MARIANA CRUZ
Special to The Leader
There are two events that can be relied on to bring out almost the entirety of Fredonia’s student body: Activities Night and FredFest.
SUNY Fredonia’s semesterly Activities Night was held at Dods Grove on Wednesday, Sept. 4 from 6:30 p.m. to 8 p.m. Students gathered to sign up for clubs and organizations, talk to potential employers and even meet SUNY Fredonia’s president, Stephen Kolison, Jr.
The Student Association (SA) currently recognizes over 120 clubs and 20 organizations on campus, meaning that there is a club for any interest students may have. Whether it’s sports, music and theater, or hobbies and academics, there’s a club for it.
Fredonia’s Career Development Office (CDO) also hosted their “Network on the Go” job fair at Activities Night, featuring several companies and businesses that students could talk to about internship and job opportunities.
Most clubs on display at Activities Night have been running for years, but there were also some new clubs and some clubs that have restarted after being absent for some time.
One of the new clubs was Single Acts, started by President Alexa Urbaniak and Vice President/Treasurer Jazmine Fiore.
“We both really like to act and we both really like writing stuff, but there wasn’t any sort of club where we could do that,” Fiore said. “We just decided to do single-act plays where anybody can come in and join, act or stage manage.”
Single Acts is one of the many theater clubs on campus, along with Random Acts, Interactive Theatre, and Improv Collective.
“During meetings, we’re going to be workshopping and writing plays and then doing rehearsals and everything,” Fiore said.
Single Acts is looking for more members and to fill E-board positions. They can be found at @sunyfredonia_singleacts on Instagram.
Another club that is relatively new to campus and had its first Activities Night was Autism Club.
“I have autism and I didn’t see a community of autistic people on campus, so I wanted to start an autism club,” said President Ryan Hackford. “We had, like, one meeting last year. Right now, we don’t have that many people and we’re just looking for more.”
Because the club started so late last semester, only two members attended the meeting last year. They are currently looking for more members and had many students sign up during Activities Night.
“Activities Night went way better than I thought it would…I started this club as a place where people with autism and people who support autistic people can meet [and receive] support. It started as a small grassroots club and I expected it to grow slow, if it grew at all,” Hackford said. “Tonight, 43 people joined in a matter of an hour and a half.”
During future meetings, they plan on doing a poster night, interests night, music night and arts and crafts night. More information on Autism Club can be found at @fredonia_autism_club on Instagram.
The Karate Club, International Student Club and African Student Union also had their first Activities Night.
International Student Club and African Student Union are not entirely new to campus, but have restarted this year after some time off. The Karate Club is new and seeking to gain new members.
More information on the various clubs and organizations on campus is available at https://www.fredonia.edu/student-life/clubs-orgs.