Partnering with Auxiliary Services to host a First Friday University Social is a great way to showcase your school or department and provide a casual setting for informal discussion and socializing among university faculty, staff, graduate students, and retirees. Requests to sponsor a social are granted on a first come, first served basis. Available dates are quickly filled, so reserve your date early. Contact the Business Support Center at business-support@mtu.edu or by calling 487-2543 to reserve a date or to find out more.
Sponsoring schools and departments are encouraged to be creative in personalizing their events. Past socials have included activities such as themes, displays, presentations, tours, trivia contests, or prize drawings.
For each First Friday University Social, Auxiliary Services will provide the following support:
- Tech Today announcement and reminders highlighting your school or department.
- Addition of First Friday Social to online MTU events calendar.
- Notify the Graduate School students of the event.
- Assist with any catering arrangements.
- Update the schedule on Auxiliary Services website pages.
The sponsoring school or department takes care of the following details:
- Securing a venue. The space must accommodate 50+ people. Non-liquor licensed locations (those locations other than the Memorial Union, Rozsa Center, SDC and the Portage Lake Golf Course) may serve only complimentary beer and wine with the permission of the President’s office
- If your event is outside, please arrange for or rent a tent (Superior Events, 906-482-8080), and arrange an alternate indoor location in case of inclement weather.
- If desired, enhance your social by ordering food through Michigan Tech Catering Services (7-2277, catering-l@mtu.edu).
- Order tables for your event from the SDC: Three tables are needed for the bar; additional tables are needed if food catering is arranged.
- Determine a theme for your social, and prepare displays, posters, decorations, presentations, etc. that will showcase your school or department in a special way.
- Provide supplemental marketing for the event, such as posters, individual invitations, emails to your departmental lists, etc. Extra effort to encourage increased staff and faculty attendance is appreciated.