Kacey Gavin, fifth-year mechanical engineering major, founded the Discougs server during the pandemic on June 11, 2020. This occurred when WSU set up a town hall to provide updates on plans for fall 2020, she said.
“In the YouTube chat, people were like ‘We should all create a Discord’ and I hopped on that really quick,” she said. “One of the jokes was that one of the presenters had a lamp in their background, hence the server profile.”
During the pandemic, the server provided a platform for more in-depth connection among students as there needed to be a space where only students could talk with each other outside of school spaces like Blackboard and Zoom, Gavin said.
At this time, early members would promote the server in Zoom chats before the start of class, advertising it as a place for those looking for study buddies or for people to hang out and talk with, she said.
“When I first had it, I had tons of channels for all the different classes freshmen were taking and that got overwhelming to deal with … and it’s just kind of grown from that,” Gavin said. “Now, Discougs is the biggest WSU server, but there are many more, especially on the STEM side.”
Following the development of Discougs and other more academic WSU-related servers, Discougs became more of a social platform where students could connect with alumni and discuss campus happenings, Gavin said.
Discougs also serves as a platform for academic support.
“Sometimes we’d hop up in the voice channel together and just quietly study,” she said. “Some of our common homework questions back in the day were a lot of math, like for Calc One or Calc Two, and with a lot of us being engineering students, we could help out.”
Though one recent highlight in particular has been the addition of the “wins” channel.
“I recently added the wins channel [because] it never hurts to have a little more positivity,” she said. “Just recently, someone posted about a cat they just adopted and that’s just something to smile about.”
Now that WSU has been back in-person for a few years and many who joined during the pandemic have graduated, Discougs’ engagement has gradually decreased. Despite these changes, there’s still a need for a virtual way to connect for WSU students, Gavin said.
This is particularly true for connecting with students from other WSU campuses and those who might prefer online interactions, she said.
“There’s still an opportunity to collaborate with folks on other campuses; some of my active members are on the Tri-Cities or the Spokane campus,” she said. “[Discougs] can also be a place for people who maybe don’t excel in in-person environments and have more fun doing online game nights or movie nights.”
While many were originally against making Discougs officially under the university to preserve its independence for the students, it is hoped that it can be continued as a registered student organization as its leadership is changing, Gavin said.
“Now you have representation in the university, you’re eligible for funding and reserving spaces,” she said. “It’s helpful for keeping the club alive past someone graduating. Once I’m gone, there’s still a bunch of documents and information I would need to transfer down and having an official platform to do that on would make it much easier. It can also bring more awareness to Discougs.”
As Discougs continues after she graduates, it would be great to revive some of its past activities like movie and game nights, Gavin said.
One of the best things about running the server is seeing how it allows all members of the WSU community to help each other, she said.
“It’s really fun getting a prospective student joining the server and asking the questions we all know the answers to and it’ll be like, oh, who can reply to them fast enough?” Gavin said. “I always like the ‘Cougs Helping Cougs’ motto and this is the place for that.”
Those interested in joining the Discougs server can do so here: https://discord.gg/tVCyr9t.
