In the mid-afternoon of Aug. 25, students milling around College Green will begin to hear a rumble of sound coming up Richland Avenue. The brassy cries of trumpets and pounding of drums will reveal the sound to be that of the Ohio University Marching 110 leading a new class of students from the Convocation Center to College Green where the Involvement Fair will await them.
The Involvement Fair is overseen by Joshua Knotts, the assistant director for programming at the Campus Involvement Center, who is entering his second year in the position.
“We work with Auxiliary Services to get 300 tables put out on College Green, as many as they let us put out there,” Knotts said. “We use BobcatConnect as a registration form and let any of our student organizations sign up for the fair.”
According to the university website, BobcatConnect is “a directory of all of the nearly 600 student organizations on all Ohio University campuses.” While that catalog of clubs can be a useful tool throughout the year, Knotts said seeing the mass of people navigating through a maze of posters and recruiters buzzing with excitement about getting their clubs up and running for the year captures the reality of college life.
“It is a lot of fun to see students interacting for the first time,” Knotts said. “You only get to experience the Involvement Fair once for the first time, so to just see an 18 year old and it clicks in their mind that this is what college is all about … is fun to watch from an outsider’s perspective.”
One of the many organizations that will be represented at the Involvement Fair is the Anime Club, headed up by Kaden Papadatos, a senior studying computer science. The club hosts weekly showings of different anime series, as well as an active Discord server and occasional events outside of the weekly club meetings. Papadatos took on his role as president of the club after being inspired by a former holder of that position.
“(The former president) went on to explain the real reason he enjoyed being the president of the club was the fact that it was a great opportunity for people … who didn’t have anything to do on weekends to have a fun place to go, maybe if they were lacking a place to belong or friends,” Papadatos said.
This sense of belonging is something each club at the Involvement Fair strives to create for its members, and the students running the tables have nothing but interest in helping the incoming freshmen find a club where they belong.
“It’s very intimidating but everybody there … just wants to be friends with you, and they just want to welcome you to OU for the first time and everybody there just wants to talk to you about why they love their organization,” said Knotts.
Papadatos’ plans for the Involvement Fair are to display a poster with some general information and a loose schedule of the club's weekly meetings. In addition to the initial recruitment process at the fair, Papadatos stresses the importance of maintaining interesting activities throughout the year and advertising the club through sidewalk chalk or hanging posters around campus.
Another club with recruitment plans lined up for the whole semester is Alden Book Club, a group run by Bayleigh Lower, a junior studying English literature and history.
“You can come to the meeting even if you haven’t read the book,” Lower said. “We always do trivia on our book of the month and the winner of the trivia gets a little gift card to a local coffee shop, and then we just get together for discussions about the book and it’s just a really good time.”
Lower plans to make an eye-catching poster and offer candy and bookmarks at the fair, as well as utilize the creative skills of other executive board members to advertise the club on social media throughout the year.
“My favorite part of the fair is just getting to meet everybody and seeing what other interests people have on campus … I’m always excited to see new faces, and my advice would be to be open to trying new things, definitely sign up for at least one interest-based thing that doesn’t have anything to do with your major,” Lower said.
Knotts believes incoming students are intimidated by the Involvement Fair because of the pressure to commit to a club right on the spot. However, attending the fair and expressing interest in a club requires no official commitment.
“I think people get confused about the signup sheets,” he said. “They think that writing their name and email down means they’ve joined the organization and that’s not true. It just means you’re interested in joining that organization.”
The Involvement Fair can be daunting for everyone involved, but it is one of the most important events to welcome new students to OU and help them find a small slice of home within the massive campus.
“It’s a little nerve-wracking, it’s a lot socially at first, but you just see how many people are receptive to it and how many people are excited to potentially delve into this common interest,” said Papadatos.
