Student Perspective: The Waning Involvement of Clubs
Written by Khang Dang
When was the last time you heard about clubs at USJ? I can tell you I hear about them once in a blue moon. Our university has a myriad of clubs, especially ranging in different focal points from the sciences like SNA (Student Nursing Association) and Tribeta to cultural clubs like Hispanic Student Union, Black Student Union, and Asian Student Union. On top of it all, we even have programs that advocate for mental health such as SOAR (Student Outreach, Advocacy & Resources). We seem to be abundant in them since we have more than ten listed on the school website.
So, even with this supply of different extracurriculars, what’s happened to our clubs? USJ has been hit with a lack of activity for some time, especially when it has come to events associated with clubs. Why has there been a lack of advertisement and, especially, a lack of engagement when it comes to extracurriculars?
To best find out, I sent out a survey to students ranging from Sophomores to Seniors to assess how engagement has been compared to their first year here in contrast to their current. Eleven students responded and the results had been sporadically different. Keep in mind, half of the participants were those that I knew. However, the other half are people that they had circulated the survey to. 73% of the participants claimed that they heard that the advertisement of clubs has been quite rare, while 9% explain how there is activity but a lesser amount. 18% claim that engagement has still been active. To fully evaluate why club involvement has been so dormant, I decided to directly ask these students how busy they are, and what causes this dormancy of club activity. Most found they were riddled with everyday life, others found that athletics and schoolwork can disrupt their desire or need to join these clubs as well.
From a scale from 1-10, a majority of the students who had answered had described that their activities outside of school, especially athletics and job occupation, had been at an 8. Meaning that sometimes life does get in the way of clubs and extracurriculars, which is quite valid when it comes to after class activities. But, when asking these students for their take on engagement with clubs, a majority of students had described that there was a lack of engagement. It is minimal, and there is a lack of consistency especially for those who had signed up for these clubs to begin with. This could be caused by the fact that club members are often busy with their own lives as described previously, but, even then, many students have described that there is a lack of activity overall. In response, they gave a few suggestions that could really help with the lack of engagement on campus. These issues are further elaborated on in this article about SGA from last semester, “What Will Change After Student Government Elections” by Crista Fiala (found right here).
Out of my own experience, I find that clubs have been all too slow. I cannot really tell when clubs have their big events unless they are weeks ahead, but from my experience, I know that sometimes clubs plan very quickly. There will be a notification only a day before or days before an event is planned to happen, or events are set to times where people cannot really attend. They are not always scheduled at times that are most convenient for those they would be advertising their events to. But, this issue has been present all year-round, so I wonder what we could do to even remedy this tough spot we’ve found ourselves in?
Incentives, sending emails to help boost consistency, more advertisement through social media and email rather than just flyers, residential events (movie viewings), open forums, visitation in classes from class representatives, and even collaboration between clubs. There are so many solutions and different possibilities that can be taken so that people can really explore what college life has to offer. It is just up to you whether you decide to do something about it.
