Every semester, FGCU students come up with new ideas for organizations to bring to campus.
This semester, seven new registered student organizations were added to the university list.
The Outdoor Adventure Club, one of the seven organizations, is designed to bring together people who have a common interest in the outdoors or adventure.
“Personally, I decided to start this club because I felt the university lacked a place where students can go on trips and be a part of a group that loves camping or doing awesome things outdoors,” said Matthew Reilly, the president of the OAC.
In order to start an RSO, four students are needed to serve as officers. A faculty or staff member is needed to serve as the adviser, and a constitution needs to be drafted. The process of starting these organizations was different for all students this semester. For Reilly, it was simple to comply with the officer requirement.
“I had some of my friends be officers with me, and we keep each other accountable,” Reilly said. In Andres Velosa’s case, the president of the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers, the constitution was a given already. “The organization already has a set constitution,” Velosa said. “It’s a nationwide organization, and the RSO on campus is a chapter.”
Although the name indicates the RSO is only for Hispanics, the RSO is intended for all engineering majors.
“All the RSO is about is bringing big engineering firms into FGCU and making the connections for every engineer to have internships or just networking with them at conferences,” Velosa said.
Stephanie Walsh, the president of the Clinical Laboratory Science Club, said Julie Zemplinski, the program director of CLS at FGCU, proposed the idea of starting the club to her. The CLSC is designed for CLS and pre-CLS majors to network between themselves and with hospitals. However, all majors are welcomed.
“For example, biology, chemistry majors and health science majors,” Walsh said. “We want to help each other out.” Another RSO that was founded this semester is the African Student Association.
“Our goal is to educate people on the African culture because I feel like they have a lot of misconceptions — first of all,” said Kelechi Ibezim, the president of the ASA. “A lot of people think of it as a city and not as a continent.”
“We’re also planning a fashion show, a block party with flags or a cultural day and hold trivia for club meetings to promote awareness of the African culture,” Ibezim said. Sub 30, also one of the seven new RSOs, is a Christian connection group affiliated with Next Level Church.
“NLC is a church in Fort Myers that has grown a lot in recent years, and I just noticed that there was no college ministry about that church in FGCU,” said Matthew Nieves, the president of Sub 30.
“It’s just college students coming together on Tuesday nights and just hang out — play water pong and talk,” Nieves said. “We’ll also have a message every meeting about daily college struggles and talk about things that apply to our lives using the bible and the love of God.”
Alyssa Chase, the president of the LGBT Pride Club, which was just founded this semester as well, said she decided to start the RSO to offer more support in the LGBT+ community.
“We plan to promote equality throughout our community and to be an out-and-proud environment for other LGBT+ students to engage with one another,” Chase said.
Linda Martin founded the Circle K International RSO this semester.
“It’s all about volunteering — any type of volunteering either in the community or the university,” Martin said. “Starting the RSO was relatively easy thanks to student involvement,” Chase said. “All you need is a dream, friends to support you and the motivation to make it come true.”