The Student Involvement Fair, formerly known as Pantherpalooza, gave students the opportunity to interact with several groups on and around campus.

Groups involved included registered student organizations, local businesses, community non-profits, and religious groups.

Kurt Ness, a graduate student studying college student affairs, helped with the table for EIU PRIDE and the Center for Gender and Sexual Diversity.

Ness said the involvement fair is important to help students find what they’re interested in on campus.

“The involvement fair is a really crucial aspect, it gets students to see the opportunities that are here at EIU,” Ness said. 

Ness said involvement is an important aspect of college life.

“The student involvement fair really allows people to find out what areas they can get involved with,” Ness said. “You have Greek life, other organizations, sports clubs out here, you have all of these different opportunities to get involved, and one great opportunity this afternoon for people to find out what type of organizations we have out here.”

Ness said it’s not only students who benefit from the fair, organizations do as well.

“It helps them by getting their name out. This is my second year here being on campus as a graduate student and I don’t even know all of the organizations we have here,” Ness said. “It gets the organizations out there to let people know who and what they are.”

Amanda Feder, Director of Prevention Services for Sexual Assault Counseling and Information Service, helped with SACIS’s table to inform students of services and volunteering opportunities.

SACIS provides counseling and advocacy for sexual assault survivors, prevention training and volunteering opportunities for students and the community.

“We really love working with students and students can really help give back to our agency by volunteering, but we also want them to be aware of our service in case they are in need as well,” Feder said. “It’s a great way to raise awareness for our agency and our cause.”

Feder said she loved coming to the involvement fair.

“I love seeing new students and I love seeing the boom in student numbers,” Feder said. “We have met so many students today, it’s been awesome. We love networking and hanging out with students.”

Sihile Mwalongo, a sophomore economics major, helped with a table for the first time this year with the N.A.A.C.P.

Mwalongo said she thought the involvement fair was beneficial for students.

“There’s all of these organizations and (the involvement fair) lets them be informed about all of them,” Mwalongo said. “It’s hard to join things when you don’t know about everything that’s going on around campus. 

Mwalongo said she hopes the involvement fair will help her organization grow.

“We want to add new people to the executive board, so we’ve been talking to people about our events,” Mwalongo said. “We also want more people coming to our general body meetings and things like that.”

Rachel Spoeri, a senior sociology major, is a Recruitment Counselor for Panhellenic Council and Dalton Davison, a senior computer and information technology major, is president of the Interfraternity Council. Both were on campus along with several social Greek organizations to encourage students to sign up for recruitment.

Spoeri said it was important for Greek Life to be active at the involvement fair.

“It helps bring awareness. Greek Life is kind of a hidden gem,” Spoeri said. “It lets new members come out and see each chapter, how each chapter looks and feels. It puts a name to the face, most people know what Greek Life is, but they don’t really know what it’s about or what it looks like but at these fairs you can see it all.”

Davison said he hoped having the Greek Life tables would give students a new prospective on Greek Life as a whole.

“I think what’s important is not looking at the stereotypes that come with Greek Life with all of the media and movies concerning Greek Life,” Davison said. “We’re not that horrible, I promise. We really try to give back to the community as much as possible with philanthropy and student service events.”

Spoeri said she was pleased with the level of interest at her table.

“We’ve had many girls sign up and it makes me very, very happy. I know I doubted going into Greek Life a little bit and I didn’t think it was for me but I still did it,” Spoeri said. “It makes me happy to see girls who aren’t sure about it that are still willing to sign up and get the information and go through recruitment.

Corryn Brock can be reached at 581-2812 or at [email protected]