McKenna Howenstine|Marlin Chronicle
The Student Involvement Fair occurred outside The Cove on Friday, Sept. 6. Tables were lined up with student leaders eager to share information about their clubs and organizations. The options were endless, from getting involved in volunteering, saving the environment or wanting to be a leader to baking, dancing and even gaming with the Esports team.
Students have the opportunity to share personal interests by creating clubs with their peers. Senior Katie Baker took advantage of this by agreeing to help graduate student Rowan Stuart with the creation of the Fishing Club in 2021. The club started off with low member numbers so Stuart handed it off to Baker, leading to the club officially taking off in Fall of 2022.
“We started about a year and a half, two years ago. There wasn’t really a fishing club on campus, and it’s something I missed a lot from home,” Baker said. “We can meet up outside of school to go fishing together, and it just creates sort of a sense of community.”
A partner of the Fishing Club, Marlins Go Green, was a hit during the involvement fair. Prospective members were crowding around the table admiring the club’s homemade, fabric MGG patches as well as listening to the involvement activities offered throughout the semester, oyster gardening in particular.
“They are all about sustainability, so we partner with them to promote sustainable fishing practices because a lot of people don’t think about how important fishing regulations are,” Baker said.
Senior Corinne DeLawrence, a member of Tri Sigma, describes the importance of considering a balance between a social and academic life when choosing a club or activity. She gave her advice to incoming freshmen worried about how to manage their time when joining a sorority, as well as described how Tri Sigma was very accommodating from her personal experience.
“I’m on the track team, I work, I’m in a sorority and I used to be an RA,” DeLawrence said. “But we have time for things like studying. If you can’t make it to an event just let us know prior to.”
DeLawrence also emphasized how joining this association has a positive impact on job opportunities. Through knowing an older member of Tri Sigma, DeLawrence herself was able to find an internship.
“I have an internship that I didn’t think I was going to be able to find this spring because one of my sisters, an alumni from here, reached out to me,” DeLawrence said.
Having the ability to boost a career through an extracurricular is a bonus, a few tables were set up to inform students of this. Some job options available could be joining the Wesleyan Ambassadors who get to be the face of the school by giving tours to potential students, or another option would be getting a tutoring position through the Learning Center.
If a student is looking for something more fun and relaxing, other groups to join are the Half Baked Club, Poetry Club or the Marlin Gems Dance Team, where students can express themselves outside of their studies.
Nyah Rivera is a senior and co-captain of the Marlin Gems Dance Team. She said her team is important to campus because “Dance is a really useful tool for people to express themselves, especially when they’re concentrating on schoolwork. I think having a dance team and having a place where people can go to just kind of be themselves is really important,” Rivera said.
The team organizes a few events like an annual showcase typically held in the spring, with plans to host one in the month of December this year. Additionally, they have planned a “Marlins Got Talent” showcase where both the dance team and students can perform. They are excited about this because it can create a better sense of involvement and community.
Other clubs that focus on the involvement of campus are the Latino Student Alliance, Black Student Union and Spectrum. Through these, students are supporting students and encouraging each other to have a voice by advocating for themselves. This is also relevant to the Students Against Continued Homelessness club, who educate those who aren’t aware of the impact of homelessness and emphasize the issue to raise support for those who are homeless. Additionally, Campus Ministries where students can go to have deep discussions, attend spiritual retreats or volunteer, caught the eye of many students.
Each student has their own sense of individuality and the clubs and organizations of Virginia Wesleyan allow them an outlet to explore new interests, and provide a variety of ways for them to find new ones.
By: Kami Whisenhunt
