George Davis, Lion’s Eye Staff Writer, gad5190@psu.edu
Students at Penn State Brandywine lined up to consider joining any one or many of the featured clubs at the Involvement Fair on August 31 during common hour. Brandywine offers a wide variety of clubs that appeal to the many interests of students.
Teachers and staff encourage students to join different clubs to enrich their time here on campus. Students are able to expand on their interests, meet new friends, and have a great time.
Just a few of the interests represented in this semester’s Involvement Fair were: sports, politics, environment, writing, music, languages, cultures and technology. After students signed up for some desired clubs, they were treated to a meal that gave them the strength to sign up for more clubs.
Leaders of the Brandywine Events and Activities Service Team (B.E.A.S.T), Alan Norrigan and Tammy Katz, had much to say about their club. “Our club is about having students be able pick from a wide variety of activities at Penn State Brandywine,” said Norrigan. They both hope to have many new students join in extracurricular activities this year.
Campus freshman here were interested and excited to see the variety of clubs they had the opportunity to join. Freshman, Alex Bradley, said, “I have an interest in different types of technologies so I decided to join the Information Sciences Technology club (IST).”
One of the most popular clubs here at Penn State Brandywine and across all Penn State campuses is THON. THON is a 46 hour dance Marathon at University Park. Before the dance marathon however, students team-up to raise money for families who are fighting pediatric cancer. Students organize numerous fundraising efforts including “canning” and canvassing to raise money “for the kids.” Dancers are then selected from each campus to participate in the weekend-long dance marathon.
Five Brandywine students were running the THON table, each of them very knowledgeable about the whole project: Samantha Glancey, Allyson Pyle, Derrick Osborn, Kevin Cardella and Alexis Protor were each very excited to let the whole campus know what THON is all about. They encouraged students to sign up and to help raise money for a great cause.
Gary Miller, associate director of student affairs, joined Penn State Brandywine on July 31. “I want students to get motivated to go out and meet new people, mingle and join new clubs, to get involved and enjoy their time here at Penn State,” said Miller.
Overall, with so many clubs to choose from, students will definitely be able to find something that interests them and that will give them something to do when they are not studying for classes. Joining different clubs helps students make friends and memories that will last a lifetime.