By Sean Callahan, News Editor
The fall club fair has been the inciting event used to draw new students into clubs and organizations at Saint Vincent College for decades. That may be changing after the introduction of a new campus event, called Involvement Week. Deanna Wicks, Director of Campus Life, conceived of this idea after speaking with the Council of Club Presidents regarding ways to obtain more campus engagement.
From Jan. 31 to Feb. 3, from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m., various campus clubs and organizations hosted tables in the Carey Center Lounge. There, representatives provided more information about their group to interested students and provided sign-up sheets to join. To boost student engagement, multiple prizes, including tickets to Pittsburgh events, a laptop, and AirPods, were available to students who visited at least one table a day. They would then receive a ticket for a chance to win a prize with a drawing at the end of the week.
Groups could sign up for two to three hour timeslots in the Carey Lounge. A variety of campus organizations signed up, including Activities Programming Board (APB), the Office of Multicultural Student Life (OMSL), the Knights of Columbus, Cheerleading, and more. More than 20 clubs were also active in Involvement Week.
Mason Seftas, sophomore mathematics and data science double major and President of the Bearcat Billiards Club, was excited for the opportunity to participate in Involvement Week. Seftas explained that Bearcat Billiards is a new club this semester, which meant getting word out to the SVC community soon was critical.
“Our goal was to gain recognition for the club as well as increase the number of members we have,” Seftas said. “This was very successful for us. We introduced twenty new members and an additional five after Involvement Week.”
Seftas’ club had a table set up from 4:30 to 7 p.m. on Feb. 1. They presented an activity and had a sign-up sheet for potential members, whose names they would then add to a club GroupMe and email list.
“We had a mini pool table to gain attention from people walking by. We handed out candy to whoever played and stopped to learn more about the club,” he said.
Wicks hopes to maintain Involvement Week as an annual spring tradition to promote future successes such as Seftas’.
“We’ve all been working so hard to build community and involvement across campus,” she said. “I’m hopeful that we can all work together to connect during this tradition in the future.”
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