Student involvement flops
Kiran Alvi
Issue date: 6/4/07 Section: News
Leanne Dogoldogol enthusiastically gets ready for school at 6 a.m. each Thursday, despite the little sleep she gets due to intense studying the night before. By 7 a.m. she arrives promptly to class before the doors lock her out of the nursing department classroom.
Dogoldogol finishes her tiresome, quiz-filled day by 4 p.m., but that is when her campus involvement begins.
At 4:30 p.m. she has an hour-long Honors Leadership Team meeting. And just as she would like a break, she has the Phi Theta Kappa meeting at 5:30 p.m. where she serves as president. She returns home at 8 p.m., only to begin preparing for the following day. And this schedule does not include her volunteer hours at the Queen of the Valley hospital in West Covina and at the Mt. SAC Foundation.
Though Mt. SAC's student enrollment has reached over 40,000, campus involvement like Leanne's continues to be minimal.
Join-A-Club week, held each semester in the Student Life area, advertises various clubs and organizations on campus to students seeking to get involved. But where are the students that are seeking to get involved?
Several organizations share common dilemmas with student involvement. Each semester many sign-up to join, but the active members are few. At times, students do not join at all.
Director of the Honors Program and Co-Adviser of Phi Theta Kappa Dr. Charis Louie said, "Overtime you learn [organizations are] for the students, so it's up to them. You hope they take advantage of everything offered."
In many cases, students sign-up for clubs and organizations with the intention of participating. Occasionally however, members drop out.
For Saba Mengesha, 16, the events were why she dropped out.
"First of all, the International Students Club didn't have any events, at all," Saba said. "Our adviser had a vision for the group, and she wasn't flexible, everything was a 'No'."
Despite the club's "unsatisfactory" events, commitment was not a problem Mengesha said.
Dogoldogol finishes her tiresome, quiz-filled day by 4 p.m., but that is when her campus involvement begins.
At 4:30 p.m. she has an hour-long Honors Leadership Team meeting. And just as she would like a break, she has the Phi Theta Kappa meeting at 5:30 p.m. where she serves as president. She returns home at 8 p.m., only to begin preparing for the following day. And this schedule does not include her volunteer hours at the Queen of the Valley hospital in West Covina and at the Mt. SAC Foundation.
Though Mt. SAC's student enrollment has reached over 40,000, campus involvement like Leanne's continues to be minimal.
Join-A-Club week, held each semester in the Student Life area, advertises various clubs and organizations on campus to students seeking to get involved. But where are the students that are seeking to get involved?
Several organizations share common dilemmas with student involvement. Each semester many sign-up to join, but the active members are few. At times, students do not join at all.
Director of the Honors Program and Co-Adviser of Phi Theta Kappa Dr. Charis Louie said, "Overtime you learn [organizations are] for the students, so it's up to them. You hope they take advantage of everything offered."
In many cases, students sign-up for clubs and organizations with the intention of participating. Occasionally however, members drop out.
For Saba Mengesha, 16, the events were why she dropped out.
"First of all, the International Students Club didn't have any events, at all," Saba said. "Our adviser had a vision for the group, and she wasn't flexible, everything was a 'No'."
Despite the club's "unsatisfactory" events, commitment was not a problem Mengesha said.
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