In an effort to expand its accessibility and inclusion efforts, Dance Marathon has created a community engagement committee as they plan for next year’s event.

Weinberg junior Kevin Harris and Medill junior Arielle Miller, DM’s new executive co-chairs, presented a series of changes to the organization’s executive board at an informational session Wednesday night.

Harris told The Daily the changes were aimed at growing the organization’s community outreach and fundraising, as well as making DM more efficient.

The community engagement committee, which will be led by two co-chairs, will be responsible for connecting with student groups, facilitating community discussions and brainstorming new ways to connect more Northwestern students to DM, Harris said. The committee will also serve as the liaison to the Evanston Community Foundation, the secondary beneficiary.

The marketing committee has also been disbanded and its responsibilities have been divided up between marketing and media — formerly the public relations committee — and the technology and analytics committee. The dancer relations committee has been renamed to dancer and beneficiary relations to better represent its responsibilities for connecting the NU community with the primary beneficiary.

DM has also created a new committee called alumni and university relations to focus on growing its relationships with alumni, faculty and staff. This committee will also be responsible during the 30-hour event for security, which the public relations committee handled in the past.

Harris said the organization will still comprise 10 committees.

“We’re excited to not necessarily just kind of continue to do the same thing over and over every year,” Harris said. “(We are) always looking to make it better.”

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