MARIA MELCHIORRE
Staff Writer
Fredonia students have worked hard to create some successful Student Association (SA) groups with a strong general body. Some popular examples would be Women’s Student Union or Pride Alliance — both large groups with a generally active schedule of meetings and events. What about some of the more niche campus groups?
The lives of these clubs can sometimes span just one individual’s academic career. When a student enters Fredonia with a strong passion and can’t really find a club that supports it, a new group can be born.
Whether or not that group survives, gains popularity and becomes a mainstay, woven into the fabric of this campus, depends partly upon that group’s leadership and partly on campus interests. Enter the Fredonia Sierra Club, formerly the Campus Climate Challenge (CCC).
“We were the reason why SA created a name change form because they had never had a name change before,” said Zach Beaudoin, senior English major and president of the club.
When asked why he thought the name change was necessary, Beaudoin’s answer was simple.
“Because the group was failing, and I wanted to create a Sierra Club,” he said.
The rebranding hasn’t really changed the group’s goals. As its Facebook page states, the Sierra Club of Fredonia is “seeking to make the community a healthier and more sustainable environment.”
The club’s most notable project since this rebranding has been the establishment of the campus garden. Located behind the science center, this communal plot of land is available to all SA groups to work, as well as faculty members who may not have opportunities at home for gardens.
Even FSA has stated it will accept some of the garden’s produce and whatever ends up being leftover will be donated to the Gleaning Project, a Dunkirk-based organization working to address the incidence of food deserts in the area. The Gleaning Project works as a middleman between local farmers and the less advantaged residents in the area who may not have access to affordable produce.
“It’s really nice that they’re working with the Gleaning Project,” said Shannon Rochford, a senior international studies major who has interned with the Gleaning Project. “It would just be nice if the group had more opportunities to volunteer with or work with them.” She went on, “The Sierra Club is just not very visible.”
The group is registered with the Sierra Club of Niagara, through which they were able to bring a Beyond Coal representative to campus to speak on the topic of divestment, a cause of great interest to Beaudoin who has worked on a SUNY-wide divestment campaign. The group also sponsored a banner drop with a divestment centered message on the walkway between the Williams Center and Reed Library last Spring.
The partnership with Sierra Club of Niagara is full of potential for students to get involved, but Beaudoin and his small Executive Board seems to contain the only students interested.
“I’ve gone to events with them, a rally. We offered it up to the general body, but I ended up being the only person who went,” he said.
When addressing the issue of under-represented student organizations, there is not so much a lack of interest, as a lack of publicity.
“I never really can make it to Activities Night, and unless you know someone, that seems to be the only time to get in on any clubs,” said Rochford.
If the life of a club sits delicately in the hands of its president’s enthusiasm, then Sierra Club’s future is wary. Beaudoin is taking a step back into an advisory position next semester and is hoping his current E-board and general body will step up to the plate.
“I’ve tried to build up an infrastructure so that the group will hopefully be able to sustain itself,” he said. “I would say we don’t really have that many environmental science majors,” he said.
As for representation within the school’s new environmental studies minor, Beaudoin’s only response was that he had tried it out but dropped it.
“We definitely have a lot of environmentally minded kids at this school,” said Rochford.