The UND Student Involvement Office is a great resource for students to learn about UND’s clubs. Photo by Nick Nelson/The Dakota Student.

At UND there are more than 312 student-led organizations. Granted, some of the registered clubs may not be active at the moment. This is not bad for a medium-sized campus to have so many student-led organizations.

The first question I had was how these organizations are getting involved with students. Going down the list, I hadn’t heard of some of them. For example,  how many people know there’s a “UND Writing Guild” on campus.

I believe if you claim to be a part of the community, you must be actively engaged with other community members. Being involved in student  organizations are the main gateway to make this happen. I’ve been really excited to see people doing their part to educate and encourage UND’s campus with a wide range of events, speakers and things to get them going. My only concern is how is this being accomplished?

Many clubs utilize the tables near the Student Involvement Office to advocate on behalf of their club, but it seems that most people don’t bother to give the people sitting at the table any attention. I understand students are busy, but it seems to be unless a club or a group has “free” written somewhere near their signs, their is little to no student engagement.

How can we figure out ways that could get students engaged to actually see more of what these clubs do?

Students are busy, I get that. And I’m not saying every student has to be super involved. If you’re the type of person who loves being involved, then you’re already making a difference. The thing is you don’t have to be at everything to start trying to make a difference, it just helps to be engaged in one of the many student organizations on campus.

The involvement office’s website involvement.und.edu is a great way to look at groups, and embed ones interests along the way.

Being in a club provides a voice, new opportunities and new friends, with the hope of bettering our UND community.

North Dakota is great, but how cool is it to have clubs that represent culture and activities less known to this state. I’m wondering how students can motivate themselves to engage with student clubs, and what more can be done to get clubs to connect to students.

One would think that engaging in conversation more often could be a starting group to develop and foster relationships. Others might prefer teaching classes and workshops.

Whatever it is, I think we would start getting more supporters and more representation on campus. Let’s face it, it starts with us and just how much we are willing to do to try to become involved.

Amina Chinnell-Mateen is a staff writer for The Dakota Student. She can be reached at [email protected]