Seeking a club? Tough luck

By: VERONICA BLAKE
Published in The Courier. February 25, 2010

The renovation of the student centre has encountered numerous delays and the lack of organized clubs on campus leaves students with nowhere to go and nothing to do.

There’s little reason for students to spend any additional time outside of their classes at the Centre for Creative Communications. The campus does not have a single, official club. The Centennial College Student Association Incorporated (CCSAI) is needed to make a club official. Vice-President at the CCC campus, Carl Anthony John would like to see students getting more involved with college life.

“Here at the creative campus for centennial college we really have the core base in place,” John said. “Clubs create a liveliness on campus.”

Any student can create a club. Packages are available at any CCSAI office or online. But this requires students to be proactive. If students want clubs, then they will have to create their own.

“It takes our students a little bit of initiative,” John said. “The opportunities are available. The funds are available. The people and resources are available to make any club here on campus possible.”

John envisions that clubs on campus should supplement students program learning. Its also a great way for students to give back to their campus community, and the community at large.

Students have a lot going on already, with their regular course load and projects, part time jobs and relationships. It may be asking too much of students to tell them to create their own clubs. Book and magazine publishing student Katie McHale is not a joiner.

“We just come and the we leave,” McHale said. “There’s so much going on with our actual classes… I can’t think about taking anything else on right now.”

There’s also a problem with communication. Without a student centre, students are cut off from the CCSAI and many are ignorant that opportunities actually exist.

“I don’t know where to find out what things are going on,” McHale said.

John would like to see students spend more time on campus.

“Students are in and out of the building really quickly, showing up for classes and then they’re basically out of here,” John said.

*Editor's note* I guess this was a follow-up to my pressing student-centre expose. I was starting to worry that College Politics would become my beat. And then I never wrote anything for The Courier ever again. Oh, except for my G20 story, that I really should bed working on now.