Originally Published in the Sept. 20, 2023 issue of The Denisonian

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Patrick Fina is a jack of all trades. 

Officially speaking, his job title is Associate Director of the Alford Community Leadership & Involvement Center (CLIC). But that role has a lot more to it than it seems.

Fina, 33, is in charge of working with campus organizations, facilitating traditions, organizing events, managing the Slayter Student Union building, working on the tech side of the WhatToDU and EMS (Event Management Software), supervising faculty and student staff members, and overseeing the Bandersnatch. He’s often wearing many hats at once, but he likes it that way.

“I would be incredibly bored if I was just focusing on one thing,” Fina said with a laugh. 

“He’s a resource that’s available any time,” said Julia Assis-Azevedo, 19, a junior PPA major from São Paulo, Brazil. “I’m the programming manager at the Bandersnatch, which means that I organize and oversee all the events that happen there. We can reach out to Fina anytime with any emergency we might have. Once, during my freshman year, he even helped us prepare the bagels because we didn’t have enough staff and the house was busy.”

His job has changed a lot since Fina came on board a little over two years ago, and bagel-making was definitely a surprise addition. The first campus organization list that he got came from his supervisor who had just started her position six months before him. It had been assembled by her direct messaging accounts on Instagram that looked like they might be Denison student orgs and asking who their presidents were. Everything else was done via a one-off email.

“Room reservation? One-off email. Work order? One-off email. Reserving a vehicle? One-off email. Propane tank needs to be refilled? One-off email.” said Fina.

But that all changed with the introduction of WhatToDU, an app that manages all campus organizations and events. Fina might as well have a college degree on it. He could definitely teach a class on it.  

“I do WhatToDU work in addition to my other activities,” said Sophomore Ben Wedepohl, 19, a Data Analytics Major from Detroit, Michigan who has worked for CLIC for a year. “Patrick and I have had a fair amount of interactions involving the app. He is a very busy man, but we did some work on QR codes and backend WhatToDU work which was a good experience.”

As an undergraduate student at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, Fina didn’t expect to end up in central Ohio working in student affairs. He was an environmental management and protection major with a religion minor.
“Your third year, the faculty start to be really honest with you,” Fina said. “And they tell you point blank, ‘Yeah it’s really cute that you’re into sustainability and saving the earth and all that, but spoiler alert! There’s nothing you can do. It is not about individual consumer behavior. This is actually a global problem. The only jobs available to you are to be forest rangers in remote locations or to sell out and go work for a developer and help them write mitigation documents to help them build whatever they want, wherever they want!’”

But he was in too deep at this point and couldn’t change his major. Begrudgingly, and by the skin of his teeth, Fina graduated in four years right into the middle of the economic downturn of 2008. 

After graduation, he worked for AmeriCorps, who, amusingly, sent him right back to Cal Poly SLO to develop a sustainable volunteer program for the LGBTQ+ initiatives that the university wanted to implement. Halfway through, the program informed him that the position would be converted to full-time, and that the salary would be tripled, but that he wasn’t allowed to apply because he didn’t have a master’s degree.

“I’m an Aries, what can I say? We love a good fight. I said ‘Oh, I don’t have a master’s degree? Then watch me get one.’”

Fina ended up at Loyola University in Chicago for graduate school, and after completing his master’s, got his first full-time position at the Illinois Institute of Technology. That’s when he fell in love with working with student government and large-scale traditions and programs. When his partner wanted to move to Columbus, he was at first reluctant, because “there’s no way a place will have all the things in my dream job description.” Sure enough, Denison was hiring, and the job descriptions matched.

Now, going into his third year on the hill, Fina has made a home for himself in his office on the third floor of Slayter. The walls are decorated with posters from his different points in life. Old Denison event flyers, advertisements for Chicago, and an American Football tapestry (the band, not the sport) hang over his desk. 

Music is something that’s a constant in Fina’s life. He’s played the saxophone since he was eight years old– there’s one tattooed on his forearm. A friend of his in Chicago is a singer-songwriter, and over the summer, the two collaborated on an album. His vinyl collection has been built up for years, including “anything played at Pitchfork 2003 – 2013”. He goes to tons of live shows in Columbus, sometimes even running into Denison students. Despite what many Denison students might lead you to believe, he is not the sole decision-maker as to which artists come to campus for D-Day or Doobiepalooza.

“Usually, we have a list, and sometimes I say, ‘I think we should take a second look at that person.’ And every time I’ve done that, I’ve been right. We could’ve afforded Phoebe Bridgers, or Doja Cat, or 100 Gecs, or Janelle Monae.”

Ultimately, his job is to solve the problems the students bring to him. A lot of times, that means saying no. But they take no joy in asking a slew of questions for each event and approving or declining student requests.  “People in roles like mine, we understand that we work in a position that is sometimes going to have to say no,” said Fina. “But we only do it because we want to set you up to get more yeses.” 

And the yeses are the most fun part. Fina loves hearing students’ weird ideas. The Anime club came to him with the idea to marathon the entirety of One Piece, a feat lasting 18.5 days straight. His solution? Instead of a club event, think of it more as an art installation with the intent to garner interest in the club. 

The only two ideas he hasn’t found a workaround for have been a group who wanted to walk barefoot across hot coals and a student who wanted to start the Denison Skydiving Club.

But Fina can’t hold too much resentment over the students who create outrageous proposals for campus events just to give CLIC a hard time. Fina was that student in college.

His first job on campus was as a student journalist working for The Inkwell at Armstrong Atlantic State University (the school Fina attended before Cal Poly, which is no longer a university.) He published some critical articles about the student government. To retaliate, the student government slashed the paper’s budget. Their advisor got pro-bono representation to file a suit against the university, which restored the paper’s budget under the First Amendment protections. 

“Oh, I would’ve hated Patrick Fina,” he said. “I was the number one problem that the people who worked in this office would’ve had to deal with.”

That kid who caused his school a lawsuit has turned into the backbone of Denison’s campus organizations. Fina is a Swiss Army knife who’s there to help with whatever issues come up for your club. He’s the guy who juggles a dozen different things and makes you laugh while he’s doing it. But it’s not just about work for Fina – it’s about music, problem-solving, and saying “yes” to those wild student ideas. From marathoning anime to pondering the possibility of a skydiving club, Fina’s journey in higher ed is all about embracing the unexpected and having a blast along the way.