- Engage @ Harvard Griffin GSAS keeps its familiar name and web address while moving to the more robust CampusGroups platform.
- A mobile app, improved event calendar, QR code check-in, and personalized content make it easier for students to find and attend events.
- New templates, websites, forms, surveys, messaging tools, and other features reduce administrative work for student organizations.
- The upgraded platform is designed to make cross-departmental programs and community-building opportunities easier to discover.
Community-building at the Harvard Kenneth C. Griffin Graduate School of Arts and Sciences will get a big boost this fall as the School moves its central online platform for events, programs, and student organizations to a more robust system that makes participation and management easier than ever.
The updated Engage @ Harvard Griffin GSAS keeps a familiar name and web address—engage.gsas.harvard.edu—while operating on the CampusGroups platform, which offers a mobile app, advanced event-management tools, personalized content, and features like event templates that will reduce administrative work for student leaders.
For Janet Daniels, director of the Harvard Griffin GSAS Student Center and leader of the transition to the new Engage, the change is about giving students more time to connect and less time to navigate cumbersome systems. “The goal is community,” Daniels said. “I hope this helps students find opportunities more easily and student leaders focus on the good stuff: bringing students together.”
Moving Beyond the Old Platform
When Harvard Griffin GSAS first adopted Engage as an event platform in 2019, it filled an important need, serving as the first online hub where students could discover activities beyond their academic departments and student leaders could organize events and communicate with participants. After several years, the platform’s development slowed, and technical issues became more frequent.
As the Center began considering alternatives, the CampusGroups platform stood out in part because it had continued to develop new features and was already used at Harvard College and Harvard Medical School. After securing a grant and completing a lengthy procurement and accessibility review process with Harvard IT, Harvard Griffin GSAS moved forward with the new system.
PhD student and Hogle Coordinating Fellow Katie Oppenheimer said, “I think the improved site will enable students to find more ways to enrich their grad school experience outside of the lab or classroom. I’m excited to see all the events that are organized by the departments, student groups, and student center fellows this year!” Oppenheimer helped build the group pages for the Student Center Fellow Program Areas and trained the Fellows on how to use the new Engage.
Easier Access to Events and Organizations
For students, visible improvements on the new platform include an updated event calendar and a dedicated app for mobile access. Students can browse events in list or calendar format, filter programming by organizer or event type, and integrate Engage events with their Outlook calendars. University holidays and key academic dates appear alongside events, helping users see the broader campus schedule in one place.
Event check-in has also been upgraded. Students can scan a QR code to check themselves in, while organizers can more easily manage attendance. The app also supports mobile check-in without requiring a laptop or card swiper, and the system can restrict registration and check-in to eligible groups, which may reduce confusion around events with limited capacity.
PhD student and treasurer for the Harvard Griffin GSAS Student Council (GSC) Shubham Choudhary said, “The new Engage is all about customization. Groups can create their own websites, launch forms and surveys for everything from applications to RSVPs, and manage events and memberships—all tailored to the way each group operates. For the Harvard Griffin GSAS community, it’s a game changer: students can showcase and promote their groups within Harvard or even to the world beyond. Plus, with the new mobile app, accessing the platform and checking in at major events has never been easier.”
The new platform is also more customizable—announcements, events, and homepage content can be tailored to particular populations rather than appearing the same for every user. Orientation information, for example, can be shown to incoming students without cluttering the experience for returning students. “We can really tailor the experience,” Daniels said. “It means less confusion about who can go to what, and event access is more streamlined for students and for staff.”
Less Administrative Work, More Community
For student organizations and Center fellows, the new system is intended to make the behind-the-scenes work of running events more intuitive. Leaders can duplicate past events or use templates rather than recreating common event settings from scratch. They can also make minor edits without automatically emailing every registered attendee, a frustrating feature of the previous platform. The new Engage also includes tools for newsletters, messaging, room reservations, and inventory, allowing organizers to bring more tasks into one place.
Last year’s annual student life survey showed that students wanted more cross-departmental programming, casual social events, and opportunities to meet people outside their departments. Daniels hopes the upgraded platform will make those experiences easier to find. “My goal is to make sure every student knows about the new Engage,” she said. “It is the place to go to find extracurricular community-building and cross-departmental opportunities—and a core part of our effort to help students find their Center!”
