Student Senate looking to host a spring Student Activities Fair

Photo description:  Students visit one of the booths during the fall semester Student Activities Fair

Photo credit: Sower Staff

Nora Betts

Sower Staff

The Student Senate is working with the Student Life Office to coordinate a second Student Activities Fair for the spring semester, Senate officers said at Tuesday’s meeting.

The spring Activities Fair will be set up differently than the fall event, spanning a week of the school year and featuring only official campus clubs.

SLO has traditionally hosted one Student Activities Fair at the beginning of each academic year to inform students of campus clubs plus local businesses, churches, and mission and service opportunities. The event is held during the second week of the fall semester in the Cattle Conference Room as a one-stop opportunity for students to learn how they can get involved.

Senate Secretary Emma VanTol said the spring fair will reach out to new and transfer students coming to Concordia for the second semester, as well as current students whose schedules change between semesters.

She said the Senate and SLO talked about having club booths set up either in the Janzow Campus Center, the dining hall or throughout buildings on campus.

Since it will span an entire school week no matter where the fair is located, the club booths will rotate throughout the week.

Senate representative Josh Burmeister said that having all club booths in one place would make more sense than spreading them out across campus.

Burmeister said that putting booths in specific buildings, such as the Business Club in the Dunklau Center for Science, Math and Business, would be “preaching to the choir.” He also said it would limit interactions and sign-ups for non-major-specific clubs.

Senate representative Quinlan Hendrickson said that students are more likely to engage with a booth if there are multiple in an area. He said he would rather have many booths in one place where people regularly go, like the Janzow Campus Center.

“It’s a lot less likely that somebody who’s passing by will actually stop and talk if there’s just one or two booths,” said Hendrickson, “whereas if it’s a whole thing, people seem to be a lot more willing to actually go and engage if it’s in an open area.”

Senate representative Brianna van Bibber said that based on her involvement in the Student Activities Council, the less effort for students, the better.

“The more effort they have to put into going to an event, the more likely they’re not going to attend, because SAC has struggled with that a lot over the past few years,” said van Bibber.

VanTol said that plans for the spring Activities Fair are “in the very developmental phase.” She said she will bring the feedback to SLO and report back to the Senate.