Students Explore New Opportunities at The Club fair
Ada Lambert | September 6, 2023
On Aug. 30, Warren Wilson College (WWC) held one of its first events of the semester in Canon Lounge — the club fair. The number of WWC clubs has diminished in recent years, but this has not discouraged students who are trying to revamp once-flourishing clubs.
Vivian Salvucci, student leader of the Merry Pagans, has taken the initiative to start up the club again after a year-long hiatus. Salvucci participated in the club her freshman year and loved the events but felt that they became infrequent as time went on.
“I've always been really interested in metaphysical and spiritual type stuff,” Salvucci said. “I didn't grow up religious and I never had a space for that, so the Merry Pagans were really cool because they did a lot of work with moon rituals and the equinox celebrations.”
Her goal this year is to draw more people to the club and have people lead workshops on specific topics within the Pagan practice.
“I’m hoping to have a weekly meditation circle, and then if we get enough time and people who are interested, I'd love to have a weekly meeting where we can just show up and be like, ‘here's something cool I want to learn’ and then pull together our resources and learn about that together,” Salvucci said.
A new edition to the roster of WWC clubs offered this year is Fight Club, run by sophomore students Ruby Schober-Colburn and Haden Mason. Though self-defense classes have been offered in previous years, the leader of the club that provided them recently graduated. This was a major incentive for Schober-Colburn and Mason to get their club rolling.
“We're definitely going to be focusing on self-defense because that's what I learned a lot about during taekwondo,” Schober-Colburn said. “That's what my dojo focused on a lot, so I'll definitely be pushing that. It's just really useful to know.”
In addition to these clubs, there are several different student associations this year for minority groups, including the Black Student Union (BSU), the Latinx Student Collective (LSC), the Asian Culture Club (ACC), the Southwest Asian North African Alliance (SWANAA), the Indigenous Students Association (ISA), and the World Wide Club.
Sophomore Jetta Ghosthorse — a leader of the ISA — believes that it is important for WWC to have these designated spaces for students of diverse backgrounds.
“It's obvious that we are a Predominantly White Institution (PWI) and that it is hard to find representation for folks like us, but we really just want to host events that create awareness and invite other people to be allies, and to be able to advocate for issues that are outside of our own,” Ghosthorse said. “We also hope these events will influence others to think critically about the world we live in, and the kind of institution where we are.”
WWC clubs have a lot to offer new and returning students interested in getting involved on campus. For more information on current clubs and how to start your own club, click here.