Students Engage with Clubs, Organizations at SUNY Plattsburgh Involvement Fair
Hundreds of SUNY Plattsburgh students, faculty and staff wandered the Amite Plaza Friday, taking in the late summer sun and learning about more than six dozen clubs, organizations and agencies represented there during the Student Engagement and Leadership Involvement Fair.
Held in partnership with the Student Association and College Auxiliary Services, the fair gave the SUNY Plattsburgh community a glimpse at clubs and activities to get involved in, from Accounting and Finance Club to YoungLife College.
Sarah Mccarty, director of student activities, said some 80 groups representing clubs
and organizations, recreational sports, fraternity and sorority life, and campus offices
answered questions, handed out free merch and signed students up.
Meanwhile, inside the Angell College Center, CAS staff answered questions about Cardinal Cash and introduced students to several area merchants that accept that form of payment, including Pizza Palace, The Bowl Adirondack Poke, and Nelson’s Flowers.
Walking Tacos
Outside, CAS handed out free walking tacos to the first 350 people. Paige Meredith, a junior business administration major from Albany and Student Association coordinator of clubs and organizations, went around the plaza, meeting with groups, making sure participants were set and answered and questions that arose.
“I think it went really well,” Meredith said. “There was a lot of involvement, which is exactly what the SA was hoping for — getting more student involvement.”
Noumouke Kaba, a senior political science major from Plattsburgh and originally from
Guinea, Africa, is social chair for BridgeUSA, a college youth movement aimed at creating
space for constructive dialogue and disagreement to improve the quality of politics.
He said he was encouraged by the number of students who stopped by his table to find
out what it’s about.
“Students have been coming up, asking questions,” he said. “We’re giving students the opportunity to express themselves and make themselves heard. It helps to have a voice, to know that that voice is heard, and to be able to hear somebody else’s voice as well. I love when students are informed by other students.”
Meet New People
Jade Rosario, a junior in accounting and business administration from New York City is treasurer of Fuerza — the Black, Indigenous, People of Color Student Union — and vice president of the Newman Association, an interfaith student organization.
“I feel the Involvement Fair is a good opportunity for students to connect with people
from different backgrounds,” she said. The fair gives students the chance “to get
to know things about others they may not have had an interest in. You can connect
with and meet new people and re-connect with people you haven’t seen since last year.”
Jaydn Metcalfe, a junior psychology major from Plattsburgh, is one of them.
“I haven’t seen Jaydn in a year,” Rosario said.
Metcalfe said he liked how the fair “is a great way for getting people to see what SUNY Plattsburgh has for them to do on campus. You meet new people here and reconnect with old friends.”
For more information on clubs and organizations on campus, visit https://campusgroups.plattsburgh.edu/club_signup?group_type=25437&category_tags= or contact Mccarty at [email protected] or call 518-564-4828.
— Story, Photos by Associate Director of Communications Gerianne Downs
