Occidental’s Spring 2025 Involvement Fair (iFair) brought students to the Academic Quad Feb. 10. According to Ginny Salazar, Assistant Director of Student Leadership, Involvement and Community Engagement (SLICE) and organizer of iFair, 110 clubs were signed up, with roughly 28 of these groups recruiting members for the first or second time ever.
According to Salazar, the process to start an official club at Occidental requires students to complete a series of four forms: the Club Development Worksheet, the Student Support Petition, a club constitution and the Student Organization Information form. Salazar said each one serves a different purpose, allowing students to decide on a clear direction for their club, show student interest, outline club bylaws and record official leadership.
“Once leadership attendance is verified and paperwork is complete, the club becomes official. They receive a club email, access to RAFTR and begin the process of obtaining a financial club account number,” Salazar said.
Salazar said new clubs this semester include American Cancer Society, Philosophy Reading Club, Why is That? Philosophy Club, Queer Pro Quo (QPQ), Pre-Physical Therapy Society and Board Game Club and that Chess Club and Oxypreneurship have been reinstated this semester.
According to Salazar, there were at least 20 new clubs formed last semester.
“The sheer number of new clubs formed each year continues to surprise me,” Salazar said.
Emaline Ricketts (junior) is the president of Tea Time. According to Ricketts, Tea Time has been trying to start since last semester.
“The process of starting [Tea Time] was very slow going for us,” Ricketts said. “We actually registered to be a club last semester, but it took so long for us to get started, the semester was basically over by the time we were ready to have a meeting.”
According to Ricketts, Tea Time had paperwork troubles that kept them from officially being recognized, along with later problems accessing the official email account. Now, she said she is looking forward to officially starting meetings and getting to start sampling tea with others.
“Our plans for the moment are basically just to reach out to people and get them excited about learning about new teas and meeting new [people],” Ricketts said. “We really just want [Tea Time] to be a space where people of all backgrounds can come together to hang out and try some really good teas.”
Ricketts said she and her friends wanted to start Tea Time to have a club that focused on meeting new people regularly, rather than at larger and less frequent events.
“We thought it would be fun to have a club where people could just come and relax and drink tea,” Ricketts said. “Tea [has] this almost global presence as well in so many cultures and [that] can also be a connection point for so many people.”
American Cancer Society (ACS), while new to Occidental this semester, is not new to their club president, Amanda Gow (junior). According to Gow, she was a part of the American Cancer Society during her freshman year at Trinity College.
“When I transferred, I thought that starting a chapter here would be impactful and that a lot of the pre-health students would be interested in joining,” Gow said.
According to Gow, ACS is a community outreach club that is currently planning to have fundraisers this semester and is now planning for events in the fall.
“We hope to have our Breast Cancer walk during Breast Cancer Awareness Month in October [and] a toy drive in December for pediatric cancer patients,” Gow said.
According to Gow, ACS is geared towards students on the pre-health track or public health minor, but anyone interested in helping cancer patients should join. Gow also said ACS is not the only club she started this semester, with Pre-Physical Therapy Society being another that has just begun.
One club that had its first semester in the fall is Oxy Ski and Board, according to club President Jasper Clarkson (sophomore). Clarkson said Oxy Ski and Board began as a way to connect people and make skiing and snowboarding more affordable.
“The Ikon pass is the big pass for Southern California, and you get a pretty big discount if you have a club on campus,” Clarkson said. “It’s a pretty inaccessible sport, so we’re trying to make it cheaper.”
According to Oxy Ski and Board Media Chair Ruby Jeschke (sophomore), Oxy Ski and Board has been going up to Big Bear every Saturday, as well as hosting events on campus. Jeschke said they have a beginners event coming soon where people without an Ikon pass can try out skiing and snowboarding, as well as a trip planned to Mammoth Mountain during spring break.
According to Clarkson, the most difficult part of starting Oxy Ski and Board was figuring out the type of club they wanted to be for the constitution.
“We are trying to [be] a pretty active [club], and so far [we] have been pretty successful in doing that,” Clarkson said.
Salazar said once a club is started, maintaining it is the challenging part, as initial interest does not always reflect attendance. Still, according to Salazar, students at Occidental have been able to create clubs around almost anything.
“The ingenuity of students is always surprising — there’s a club for everything you can imagine,” Salazar said. “I am inspired by the passion students have for building community around shared interests.”
Contact Ava Anderson at aanderson5@oxy.edu
