Information on SE groups offered at expo

By Karen Gavis/se news editor

Student organizations sought to increase awareness and participation through the Club Expo Jan. 26 on SE Campus.

“We are thinking about joining this one,” SE student Miranda Wanner said of the Creative Arts Club.

“I’ve been in art class for about three years,” said her friend, SE student Amanda Vu.

Wanner is enrolled in five classes and works two jobs. She said she doesn’t have a lot of extra time but is interested in joining.

About 35 clubs are active on SE, and student development associate Amy Staley said usually a few new groups form each semester. Individual tables sported colorful displays, forms, brochures and candy. Some club members were present to answer questions.

About 11 a.m., the Socio-Psychology Club table had attracted a gathering. Club sponsors are psychology instructor Jose Velarde and sociology instructor Monica Sosa. It meets 1 p.m. Friday in ESEE 1204 and lasts about an hour. Velarde said anyone interested in joining can just show up.

“We do have a sign-in sheet, but we don’t have any dues or anything like that,” he said.

In the past, the group has invited guest speakers, eaten pizza, conducted experiments and provided community service. In one experiment, a sloppily dressed student stood by a car with the hood up. They compared that to a nicely dressed student in the same circumstance. The club members observed that the nicely dressed student received more offers for help than the sweaty and disheveled one, Velarde said. Women were also offered more help.

Last semester, the club held a food drive and took the donations to Cook Children’s Hospital’s Parent Pantry Program in December. The food helps the parents of sick children, and the overwhelming student response was to do something similar this semester, Velarde said.

“We got a tour of the hospital and stuff,” he said, “But the main thing is we took it down there, so they are well stocked.”

Club member Laila Khan, a pre-med student, became a volunteer at Cook after participating in the event.

“I do rounds around the hospital where I actually meet the patients,” she said.

If parents cannot be there, Khan said she is there to be a child’s buddy.

Khan joined the club to be active, get to know people and learn more about psychology, she said.

One of SE’s newer clubs is The Historical Underground, sponsored by history instructors Bradley Borougerdi and Eric Salas. The group recently launched its own newsletter, Notes from the Underground, and a visit to the Dallas Holocaust Museum inspired one club member to create a documentary.

“We like to look at history from a global perspective,” Borougerdi said.

He also said the group will look at cross-cultural connections and history that has been ignored.

“Students really gravitate toward stuff like that,” he said.

In high school, Borougerdi “was barely able to pass history class,” he said. But that was before he fell in love with history. And now, things are different. Teaching, for him, is not about the money, he said.

Borougerdi is especially interested in intercultural transfer, which he described as looking at history from beyond a nation-state and at the way ideas migrate from one country to the next.

“When you do that, you really find out just how connected humanity is,” he said.