Many Truman State University clubs are reporting lower interest rates and fewer new club members this semester, while others are reporting a rise in interest after several years of declining club membership.
The Activities Fair occurred Aug. 31 in the Student Union Building. The fair aims to give new and returning students information about the various organizations on campus — including clubs, fraternities, sororities, religious groups and more.
This event is usually well attended, resulting in many freshman and returning students signing up for a club or two. However, many clubs have been reporting lower numbers of club members throughout the years as the activities fair does little to improve their numbers.
The Student Climate Union has been declining in numbers for a couple of years now. Junior Emma Rohrbach has been a part of SCU since her freshman year, serving on the executive board her sophomore year and becoming president this year.
Rohrbach said there were around eight to nine members her freshman year, but last year there was a significant dip in numbers, with only three to four members attending regular meetings.
“We got bigger turnout for our events, which was great, but less on a regular basis,” Rohrbach said. “We’re hopeful that we’ll have more than three or four people for our first meeting though. It’s looking like five to 10.”
Rohrbach said the interest in the club dropped immediately rather than gradually as leadership changes on the club’s executive board affected their ability to advertise. Rohrbach said she thinks losing the president of SCU her freshman year affected their individual club membership.
On a campus-wide scale, Rohrbach said she thinks the COVID-19 pandemic greatly affected club dynamics. In some ways, the pandemic restrictions hurt clubs as meeting in person or hosting events became more difficult. However, in other ways, COVID-19 helped clubs since joining a club became one of the only ways freshmen could meet new people.
“I feel like, compared to when I was a freshman, and other people that are juniors and seniors were freshmen, there are a lot more opportunities to be social this year and last year without being in a club,” Rohrbach said. “Whereas, when we joined because of [COVID-19] and everything, it was hard to make friends without seeking out specific groups to be a part of.”
While the pandemic restrictions certainly affected clubs, another factor that could negatively impact club membership is lower enrollment rates. During the 2018-2019 school year, the Department of Higher Education and Workforce Development recorded 5,482
undergraduate students at Truman. The Kirksville Daily Express, in a publication from August 2021, recorded Truman at 5,231 undergraduate students during the 2019-2020 school year and 4,655 undergrads during the 2020-2021 school year.
This decline in enrollment was broken during the 2021-2022 school year when, according to a Truman Today newsletter, enrollment increased by 10.4%. However, according to the Truman State University “At a Glance” webpage, Truman had only 3,960 undergraduate students enrolled during the 2022-2023 school year. This decline in numbers is not specific to Truman, as higher education institutions across the country experience lower enrollment numbers, with a significant dip occurring after the COVID-19 pandemic.
One club that has felt the effects of a smaller student body in recent years is the United Speakers Club. According to the club vice-president and treasurer Jessie Stark, club membership last year dropped even in between semesters. Stark said this year, the club leadership team is putting a lot of energy into advertising United Speakers to try and reach as many students as possible.
“I joined as a freshman last year. When I first joined, there wasn’t a bunch of people, but there were definitely less people the second half of the year,” Stark said. “This year, we did the activities fair, where we advertised an interest meeting.”
Stark said that the club leadership team is also putting posters up across campus and have advertised posters on the TVs in Baldwin, McClain, and Magruder. Stark said these advertising techniques were adopted after it became clear that tabling at the activities fair was not enough as club membership continued to decline. Stark said the main goal of the club is to allow University students to teach English to members of the Kirksville community, but many students feel unqualified to teach. Stark said she thinks this fear is likely why club membership had decreased in United Speakers specifically.
On a broader scale, Stark said she thinks COVID-19 was a major factor in declining club membership campus-wide. In addition to that, Stark said she believed new students simply wanted to avoid burdening themselves with an extracurricular activity while adjusting to college life.
“I think, especially maybe freshmen, they don’t want to overwhelm themselves because they are just trying to get acclimated to Truman,” Stark said.
Indeed, many University students have talked of their extremely active schedules in high school, where they participated in multiple extracurriculars. Yet, at college, they feel they do not have enough time to participate in all the clubs they were a part of in high school.
Furthermore, the freshman schedule at Truman has changed in the past few years. The University approved the addition of a one credit hour Truman Symposium class to all freshman schedules during January of 2020 with the class being implemented during the 2021-2022 school year. Many freshmen are also required to take a one credit hour new majors seminar, as well as a Self and Society seminar.
Freshman Cerys Montgomery said she thinks many freshmen feel too busy and overwhelmed to join many clubs right off the bat.
“It’s the fact that you’re moving away and doing school work on top of that and then have other responsibilities on top of that,” Montgomeri said.
Rohrbach said she understood if students had reservations about joining clubs as it can be difficult to participate in extracurriculars when there are many other responsibilities in college. Rohrbach said casual club membership can still be rewarding and a more committed membership can come later.
Stark said she would encourage people to join clubs even if they are hesitant as they can always drop clubs later if they are no longer interested or become too busy. Rohrbach and Stark both encouraged those who did have extra time to consider joining clubs since there are many rewards to a club community.
“I think joining clubs in college is really important because, of course, you can meet people, make new friends and find people with like-minded interests, but there’s also a much greater ability to really do things on campus,” Rohrbach said. “Like for us, we had a sit-in last year, we hosted events and a lot of clubs do really cool things so you can build a lot of skills that are really applicable to jobs, and you can make a difference in your communities.”
Rohrbach and Stark said, though club membership had been declining for some time now in their respective clubs, they were hopeful for this year and got good response feedback from the activities fair and their advertisements.
The Student Climate Union meets Tuesdays from 5-5:30 in Baldwin Hall 303. Anyone is welcome to join, and the linktree can be found in their Instagram bio @studentclimateunion.
United Speakers meets every Thursday from 7-8 in Baldwin Hall 219 for regular club meetings, and they teach English to community members Sundays from 5:30-7 in Baldwin Hall 114. Anyone is welcome to join and can email the United Speakers president, Danielle Buckner, at en26226@truman.edu or speak with any faculty member in the Language Department to learn more.