As a result of the pandemic, student organizations have had to transition to online meetings. The transition has affected different clubs in different ways, based on their ability to acclimate to this transition.
Many clubs have successfully made the transition to online meetings. The Stute has continued to hold meetings, elections, and publish articles entirely online despite a large part of normal operations being the production of the physical paper. Off Center also continues to produce comedic content, such as their “Zoom University” Instagram post. While membership fluctuates for each organization and many clubs have seen an overall decrease in the number of participants, some clubs have reported an uptick in commuter student participation.
The Student Government Association (SGA) has also transferred to online meetings with relative success. According to the President of the SGA, Samantha Molla, “We had to have an emergency meeting before spring break because according to our bylaws, senators need to be physically present in order to count for quorum and we needed to have meetings on campus. The purpose of this meeting was to change that bylaw so that we are able to have off-campus meetings (virtual meetings) and have senators count for quorum.”
Molla hopes that the transition will have some benefits as well, saying, “I think that our meetings will be just as productive as they are in person, if not more productive. I trust Dylan as our speaker to manage who is speaking well, as well as the cabinet, senate, and parliamentarian, Kevin, to have our meetings run just as they always have. I think it’s interesting [to] have virtual SGA meetings because it makes it significantly easier for students to attend our meetings, so I’m excited to see if people outside of the SGA will become more involved and participate in our discussions.”
However, other organizations have had a more difficult transition. Clubs that are unable to continue normal operations have been engaging in different activities during their General Body Meetings in order to maintain contact with their members. In these cases, adaptation to the virtual environment calls for these clubs to change how they operate, whether it’s by playing online games, such as Jackbox, or watching movies together.
In either case, student organizations are adapting as quickly as possible to the new virtual environment, whether this means a simple transfer of normal operations to online meetings, or a change in operations to reflect the effects of the pandemic.
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