The stars shined early Monday afternoon. 

From 5 to 7 p.m., North West Hall hosted Star Party: a Weeks of Welcome event sponsored by the College of Sciences and Humanities. Student and faculty-led organizations alike set up tables outside, sharing information about their clubs with prospective recruits. 

Many of the organizations also participated in Super Party and the Student Activity Fair. Others like Poetic Summit and River Teeth had no presence at those events, with Star Party acting as their introduction to incoming first-year students.

Noelia Arichavala, outreach director for the Latinx Student Union, said that around 20 students showed interest in joining the club. By the end, they were running out of flyers. According to her, this was the group’s first year at the event.

Language clubs were also a notable fixture of the evening. The German, French, Chinese, and Spanish clubs all attended, working closely with representatives of their corresponding academic programs. For them, Star Party presented an opportunity to reach out to students with undeclared majors and minors—and perhaps convince them to take the leap from extracurriculars to the classroom.

“It’s more about the Chinese program. That’s been more successful for us than the Chinese club, because usually people who are interested in the club come to the activity fair,” said Audrey Wallen, president of the Chinese Culture and Language Club. “But Star Party is always good because you meet people who are actually really passionate about language learning, and a lot of them have a lot of other experience learning languages.” 

Most students attending were residents of the Humanities Living Learning Community, but not all.

 Susanna “Zee”, a first-year student, was one such exception. She made the trek to North West Hall to learn about potential majors – and to make up for lost time.

“I had COVID during the time they had most of the events. So I was unable to go. I really wanted to though,” she said in response to a question on Super Party. “I’m definitely interested in the language club, the Archaeology Club looked pretty cool… and then I’d like to do stuff with the Multicultural Center.”

“It’s been really nice,” she said. “I feel like people actually care about me being undecided, whereas it’s met a lot of time with people not knowing how to respond to it. Here I’ve been able to get some information about possible majors and stuff I could look into.”

As night grew closer, the patio gradually began to clear out. The bubble blower at the back was shut down, the speakers slunk away, and the last boxes of pizza were piled high in the center of the lobby. But as the students dispersed, they walked away with plenty of pamphlets, flyers, and stickers: reminders of the evening, and the organizations that made it.

Contact Colin Brown with comments at colin.brown@bsu.edu.

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