Grouping Up

Freshmen each year visit the fall activities fair seeking the club, group or organization they hope will define their time at Princeton. Many join and withdraw from several before finding their niche in the University community.

In recent years, the number of student groups has increased steadily while the size of the student body has remained essentially static.

And though these additional groups create a wider range of activities for students to sample, the expanding extracurricular smorgasbord can sometimes mean growing pains — both for the groups and the members they comprise.

There are 230 recognized student groups on campus this year — 15 to 20 more groups than last year. Administrators say this trend of rapid growth has been continuing for several years now. Indeed, the USG Senate recognizes on average two to three new student organizations per week.

While the number of groups seems to be ever increasing, some naturally fall by the wayside as members lose interest or graduate.

Those groups do not simply disband, said Nina Langsam '03, the coordinator of the Student Activities Fair. "Normally clubs that are sort of defunct still exist in name but don't really do anything," she said.

According to Assistant Dean of Undergraduate Students Thomas Dunne, the Office of Undergraduate Students continues to recognize groups with dwindling memberships for a few years in case student interest rebounds.

USG vice president Spence Miller '02 said the USG has recently been considering new policies that would allow only already-active student groups to obtain full recognition, and possibly strip inactive groups of their official recognition.

He said he will meet with Dunne on Friday to discuss establishing "a period of about four weeks when [unrecognized student groups] are not going to be qualified for funding, at least full-fledged funding. That way we'll be able to ensure that they're serious about their endeavor of forming a new student group."

The USG is still unsure how to best determine which groups are so inactive as to forfeit their recognition.

Propagation

Students' increasingly diverse interests partially may explain this rise in the number of student clubs. "I think the primary cause behind the formation of new student groups is that people recognize that there is a niche that needs to be filled," Roger Ahn '01, president of Foundation for Student Communication, said in an e-mail.

The desire to pad one's resume may motivate some students who begin new groups, admits Kate Redman '03, a student administrator for the Student Volunteers Council. As far as the balance between real student interest and career-building intent is involved, she said, "It's a twofold thing."

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But Miller emphasized that the time commitment many groups demand necessitates that participants have some level of passion for the activity. "I think you have to enjoy the things you're doing," he said.

For the Triangle Club — a theater group with about 50 active members — the organization's leaders emphasize the importance of commitment to help retain members. "Triangle has had to get stricter in the past few years," explained Triangle Club president Doug Lambert '01. "If you want to be in a show one year, you have to be at every practice for which you are called."

That policy prevents members from missing too many practices and promotes group unity.

But Lambert noted that though the number of student organizations has climbed in recent years, that has not necessarily resulted in increased competition in recruiting members.

"I don't know that [the stricter rehearsal policy] was necessarily a function of an increase in student groups," Lambert said.

Oren Firestein '01, president of the Princeton Go Club — a smaller organization that gathers weekly to play games — said his organization also does not worry about losing members to other groups. "I don't feel so much that the groups compete with each other," he said.

Nevertheless, a rise in the number of student organizations can result in some students feeling overcommitted — and even a bit overwhelmed. At a recent Princeton Environmental Action meeting, a freshman rushed in and exclaimed, "I am so sorry I'm late. I was auditioning for a play. I'm doing the typical freshman thing and getting way too over-committed."

At the annual activities fair, "students obviously sign up for more than they can join or maintain," Dunne said.

Redman said the desire among many underclassmen to sign up for a large numbers of activities stems from experiences they had before coming to Princeton.

"Most of the people here were really involved in high school and genuinely want to stay involved," she said. "[But] stuff does get neglected. We all need to study. It's just a tradeoff."

And Redman noted that many students' interests tend to become more specialized during their time at the University. "In general, people will pick one project and stay with it," she said.

Miller said he had experienced that phenomenon during his time at Princeton. "We want to do a lot of things. But realistically we can only do two to three things well. It's a matter of choosing wisely."