posting: Tuesday, April 5, 2022 posted on the UMD Public Health Facebook page.
- National Public Health Week, World Health Day Tabling Event: Thursday, April 7, 2022 at 11:30 am to 12:30 pm.
- National Public Health Week, Accessibility Scavenger Hunt and Ice Cream Social: Friday, April 8, 2022 at 12:30 - 2:00 pm.
- Virtual Showcase 2022: Monday, April 18 through Thursday, April 21 2022.
- In-Person Showcase 2022: Friday, April 22 from 11:00 am - 2:00 pm.
CDC Public Health Associate Program Informational Session
One of our very own alum, Sadie Shervheim, promoted the CDC’s Public Health Associate Program (PHAP) through an informational session via Zoom conducted by the Event Coordinators. Sadie graduated from UMD in 2020 and is currently training in the program herself. PHAP is a paid, competitive, two-year training program for early-career public health professionals. During this session Sadie summarized the program, what she does, and how to apply. The application was open from January 18 through January 25 and is open annually for graduate students.
National Public Health Week
The American Public Health Association (APHA) celebrated National Public Health Week (NPHW) during the second week of April. NPHW has a specific focus each year. This years overall theme was, "Public Health is Where You Are." The goal during this week was to help make our Duluth community a healthier, strong and safer place by promoting health education and increasing awareness of major public health issues. We worked in collaboration with the Kirby Program Board and the UMD Commission on Disabilities Committee here on campus to host two main events and one virtual post of a pre-recorded Grad Panel Follow-Up session video during the week.
Each day of NPHW, there is a specific theme that aligns with the overall theme of this year. Listed below is the themes for the week:
Monday, April 4 – “Racism: A Public Health Crisis”
Tuesday, April 5 – “Public Health Workforce: Essential to our Future”
Wednesday, April 6 – “Community: Collaboration and Resilience”
Thursday, April 7 – “World Health Day: Health is a Human Right”
Friday, April 8 – “Accessibility: Closing the Health Equity Gap”
Tuesday, April 5, 2022
"Public Health Workforce: Essential to our Future"
During this day, the UMD Public Health Program pre-recorded a Grad Panel Follow-Up session with previous panelists from the Spring Semester 2021 panel. These previous panels were UMD alumni Kourtney Dobmeier ‘21, Kenzie Fitzpatrick ‘21, Alyssia Pucel ‘21, and Molly Slaughter ‘21. This group of panelist provided current UMD students with amazing insight to their first year in graduate school and gave very helpful advice!
Thursday, April 7, 2022
"World Health Day: Health is a Human Right"
During this day of NPHW, Ani and Samantha partnered with the Kirby Program Board to hand out wellness kits to the first 50 students that stop by their table. Each kit contained items such as: stress balls, chapstick, a words of affirmation slip, a face mask, and mints.
Friday, April 8, 2022
"Accessibility: Closing the Health Equity Gap"
On the final day of NPHW, Ani and Samantha partnered with the UMD’s Commission on Disabilities to host an accessibility scavenger hunt. They utilized the Commission’s Inclusivity Scan Checklist during this activity. This scavenger hunt was an assessment of accessibility to the Sports and Health Center Building (SpHC). Following the first portion of the event, there was also an ice cream social. All students, faculty, and staff were welcome to hear members from the Commission on Disabilities speak about their role on campus, converse with friends about what they learned, and enjoy a tasty treat!
Spring 2022 Student Showcase
Monday, April 18 through Thursday, April 21, 2022
Virtual Showcase
Friday, April 22 from 11:00 am - 2:00 pm
In-Person Showcase
The Student Showcase has been an integral part of the UMD Public Health student experience since May of 2009. This event allows students to showcase the class projects, internship and assistantship positions, leadership roles, research, and more that they have worked on throughout the semester. Before COVID-19, this event was held in-person in the UMD Sports and Health Center. Students would be able to present their work in-person, and network with alumni, members of the community, faculty, and more. Since COVID-19 began, five virtual Facebook versions of this event have occurred. With restrictions lifting, we have made the event to be both virtual and in-person.
Our Showcase theme for this semester is Friends and Family–The True Superpower! The Event and Communication Team, including Ani Mehnert, Samantha Hildebrandt, Emily Iverson, Molly Johnson, and Dr. Amy Versnik Nowak, came up with this theme was to celebrate the people around UMD student who have supported the goals through their time at UMD. One of the things that make our program so great is our sense of community and the fact that we include family and friends into our program with events such as the Student Showcase.
Showcase Event Promotion
Throughout the planning process for Showcase, Ani and Samantha had to promote both events in multiple different ways. Below are all the promotional resources created to promote the Spring 2022 Student Showcase including posters, buttons, and Facebook Event pages.
Event Coordinator, Ani Mehnert '22 showing off the Showcase button for the spring semester!
Showcase Header Graphics
One of the responsibilities of the Event Coordinators when it comes to Showcase is creating header graphics for all of the individual students, groups, courses, etc. that participate in Showcase. This semester, Samantha Hildebrandt '22 took on the responsibility of creating the header photos. The process of creating these headers began with creating master InDesign pages with different numbers of headshots, and then duplicating those master pages to create the individual header graphics that you see at the top of each Showcase Spark page.
Event Promotion with Social Media
Our Spring 2022 Student Showcase was held both virtually and in person. For both events, the Event Coordinators were responsible for creating a Facebook event. The Event Coordinators also assisted with the in-person tabling events by planning, promoting, and participating in the events. To promote all of our Showcase events, the Coordinators utilized both email and the UMD Public Health Facebook and Instagram pages.
Showcase Evaluation
A Google Form was created by Samantha Hildebrandt to evaluate the Showcase as a whole. The survey was sent to students and faculty where we were able to get 45 responses. Overall, the feedback was positive. Below are examples of the feedback from the survey.
Event Coordinator Reflections
Ani Mehnert '22
Working as an events coordinator alongside Samantha and under the supervision of Dr. V has been incredibly rewarding and full of learning and growing. Through the events we planned and supported, I have gained skills in professional communication, organization, and development of marketing tools. Today marks the beginning of our virtual and in-person Showcase and I am more than excited to see all of our hard work come together. Dr. V has taught me incredible skills in creating these events and I cannot be more grateful. I can say without a doubt that I will be able to take these skills with me after graduation. I have enjoyed being a mentor to Samantha who has done an incredible job this semester. The events we have put together would not be near as successful without Samantha's skillset. I wish her all the best next semester - keep an eye out for the amazing events she will be putting together!
Samantha Hildebrandt '22
This semester as been an incredible experience! I'm so grateful to have had the opportunity to learn from Ani Mehnert and work under Dr. Amy Versnik Nowak. This internship has given me a lot of room to grow in my professional skills with communicating effectively, planning for events in advance, building relationships with partners and stakeholders, and utilizing the Adobe software tools in event planning. Working with Ani this semester and building a team to ensure that our events happen accordingly was essential to our success. Additionally, learning from Dr. V's valuable experience in public health communication and event planning was very rewarding in many ways. With the week of Showcase beginning, I am so excited to see all of our hard work! I'm thrilled to announce that I will be continuing to work as an Event Coordinator in my last semester during the fall.