{"id":43061,"date":"2025-11-10T10:56:07","date_gmt":"2025-11-10T10:56:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/43061\/"},"modified":"2025-11-10T10:56:07","modified_gmt":"2025-11-10T10:56:07","slug":"commuter-appreciation-week-builds-community-on-campus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/43061\/","title":{"rendered":"Commuter Appreciation Week builds community on campus"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t<img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-260233\" data-attachment-id=\"260233\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/thedailycougar.com\/2025\/11\/09\/commuter-appreciation-week-builds-community-on-campus\/news-commuter_appreciation_week-_lily_huynh\/\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/thedailycougar.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/News-Commuter_Appreciation_Week-_Lily_Huynh.png?fit=1620%2C1080&amp;ssl=1\" data-orig-size=\"1620,1080\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-meta=\"{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;0&quot;}\" data-image-title=\"News-Commuter_Appreciation_Week-_Lily_Huynh\" data-image-description=\"&lt;p&gt;Lily Huynh\/The Cougar&lt;\/p&gt;&#10;\" data-image-caption=\"&lt;p&gt;Commuter, Car, driving, UH, license plate&lt;\/p&gt;&#10;\" data-medium-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/thedailycougar.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/News-Commuter_Appreciation_Week-_Lily_Huynh.png?fit=300%2C200&amp;ssl=1\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/thedailycougar.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/News-Commuter_Appreciation_Week-_Lily_Huynh.png?fit=620%2C413&amp;ssl=1\" class=\"wp-image-260233 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/News-Commuter_Appreciation_Week-_Lily_Huynh.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"810\" height=\"540\"  \/><\/p>\n<p id=\"caption-attachment-260233\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Lily Hyunh\/The Cougar<\/p>\n<p>Commuter students say they feel more connected to the campus community following a series of events organized during Commuter Appreciation Week.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt was so refreshing meeting people who also commute,\u201d said chemical engineering sophomore Alyssa Vega, \u201cI got to branch out of my comfort zone and befriend other commuters.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.uh.edu\/dos\/commuter\/index.php\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Commuter Student Services<\/a> hosted six events ranging from relaxing daytime pop-ups to nighttime festivities.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Students enjoyed donuts and coffee before morning classes, a pumpkin-painting pop-up at the Student Center Plaza and a commuter game night at the Student Center South Game Room.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFor the event, I made sure to have both video games and table games like pool and ping pong,\u201d said commuter ambassador and marketing and finance senior Sebastian Castro Duarte.<\/p>\n<p>The week also featured a movie night screening the slasher horror film \u201cScream,\u201d followed by a Halloween costume contest and a Coogs Quest tabling activity and a golf cart circulating campus to distribute goodie bags.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The celebrations ended with a commuter tailgate outside TDECU Stadium, where the first 500 fans received free food ahead of the Houston Cougars vs. West Virginia Mountaineers football game.<\/p>\n<p>Planning these events was a collaborative effort, with each commuter ambassador submitting one event idea for the week.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI am a creative person who\u2019s attended many crafting workshops,\u201d said commuter ambassador and psychology junior Leilany Garza. \u201cThis semester, I suggested we do pumpkin painting.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Students said the week gave them meaningful opportunities to meet peers and feel valued as part of the campus community.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMost standard campus events are either too late for me to attend, or on days that I\u2019m not at school,\u201d said psychology freshman Naila Alam. \u201cI\u2019m happy that I can participate in fun, flexible activities that I usually wouldn\u2019t be present at.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The CSS is committed to fostering a safe and inclusive environment for commuting students.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt doesn\u2019t matter if the student commutes from 15 minutes away or an hour away; they deserve to be celebrated,\u201d Duarte said.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>news@thedailycougar.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lily Hyunh\/The Cougar Commuter students say they feel more connected to the campus community following a series of&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":43062,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[25583,25584,56,58,57],"class_list":{"0":"post-43061","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-houston","8":"tag-commuter-appreciation-week","9":"tag-commuters","10":"tag-houston","11":"tag-houston-headlines","12":"tag-houston-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43061","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43061"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43061\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43062"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43061"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43061"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43061"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}