UNSW Constituent Club of the Year! Tireless CEVSOC 2021 receives due recognition.

In 2021 our amazing student organisation CEVSOC held over 47 events, produced 17 publications, initiated an industry mentoring program, and the world’s first Thesis Bootcamp Guide! No wonder ARC has given them two awards! 

Outgoing CEVSOC President Christopher Wang and Vice President Kayla Chaoui proudly announced that the School’s undergraduate student society had been honoured with UNSW ARC's Constituent Club of the Year Award in 2021 as well as winning the ARC Online Activity of the Year Award for their online community walking challenge 'Two Weeks to Melbourne’. 

CEVSOC was also Highly Commended for the On Campus Activity of the Year (Escape with Arup) and for the Off Campus Activity of the Year (CEVSOC’s orientation camp)

It is a fitting end to a great year of effort and achievement. As Wang says, “CEVSOC’s year was a huge success, seeing the return of in-person events for the first time since March 2020, allowing us to best support our members with a diverse range of events, supporting the student body upon their return to campus, and then on the return to lockdown restrictions.” 

ARC’s awards were announced on Friday 26 November. Kyra Lee Shanyi, Chair of ARC’s Student Development Committee (SDC) which voted on the awards, said the SDC "was very impressed by the range of in person and online activities that CEVSOC put on. There is no doubt that the past year has been incredibly challenging for UNSW Clubs and Societies. However, the success of their events highlighted that the CEVSOC team put a lot of thought, effort, and passion to deliver fun, unique, engaging, and accessible events to their members. They deserve a huge pat on the back." 

Dr Kurt Douglas, Associate Head (Engagement) at the School of Civil & Environmental Engineering, also congratulated the outgoing team. “Great work to you Christopher, Kayla and the entire CEVSOC team. CEVSOC has been outstanding in the face of the COVID challenges and restrictions. “

Through all the challenges our students, and all of UNSW have faced, CEVSOC held almost fifty events, including flagship events, collaborations, camps and program checkpoints. This year was the first time they opened the famous first-year camp to second year students as well, as a way to acknowledge and include the first years of 2020 who as Wang puts it, “were robbed of the opportunity last year.” 

Event attendance each term far exceeded expectation, with several events reaching the COVID-limited capacity upon opening or selling out once tickets became available. “ 

Wang notes that CEVSOC “continued our Peer Support program 'CEVBuddy' whilst also starting up our new Industry Mentoring Program with 30 Mentors. We developed over 17 publications including our newsletters, First Year Guide, International Students Guide, Careers Guide and our new Thesis Bootcamp Guide.” 

“This year CEVSOC took a renewed focus on diversity and inclusion with our new D&I portfolio, to help drive some meaningful conversations, to help inform the cohort of the state of the industry and to inspire those who resonate with these challenges. This team has developed two major events with our industry partners - our Women in Construction event and our Pride in Engineering event that hoped to provide some more opportunities and confidence to those who felt marginalised due to their identity.” 

The success of CEVSOC 2021 was the result of the hard work of a dedicated team of 56, comprising of the committee, subcommittee, and coordinators.

The current and future CEVSOC teams draw upon a great past tradition of hardworking and innovative CEVSOCs. “We have previously been awarded the Constituent Club of the Year award back in 2019 and 2016,” says Wang, “so it's wonderful to bring it back home.”