This year’s fall activities fair will be held virtually through Engage tomorrow from 4:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. All participating clubs will be streaming on the platform for the duration of the event, allowing students to switch between calls. Once students access the activities fair event on Engage, they will be able to see club descriptions as well as the link to join a club’s Zoom call.
Video by Cole Carden
The fair is hosting a lower number of clubs than in the past, with only 67 clubs participating. Though not all clubs on campus will be represented at the event, students are still able to sign up for the other clubs listed on Engage who may not have attended the fair, according to Activities Fair Coordinator Striesand Galdones.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, student run clubs have been forced to make a transition to online. Despite this, many clubs still plan on holding meetings through virtual platforms.
At past activities fairs, students were drawn in by the smiling faces and loud voices of club members handing out free shirts, snacks, supplies and more. Attention-grabbing flyers and 30-second elevator pitches filled Beauchamp as members advocated for their clubs. With these in person elements missing, activities fair coordinators had to find different ways to draw students in.
“That’s still one of the things that we had a hard time with,” Galdones said. “But we have a giveaway for students that do join.”
Coordinators will keep track of how many students participate in the event, and that group of participants will be entered into a drawing for prizes. Details about the giveaway and the prizes will be posted to the Office of Student Activities Instagram account.
There is not a current expectation of how many students will attend, but there is still hope that there will be a good turnout. The fair is also a good way for freshmen or students who have not previously joined clubs to be able to become more involved in college and find a community to be a part of, according to Galdones.
“I’m just glad if there’s even one student that comes on,” Galdones said. “We could have just opted out and just cancelled it but we wanted to do this.”
Laura Heffernan is a reporter for The Beacon. She can be reached at hefferna23@up.edu.
