Photo by Genevieve Humpreys
Out of the 11 potential registered student organizations (RSOs) that applied this spring, seven received approval from the Office of Student Involvement.
Shannon Twamasi, coordinator of student programs within Student Involvement, said that when students first arrive at Trinity, they gravitate towards what they did in high school, and occasionally those same things may not be offered at Trinity.
“I feel like students come to campus, and a lot of times, they find their home in different organizations, but sometimes students come to campus and see a gap in which they want to be involved, but there’s nothing that exists. So if they don’t find that space, they can definitely create it,” Twumasi said.
This was the case for first-years Lauren Rains and Emily Sammons, cofounders of the “Animal Welfare Club.” They had both been involved with volunteering at animal shelters at their respective high schools.
“When I was in high school, we had a bunch of different philanthropies and volunteer stuff we could do, but my mom and I always volunteered at a no-kill animal shelter. It was really rewarding to see animals come in and be adopted, so I wanted to join a group like that again,” Sammons said.
After conferring with each other, they decided to create a club that will encourage student volunteering at animal shelters and wildlife rehabilitation centers where they can help all kinds of animals.
“When I got here, they didn’t really have anything. They just had the Cat Alliance, which I didn’t just want to work with cats. I wanted to work with animals as a whole, like I did at my high school,” Rains said. “Also, the TriniCats already have plenty of help. There’s already plenty of people helping them, but this club is helping other animals and cats that don’t have that help already.”
First-year Ben Falcon proposed his idea of “The Maverick Society” after coming to Trinity and attending Trinity Progressive and Young Conservatives of Texas meetings and feeling that there was no middle ground. The Maverick Society will serve as a non-partisan, inter-ideological organization.
“They’re both great organizations doing what they’re meant to do, but personally, I didn’t feel at home with either of the two, mainly because I’m not one side or the other,” Falcon said. “The Maverick Society is a way of carving out a place for people like me on campus and allowing people to expose themselves and learn about politic issues and political science in a way that is civil, respectful and more academic.”
Gaps can be seen later in your Trinity career as well, evident in sophomore Kurt Hardee’s resurgence of the “Trinity University German Club,” which was dormant for about a year. He was very active and interested in German culture in high school and noticed the lack of its presence here at Trinity.
“When I came to Trinity, I was sort of disappointed because it didn’t feel like the [German] community, if there was one at all, was very active,” Hardee said. “The plan is to provide more of an opportunity for German students to be speak German and practice their German in a way that’s not in a class setting. We also want to make the German culture more accessible to the Trinity populous as a whole.”
Sophomore Jullian Valadez proposed the idea for the “Indigenous Peoples’ Club.” It will function as a safe space for indigenous people and welcomes allies who want to be educated on the topic.
“What drove [the creation of the club] was the interest I took in indigenous Mexicans, where a lot of my ancestry is. I felt that that group wasn’t being represented at Trinity, and I’ve seen the turmoil people go through when they feel like they have no place to go,” Valadez said.
Both sophomore Diego Carrisalez and first-year Zachery Dunne were inspired to create clubs based on passions of theirs. After learning how to play over winter break, Carrisalez’s newfound passion for racquetball lead him to create the new “Racquetball and Squash Club.”
“Right now, it’s just kind of a casual environment where we want people to come out, play and hopefully fall in love with it. But in the future, we hope to delve into the competitive scene,” Carrisalez said.
Dunne’s interest in fantasy sports inspired him to form the “Fantasy Sports and Analytics Club.” The club will hold watch parties and work on improving their predictions.
“A few of my friends and I already enjoy playing fantasy sports and researching about them, so when we realized that there wasn’t a club with similar activities, I decided to make one,” Dunne wrote over email.
The other RSO approved was TigerThon, which was previously classified as an event rather than an organization.
