By James Parziale
When freshman Derrick Ball was asked how many clubs are available to University students, his best estimation was seven. After he found out there are actually 157 to choose from, the 18-year-old shrugged and responded, “There’s really nothing that interests me here, anyway.”
Chris Hernandez, a 20-year-old business major, has never attended an event during common hour in his three years at the University. He feels clubs and organizations on campus do a poor job of selling themselves.
“Putting up a flyer on a bulletin board doesn’t show what you’re about,” he said.
Freshman Josh Casey attended a meeting for Thursday Night Live, a program run by Hofstra Television, and Hofstra Concerts, earlier in the year. Casey, however, felt somewhat ostracized and never ventured back.
“It’s a matter of clubs being cliquish,” he said. “Instead of looking at individuals, focus on student body sentiment and intrigue.”
To combat some of the students’ qualms with clubs and organizations, the Student Government Association (SGA) recently passed a new Spirit Committee, which will oversee promotions for all campus-wide events.
Spirit Committee, which was officially approved by SGA on March 1, will act as a liaison among clubs, administrators, students and the athletic department with intentions of raising attendance and awareness to University sponsored events.
Combating apathetic and uninformed students is the core reason Niema Mansouri, the Spirit Committee’s chairperson, decided to integrate this new wrinkle into SGA.
“I want to show the students how much power SGA has,” Mansouri said.
Raising awareness for clubs is one of the committee’s fundamental principles, in addition to serving as a pipeline for clubs and administrators.
“One of the biggest problems for clubs right now is throwing an event. They don’t know how to do it,” Joe Nolan, director of promotions, said. “When a club has a problem, it needs somewhere to go.”
Clubs now have access to a legitimate voice to get through to administrators.
Mansouri and Nolan’s first endeavor took place on Feb. 26 when they helped organize “Hofstra Hoopla” for the final men’s basketball home game. It was the largest promotional event in SGA’s history, in which over 4,000 flyers were printed. Nearly 550 students attended the game, the second-largest student crowd for the season. Hoopla allowed clubs to compete for cash prizes and Greek organizations to earn chapter points.
“We created a buzz around these things. We’re changing the way people think of Hofstra Athletics,” Nolan said. “Why should SGA do that? To create a sense of community on campus.”
The committee has already shown its dedication to inciting student interest by organizing a trip to the men’s basketball Colonial Athletic Association tournament from March 5 to 6. One bus brought 37 students to Richmond, Va., in support of the Pride basketball team.
Mansouri thought the trip was a success, considering planning began less than a week before the Pride’s first game. His goal is to take four buses worth of students to the tournament next year.
Nolan said the University should be a hot spot for students and a place where students want to spend their time.
“I don’t think this is an apathetic student body. There are events going on that they don’t know about because they are poorly publicized,” he said.
Students around campus agree. “All I see are booths [set up in the student center] and flyers. I don’t really like it,” Casey said.
Though the trip to the CAAs and the Hoopla were the most successful and publicized events for the committee thus far, Mansouri and Nolan hope to make more changes around campus.
They hope to create a Web site for SGA that would be linked to the portal and would list the approximately 30-to-40 weekly on campus events. In addition they want to send out e-mails comprised of four paragraphs of text, include visual graphics and links to specific clubs.
“That could work,” Hernandez said when asked about the potential change. “Maybe students won’t just delete them if they do that.”
Another change Mansouri and Nolan hope to implement is a live electronic ticker to replace the signs in the student center. In an interactive age that produces a short attention span for most students, that type of change could make a difference.
“You have to give students something to care about,” Nolan said.