From Clubs to Career

As a former student, Connor Delaney ’15 brings an interesting perspective to the office of Student Activities. Connor graduated from Colby-Sawyer as a biology major with a minor in chemistry. Initially coming to the college to become an optometrist, he realized after finishing up his studies that it wasn’t the route he wanted to take, and he was unsure of what he was going to do after graduation. Over the summer after graduation, a friend of his reached out to him after they got a fellowship with the school and encouraged him to apply for one. He ended up becoming a presidential fellow for the academic administration. He worked in that position for a year and was planning to do so for another year, but that July, Sarah Braun, the director of student activities, reached out to see if he would be interested in applying for the position of program manager. Connor worked as the program manager from August of 2016 to August of 2021. After Braun left this past summer, Connor applied for the director position and was eventually chosen to fill the role. In total, he has been at Colby-Sawyer for 10 years.

As a student, Connor helped create the Sociology Club and get it running on campus. He was also involved in the Campus Activities Board, being the president and treasurer his senior year. While in those roles, he enjoyed organizing the spring spotlight events and featuring student clubs and organizations. He was heavily involved on campus by his senior year, being an admissions ambassador and holding other positions in clubs. As a staff member, he loves getting to help out with countless events on campus. One standout is helping the PRIDE Club in planning their annual Spring Drag Ball. A favorite memory is getting RuPaul’s Drag Race contestant Monique Heart for the ball in the spring of 2020. Another accomplishment while being a staff member has been bringing Hot Wings and Hot Topics series to the campus community, in which a film that deals with a current event or topic that is controversial is screened and discussed afterwards. The event focuses on getting the students to talk about the issues going on in the world and how they impact the community on campus.

While he was a student, Connor did not truly know the amount of behind the scenes work that goes into planning and putting on an event. One of the things that he loves about working in his current position is that he knows what it was like to be a student; he knows what worked well and what didn’t. Connor never realized that working with student events and activities could become a career. He loves working with the students on campus and helping them create events. Over time, the job became a passion, so much so that he decided to get his master’s in higher education administration. He said his hope is to recreate the feelings that he had as a student for the current students on campus.

Connor is thankful for all of the opportunities he has been able to explore both as staff member and as student. He looks forward to more in-person events this year, and the students and clubs on campus do as well.