This past weekend Stevens held its annual Accepted Student’s Days back to back. I’m sure it was fun and informative for the accepted students, which is the point so it is good to know it achieved its purpose. While the event was great for prospective students, anyone involved with an RSO was ham-fisted into a sham of a club fair. In the beginning of the fall semester there is an annual club fair where every RSO sets up a table and tells new freshman about their organization and hopefully generates some interest from them and get them on a mailing list, or at the very least promote awareness for their club amongst the new students. It’s a good event, it has a clear purpose of getting freshman interested and involved in the clubs on campus. This past weekend had no purpose other than to prove to these families that clubs exist.
Each club was required to run a table for two hours, and if they did not hold a table they would be unable to have one at the club fair. It makes sense that the organizers of this event would make it mandatory, because otherwise most of the RSO leaders would not have bothered to show up and wave at disgruntled parents. Everything that was told to the families could have easily been handed out in a pamphlet with each club’s name and what they do, saving everyone an entire weekend of wasted time. The event was also run rather poorly, as the people in charge seemed to be nothing but condescending and dismissive. Several club had their organization’s name printed incorrectly on Saturday, which is not a huge deal, but to keep the misprint for Sunday, a fix which would take all of five minutes, shows how uninterested these planners were.
The event ran for two hours both days, plus an hour of set-up totaling three hours a day. At the club fair in the fall you are more than welcome to bring a chair and sit at your RSO’s table. At accepted student’s weekend, you were required to stand for the full three hours. Believe me; I know that standing for three hours is nowhere near the worst thing in the world. But the issue I have with this is that when someone decided to pull up a chair they were met with an aggressive and condescending reprimand by some guy with a clipboard who seemed way too excited with the power given to him by an accepted student’s day RSO tent.
The event was probably great for the incoming students, but for the RSO leaders this event was an absolute sham and something I know I will be dreading for the years to come if it continues to be run as poorly and shoddily as it was this year.
