The Student Life department held the first ever Student Involvement Fair, previously known as Club Palooza, on Wednesday and Thursday last week in the Linkz Pavillion. The Student Involvement Fair brings students together with the clubs and departments of the college.
Carol Brandt from the Student Life department explained why the name was switched, “We wanted students to know of all involvement opportunities by making [the event] larger. In addition to clubs, we will also have athletic teams, intramurals, bucks ambassador opportunities, and financial aid options.”
“We wanted to expose our students to as many opportunities as possible, having just clubs and organizations limits that. There is more that the campus has to offer and Linkz Pavillion is a great, big space to showcase just that,” said Student Life Director Matt Cipriano.
The success of the event with the students at Bucks will determine if the event will continue to be held in a similar manner. Feedback from students to the Student Life department determines this possibility. When asked how feedback is measured, the department said that ‘word of mouth’ is most common, however they will consider utilizing a survey.
The student involvement fair was two days of club booths, tables with local companies, and carnival games that students had to collect stamps from five different clubs to access. The athletics department as well as the career development department were represented and provided information for students.
Cipriano commented on the success of the change in location, “The venue was a much better for our student groups as well as just any department or entity that has some opportunity for a student.”
Cipriano continued, It creates a much different environment, it’s a really great space for this and we had some really positive feedback.”
When asked if the department will continue this method, Cipriano said, “In the spring, we will be enhancing this idea. This was kind of our trial run to see if the layout worked, and now we’re going to implement some some different things to make it better.”
Cipriano also went on to say, “We’ll try to figure out some ways to get students to maybe participate more or have more student groups available. We want to organize it a little bit different. I’m interested in potentially adding another day to it, so doing 3 days instead of 2 days, because the first day it seems like it’s a day of kind of getting it together, working on the kinks. Then, you have 2 days of solid recruiting. Iʼd also like to add other activities to keep students coming.”
Zach Zdepski, a computer networking technology major, also commented on the change in location, saying, “It was pretty busy,. it is a pretty high traffic area so it seems like a lot of people were coming through and checking out the various clubs.”
When asked if the fair succeeded at promoting clubs, Zdepski said, “I know it can be hard to find some of the some of the information [about clubs] under normal circumstances, the website doesn’t really provide much and some clubs forget to put up posters.”
Zdepski said he would definitely be interested in seeing what improvements come next spring.
When asked about improvements, President of the gaming club, Rick Ramirez, said, “A little bit of space between the tables, because getting in and out of those tables was a bit of a pain for their club members. Other than that, it was working just fine.”
Brian Deley, president of student government association, also said improvement with tables was needed, “There were a few too many tables on the one side. There was a good amount of space, but there was bit too many tables”
However, overall Deley thought, “It was a wonderful chance for students to come out. We saw so many different clubs and organizations for the students… a lot of people had a lot of fun there and got involved.”