Harrison George

Last Wednesday was the Huge Activities Fair, a collection of campus organizations recruiting for members and advertising upcoming events. Spread throughout the sidewalks on campus, excited students learned about new clubs and opportunities and how to become engaged in their campus and community. As I walked along the crowds, I couldn’t help but think: “Why can’t it be like this everyday?”

It seems that the start of every semester is full of feelings of optimism and cooperation between the groups on campus.

But after the first few weeks the clubs turn all their attentions inward and tend to stop trying to gain campus-wide attention. Communication breaks down between groups, and co-sponsorship is infrequent. If one group wants to plan an event, they have to hope it does not interfere with another group’s activity on same day. And for those students interested in joining a club after the first month of school, I wish you the best of luck.

Finding out when certain clubs meet can take the detective skills of Sherlock Homes. Overall, it seems there is a vacuum of information regarding activities and events on campus. It is not any one person or group’s fault: this is a problem with infrastructure. The school does not have a decent network of communication in place to properly disperse new information to potential new members and other clubs.

Just look at the adverting options currently in place. How often do you read the fliers put out on the bulletin boards every week? Sometimes I feel that they have just become white noise in the background of campus life.

What about the tables in the union? When a club is there handing out leaflets to their next event, do you stop? Or avoid eye contact and speed walk through? I feel that these techniques are not the most effective ways to spread information throughout the campus.

Perhaps a calendar could be displayed containing all RSOs events for each month. Or, we could create a sort of “Club Council” that is comprised of representatives from various active groups on campus. They could meet to exchange updates about what their club is working on as far as upcoming events or activities. They could also brainstorm new idea in recruitment or fundraising. Some of the smaller or newer groups on campus could learn a lot from the larger clubs like UAC.

One thing that definitely needs more attention is the school’s Web site. The group pages, designed to serve as a directory of contact information, is woefully out of date. On many occasions I have seen the Web site list contacts that had graduated over two years ago.

I remember as a freshman the frustration I encountered trying to track down active members of the Environmental Club, only to find they had all graduated or left, and the club had disbanded.  I am not sure who is in charge of keeping this information up to date, either the CSI office or ASG, but this is one task that should not be left on the backburner.

By building stronger relationships between the campus groups, we will be promoting interest and involvement in what is going on around us.

Send article as PDF to