Club leaders of PRSSA, Lotus Magazine, Business Analytics and Data Society enjoy the club fair.
MARY HALEY / THE QUADRANGLE
Mary Haley, Marketing Chair/Asst. Features Editor
With a new fall semester comes the annual club fair on Manhattan University’s quad. Every year, it is a chance for student clubs on campus to welcome new members in, and for new students to explore organizations and opportunities – from learning how to hook yarn with crochet club to becoming a novice on the crew team.
Director of Student Engagement Nicole Brosnan ‘23 ‘24, has overseen the event for the past two years. She credited students for carrying much of the workload.
“While my name is attached, the students do the hard work,” Brosnan said. “We have to give a big shout-out to our events team who set up all the tables on the quad, but it’s the students and the club leaders who decorate their tables and really bring everything to life.”
Behind the scenes, the Office of Student Engagement organizes club training sessions, processes registration forms and manages printing for the clubs. This year, staff also focused on tracking first-year and transfer student attendance.
Brosnan, who was involved in Sigma Delta Tau, Gaelic Society, Women in Business and more, reflected on her experience at the club fair as a student and now as an administrator.
“As a student, especially when you are a club leader, it’s so exciting to be the sales woman and put yourself out there,” Brosnan said. “As an administrator, it’s really exciting to see the quad full of life and the energy that the students have. We’re a small campus, and it’s great getting to see everybody in one place and so passionate.”
Among the students exploring campus activities were two international students, Michaela Rodriguez from Argentina and Anna Alaniz from Mexico. Both are majoring in communication, while spending a semester abroad in the United States.
Rodriguez and Alaniz joined the arts club and the international club after attending the fair, and both expressed interest in trying out for the cheerleading team.
“I came here to experience the campus and all the activities the university provides,” Rodriguez said.
Among the fair was math club, a campus organization aimed at making math more approachable by incorporating it into activities like board games and movies. They even have field trips in the works. Aidan Kelly, a philosophy and mathematics double-major, is serving his first term on the board of math club.
“After the leaders last year graduated, we were just trying to get some new membership and get the word out,” Kelly said. “We can have some cool people come in, and meet other cool people.”
Heidi Calderon-Nava, secretary of Fuerza Latina, MU’s Hispanic heritage club, explained to The Quadrangle how they planned their club fair presentation differently this year. A newly designed poster, created by the club’s event coordinator featured a range of Latin flags, while a new table setup drew more attention from students. Both of these features helped the group stand out and spark curiosity from all students, which reflected the club’s philosophy going into the new academic year.
“We wanted a bigger outcome and to try not only to include Hispanic and Latino people, but also promote our cultures to everyone,” Calderon-Nava said. “We want everyone to see our colorful lives and how welcoming we are.”
Also representing their club on the quad was John Sommers and Brandon Hill from American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE). The pair came to the fair ready to tell prospective members about their plans for future chem-e-car competitions and other projects, as well as the work that goes into planning for these events.
“The thing with chem-e-car, is we literally started the project up last year, so we’re just trying to get into the competition this year,” Sommers said. “It’s a lot of work to get it started. We need 10 hours of testing. It’s a lot of designing and a lot of paperwork. So thankfully, we already got a lot of the parts designed last year. So this year we’re gonna try and finish everything up, do the paperwork and actually make it to the competition.”