Angelina Dohre/Photo Editor)
VICTOR SCHMITT-BUSH and MELISSA FUCHS
Assistant News Editor and Special to The Leader
As the Spring semester unravels, the campus community rushed back into Spectrum Entertainment’s bi-annual program, Activities Night. Although there were no grand marriage proposals this time, many club leaders insisted that it still prevailed as a night to remember.
On Wednesday, Jan. 31, Activities Night was held in the fieldhouse of the Steele Hall Complex, as it is every Spring semester. Fredonia’s clubs, sororities, fraternities and student-run organizations showed up as usual, but there were a few up-and-coming clubs that were just waiting to make their mark.
According to Sheneca Sharpe, junior computer information systems major, it was time for a shift in the way “curly and kinky” hair is handled on this campus, so she created her own new club titled, “Under This Bonnet.”
It has never been seen before on campus, but with the results her and her club members managed to bring about, adding publicity will no longer be a worry.
“This is the first and only natural hair club on campus for people with curly, kinky and even wavy hair,” Sharpe said. At last, there’s something for us to express our frustrations about the lack of diversity when it comes to hair products and other things of that nature.”
Clearly, the demand for such a club was high on this campus because Sharpe and her team managed to accumulate just under 200 signatures at Activities Night.
“Receiving almost 200 signatures for a first semester club is almost unheard of, and I’m grateful for Activities Night because it helped Under This Bonnet talk to people who were interested in this club and for them to tell their friends,” she said. “Even after Activities Night, people were emailing me and the rest of the e-board about joining our club.”
Sharpe is excited to announce that her club is finally grabbing the attention of SA.
“[We will be] starting our general body meetings within the next couple of weeks. With almost 200 people interested, I’m extremely positive that this club will be a success and be on Fredonia’s campus for a very long time,” she said.
Steele Hall was filled to its limits as usual. The music was loud and club ambassadors were scrambling to grab the attention of prospective members. At the end of the night, there were flyers spread about all over the ground, each of which were emblematic of all of the hard work and preparation put in collectively as a campus community.
According to Kermit Mitchell III, the president of Video Game Development Club, forming a club is no joke. It takes a lot of time and effort, and all of that hard work is what makes their pitch on Activities Night all the more worth it even if things don’t always turn out as planned.
“After I took the game programming class here, I realized that there was a need for a video game development club on campus, but the club had to involve all aspects of game development: programming, art, audio, narrative, design and production,” he said.
Mitchell’s VGD club began last semester. According to him, it was no easy task to move his club forward.
“Altogether this was a two month process,” he said.
He had to move back and forth between SA meetings, pitch his ideas and, eventually, be approved.
Everyone loves to play video games, but anyone who has at least gotten their feet wet in the field of game development knows that making games is no walk in the park. Even so, Mitchell feels that students shouldn’t feel deterred from joining his club, especially because there is much more to the club than coding and scary computer science stuff.
“Don’t be bashful,” he said. “If you are remotely interested in game development, please join. We will teach what you want and need to know along the way. This club has a place for many skill sets, not just programming and art. Although, our club desperately needs additional art team members.”
Mitchell said that this semester’s Activities Night did well to increase his clubs visibility, but Fredonia’s unstable Wi-Fi did put a damper on his outreach. It made it harder for him to engage passerby students.
“[Since the Wi-Fi was not working], passerby students were unable to alpha playtest the game at our table. We feel as if we could have gained substantially more new members this semester but didn’t meet the mark. Hopefully next semester will yield better results,” he said.
Right up until the last minute, Activities Night remained active, and there were plenty of students that were amassed in various corners of the room. Although some clubs might not have achieved the goals that they set out to reach, Spectrum Entertainment yet again unleashed an event that would offer a special opportunity to prospective and veteran club leaders alike.