By: Rut Labrada, Staff Writer

On March 25, the Student Life Office hosted their annual Winning Wednesday event on Converse Square amidst increased efforts to promote upcoming athletic events, as well as sororities, fraternities, and other on-campus organizations. 

This event was hosted as part of an ongoing endeavor to grow engagement with student organizations on campus, which has significantly declined in the past years. 

The event ran from noon-2 p.m., and it featured different fraternities and organizations, such as Knack Tutoring, an online platform that gives students access to free in-person or online tutoring sessions, and more. 

According to Student Life Graduate Assistant Candice Pace, the event is designed to offer students a fun experience during the university’s Greek Week, but she also hoped that its impact would reach all students. 

“We are happy to have our athletic teams here and help hype them up before their games, but we really want students to know that there are resources available in every single department here on campus,” she said.  

One organization that attended the event was Alpha Phi Sigma Kappa, a men’s social fraternity that has been on VSU’s campus since 2012. 

According to President Clayton Phillips, the fraternity’s cardinal principles are brotherhood, scholarship, and character, and the organization is involved in philanthropy and often raises money for the Special Olympics. 

“We’re out here to promote our organization for future events… as well as looking for people to add to our brotherhood who will commit to the three cardinal principles,” he said. 

This event is one of several efforts that the Office of Student Life has made to promote student organizations after their recent office restructuring that occurred in July. 

In a previous interview with the Spectator, Student Affairs Coordinator Damitri Parris explained that engagement in student organizations has gone down in the last few years.  

According to Parris, VSU currently has around 60 organizations, where it once had over 200 student organizations before the COVID pandemic impacted the school in 2020 and caused the decrease. 

He mentioned that the office has been working to fix this issue and see more students engaged in extracurricular activities. 

“Right now, we’re meeting very frequently and getting a lot of feedback from student organizations and students in general on campus on what they would like to see and how we as student life can help them obtain those things if they are interested in starting new organizations,” he said. “We are helping guide them so that they are able to grow their membership on campus as a whole.” 

He also mentioned that, beginning in the fall semester, the department will be teaching student organization members about event planning through various workshops that will be held during the semester. 

Students who are interested in creating student organizations or have feedback about current engagement should reach out to the Office of Student Life, located on the second floor of the Student Union.