The abundance of clubs on campus make it easy for students to find groups that they connect with. This year, the language clubs are broadening the cultural experience that is available to students, by promoting inter-club activities.
Inter-club activities, events held for the collaboration of two or more clubs, that have been held in the past have varied from cooking competitions and food nights, where each of the different clubs had a distinctive cultural dish that they made and then ate together. International soccer competitions, game nights, and walking in the Homecoming Parade together have also been inter-club activities in the past.
This year, Circulo Hispano, the Spanish club, has been in contact with the Chinese club about planning an event together, said Matthew Burian, president of the Spanish club. Since it is early in the year, no official plans have been made yet.
Brooke Christensen, president of the French club, said that the French club has plans to be in the Homecoming Parade with the German club this year. Beyond that, the activities are still too far out to have definite plans made.
The lack of set inter-club events does not mean that there are not any plans at all.
According to Christensen, the French club is hoping to have a Christmas festival this year with all of the different clubs.
“You get to see aspects of different cultures with something we are familiar with,” Christensen said.
Similarly, Burian wants the language clubs to be able to get together for a weekend at the Concordia Language Villages. This could include a weekend where students could relax together while learning about different cultures, or the students could spend the weekend acting as counselors at the Villages.
Chinese Club President James Stein thinks that getting multiple clubs together for a sports activity, like the Soccer World Cup offered last year, would be a good way for students of different organizations to interact with each other.
Due to a number of reasons, it’s difficult to get these events to happen.
According to Stein, the largest problem they are facing is getting club members to attend joint events.
“We need to get Cobbers excited,” Stein said.
Burian said the same about the Spanish club.
“Right now, the largest problem the Spanish club has is Concordia students who are willing to participate” he said. “The more participation, the more enjoyable it becomes.”
Christensen, however, said the largest issue is communication between the different language clubs.
“Our advisors know each other, but we [all the language presidents] don’t know who to contact,” Christensen said.
According to her, to make contact with some of the other clubs she has had to contact their club advisor, who would contact the other club’s advisor. That club’s advisor would then contact the president, and then the cycle would repeat to get a reply back to them.
This article was written by Susan Fiser, contributing writer.
