Every spring semester, dozens of booths line up across Weber State University’s Shepherd Union building for the annual Weberstock event. During this time, club leaders have the opportunity to set up a table and tell other students what the organization does and why they should join. Snacks, candy, lip balm, stickers and other freebies are given out while live music plays.
The room is electric, with students talking about the end of the school year. While students will return in the fall, some of these clubs may not have that same outcome.
Club turnover is a problem when current club leaders graduate and do not pass the title along to somebody else. It’s an issue former Weber Advisory Team for Innovative Film Production President Zander Cooper had on his mind last semester.
WATIF, a student organization and class centered around supporting student filmmakers, was created in 2022. Cooper has been involved in this club since its formation. He kept his upcoming graduation in mind when laying the groundwork for his final contribution to the club — WATIF’s first international film festival, which took place last April.
“I’m hoping I built all the connections. I have everything in place, and then I’m graduating and leaving,” Cooper said, noting that the festival was something like his final gift to the group.
Paige Aardema, who led alongside Cooper last year, will take over this fall and continue running the organization. This plan for her leadership transition has been in the works for a while. In this regard, WATIF is lucky.
Heather Cimino, assistant director of student involvement and leadership, holds monthly club officer training sessions. Cimino said that the last training of the year revolves around officer transition.
“We know that a lot of outgoing officers are graduating,” Cimino said. “Before we lose them, once the semester ends and they’re onto grad school, jobs, careers, whatever, if we can use this little window of time at the end of spring semester to bring the incoming and outgoing officers together and have that smooth transition.”
Cimino said that from what she’s seen, clubs that go through this training do better and succeed more often in the next year than clubs that do not.
During this training, club officers are given a checklist of things they should do for a successful transition. These tasks include recruiting new officers as early as possible, meeting with the newly elected officers to help them plan their first actions, letting the elected officers shadow the outgoing officers and introducing the incoming officer to the key people they need to know to succeed in their role.
The checklist also encourages outgoing officers to hold an event to commemorate what they refer to as “the changing of the guard.”
The list then recommends that the outgoing officers give the incoming ones critical club information, such as the organization’s history, social media passwords, the organization’s calendar and status reports on continuing projects.
Aardema from WATIF will experience continuing projects early on in her time as club president.
Cooper said that while he put together the film festival, Aardema ensured the club’s main project, a Christmas horror film, stayed on track to be completed.
Aardema hinted that she already has big plans for WATIF, feeling confident in the club’s future.
“We’re trying to rebuild our foundation,” Aardema said, “We’ve got lots of plans and lots of surprises coming on for our team and our production company.”
While WATIF’s story has been successful, Cimino said that another factor that causes clubs to disappear is a lack of interest in a particular club with passing time.
Cimino cited the hammock club as an example.
“The student who started the club was really passionate about laying in hammocks and hanging out in hammocks, and they found another big group of students who also had a passion for laying in hammocks,” Cimino said. “And then once that group graduated, they weren’t able to recruit underclassmen to share in that passion. And so once they left, the club died with them.”
Recruiting underclassmen is important and a large reason why events like Weberstock, or even Weber Block Party in the fall, exist in the first place.
Cimino said that each year, the number of clubs usually balances out with old clubs dying and new clubs starting. In spring 2021, there were 129 active clubs at Weber State, and now there are 114. Cimino predicts that this same sort of semi-balance will take place again between now and next fall semester.
“We are in the unique situation where we are vying for the attention of our students with other things that they have going on in their lives off campus,” Cimino said, acknowledging Weber State’s commuter school nature.
Chloe Sanow, Weber State University Student Association vice president of clubs and organization, said that when attending summer conferences about clubs, she’s seen that other schools also struggle with maintaining them, showing that Weber State isn’t necessarily singled out by being a commuter school.
“I think we’ve done pretty good this year. I’ve seen a lot of our clubs hosting recruiting events,” Sanow said. “Just try to find new members all the time and host events.”
Sanow also emphasized that if a club is struggling, it is not alone. Clubs and organization officers can always reach out to her or Cimino for help.
“We can help them try to figure out the best way to keep that club going because obviously they put a lot of work into it, and they cared about it so much,” Sanow said.
Block Party revs up on Aug. 30 this year and will celebrate all new and returning clubs while supporting the need for recruitment to keep these clubs returning year after year.
