What’s New At NU: Old and new clubs attract new members at Winter Org Fair

Isabella Jacob and Diya Raj

January 9, 2025

The Daily Northwestern · What’s New At NU: Old and new clubs attract new members at Winter Org Fair

In this episode, The Daily reports on Northwestern’s Winter Org fair that took place on Jan. 7, 2025. This episode features just a few of over 100 clubs present at the fair. The Daily explores how different clubs prepared for it and what they offer to the student body.

MARIA FENG: This club means a lot to me.

DIYA RAJ: NU Special Olympics is meaningful to Weinberg senior Maria Feng because her older sister is autistic, she said. For the past 20 years, Feng’s sister has been a Special Olympics athlete, and Feng has volunteered for it for 10 years.

MARIA FENG: We help cheer them on. We help coach them. We help them with form. It’s mainly just to help them hone in their abilities and promote inclusion, especially in sports.

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ISABELLA JACOB: Feng is the co-president of NU Special Olympics.

From The Daily Northwestern, I’m Isabella Jacob.

DIYA RAJ: I’m Diya Raj. This is What’s New at NU, a podcast about everything from mainstage NU issues and events to those hidden in the nooks and crannies of campus.

Today, we’re talking about the Northwestern Winter Organization Fair that took place Tuesday.

This is the second organization fair of the year. The fair hosted around 170 student organizations that represent many different interest areas.

NU Special Olympics was one of many volunteer-focused groups featured at the fair.

NU has the oldest and largest collegiate chapter of Special Olympics. NU Special Olympics partners with Evanston Special Recreation to uplift those who are neurodivergent or may have developmental differences in athletics. In addition to sports, they help the athletes with life skills.

MARIA FENG: It really means a lot to me to be able to share this with my Northwestern peers and to uplift neurodiversity and developmental differences in these fields.

ISABELLA JACOB: The Org Fair also served as the debut for many clubs. StageStrat is NU’s first entertainment consulting club. Weinberg sophomore Shona Dave and Communication sophomore Amanda Swickle, the club’s vice presidents of finance and external comms and new business respectively, are executive members of the club who helped run StageStrat’s booth.

SHONA DAVE: We work with real clients just like all the other consulting clubs on campus, but we’re focused specifically on businesses within the entertainment industry, such as small theater companies, music, film, TV, nonprofits, etc. It’s an opportunity for anyone who is interested in business, anyone who is interested in consulting and wants specifically (to) work with any firms, in any area of the entertainment industry.

ISABELLA JACOB: The club was started by two Communication sophomores. The exec board shared a passion for the entertainment industry and business and decided to merge the two by starting this club, Swickle said. The executive board spent the last month getting approved as an official club.

When members join, they spend the first quarter as part of a mock team, Dave said. In subsequent quarters, students will be able to work with real clients.

Swickle said she is not only excited for the trajectory of the club, but also creating a community within it.

AMANDA SWICKLE: Building a community of people who share the same interests and who are like-minded, smart and hardworking, also getting the opportunity to work with my amazing exec group, who are such strong and very smart and driven people, so I’m excited at the opportunity to get to explore and go on this new journey together.

DIYA RAJ: More low commitment, recreational clubs were also featured at the fair. The happiest being NU’s one and only Happiness Club.

Club president and McCormick senior Zachary Gerstenfeld said the club aims to make campus happier, especially during winter quarter as seasonal depression creeps in. From kite flying to brownies and board games, Happiness Club gives its members the opportunity to connect with their peers and engage in a free activity every week.

ZACHARY GERSTENFELD: To me, it’s a place where I met a lot of really good friends and just kind of a fun thing to look forward to each week that just makes my week a little better.

ISABELLA JACOB: The Org Fair also featured a section that highlighted clubs focused on physical activity. Club sports and recreational clubs were included in this section. One recreational club is Girl Gains, which is centered around empowering women to lift at the gym by going as a group.

Weinberg senior Srinija Srinivasan co-founded the club with a friend when she found herself going to the weight section of the gym and was surrounded by no one that looked like her.

SRINIJA SRINIVASAN: And we started this because we both love working out, we love going to the gym, but sometimes we’re uncomfortable going to the weight section because there are definitely a lot of bigger guys there, and we’re pretty small girls, but we want to get stronger, so we just wanted to create a club in a community where women feel empowered to go to the gym and lift weights and not just go right to the treadmills or something.

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DIYA RAJ: From The Daily Northwestern, I’m Diya Raj.

ISABELLA JACOB: And I’m Isabella Jacob. Thanks for listening to another episode of What’s New at NU. This episode was reported and produced by us, Isabella Jacob and Diya Raj.

The Audio Editor of The Daily Northwestern is Anavi Prakash, the Multimedia Managing Editors are Kelley Lu and Jillian Moore and the Editor in Chief is Lily Ogburn.

Our theme music is “He’s Gonna Come and Get You Baby” by Xennial. License: Attribution 4.0 International License.

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