Since her freshman year, Thea Smith has loved participating in CAB events. Now, she’s leading the board in planning them. 

On March 13, Smith was elected to be the Campus Activity Board’s 2024-2025 executive director. 

This is not Smith’s first role in CAB. Currently, she acts as their Membership Coordinator, which sees her executing scheduling and communication tasks. In her new role, Smith will be overseeing the organization as a whole. 

“I’ll just kind of oversee everything…make sure everyone is staying on task, but also having fun…I will plan the Fall trainings and also Spring trainings…when we’ll have our executive board meetings, and one on one meetings with my branch…I’ll be helping out with everything in general,” Smith said. 

Beyond the event planning opportunities, Smith is appreciative of CAB for the connections it has helped her foster with faculty and other students. 

“I’m a very social butterfly type person, so being on CAB really lets me shine through with that. I’ve made some of my closest friends on the executive board, and also on the general board as well,” Smith said. “I’m always chatting up a storm…and then also a bunch of professors, I’ve gotten to know some of them a little bit more, from planning class visits or seeing them on campus and [they say] ‘I was told about this event and all my students really liked it;’ I’ve made a lot, a lot of connections.”

Regardless of the role, Smith knew she wanted to continue with CAB next year in some capacity but is especially excited to be able to do so as executive director. 

“The fact that I am the executive director, I’m very happy…it’s definitely going to be a challenging role, but I’m very excited for that challenge,” Smith said. 

Concurrent with the transition to a new executive director is that of a new faculty advisor for the organization; Smith looks forward to getting to know them and working together towards further improvements in CAB’s practices and procedures. 

“I’m hoping to, in general, get to know [the new advisor] and work with them to put better systems in place as to where if things [do not] go right, and we have to do like a location change at the last minute, how we’re going to go about that,” Smith said. 

Beyond these board internal changes, Smith hopes to shape future planning and events based on feedback from students. 

“I’ve heard a lot and been told a lot that people feel that our events are sometimes catered more towards kids and not college students, so I want to work on really being focused on the college student aspect of things,” Smith said. 

Further, Smith says she hopes to plan events that can be more inclusive to commuter students. 

“I want to make some events specifically for [commuters] because I feel like they’re kind of overlooked, and I don’t want them to feel left out of things,” Smith said. 

Smith is a sophomore COPA student majoring in animation. With a strong passion for art, she was inspired to pursue a degree in the discipline during her freshman year of high school, when the COVID-19 Pandemic saw her watching more movies, primarily animated ones. 

“I remember I watched ‘Turning Red’ and in the credits, I remember seeing [there was a title] ‘Baby Animators’ or something, like the new animators, and I saw my name actually, someone had my name, and [I thought] that could be me, I could do that,” Smith said. 

Beyond her schooling and position with CAB, Smith has an internship with VEX Robotics, where she creates instructional videos. 

In her free time, Smith enjoys being outside, taking walks and appreciating nature, as well as hanging out in the CAB office with her fellow members. 

Smith is a sophomore animation major.