One of Wesleyan’s incredible strengths is its student-run extracurricular activities and initiatives. Many prospective students choose Wesleyan because of the over 300 student-run groups that each have a unique purpose, leadership structure, and community. We feel that having a multitude of student-run clubs provides students with opportunities that prime them to become diligent and effective leaders. As empowering as these opportunities can be, they also come with immense responsibility and inevitable conflict that needs to be addressed. This leads us to the pros and cons of student-run clubs. 

As leaders of student-run clubs, we know how rewarding it feels to create the community you want to be in and directly see the change that you are making. Student-run clubs are necessary on college campuses because they allow student leaders to create initiatives and programming that they benefit from and directly experience the change of. For example, being on the Wesleyan Jewish Community board allowed me (Zara) to host and create events that were strongly connected to my Judaism, and I was able to be part of a community that aligned with my Jewish identity. I had the power to foster the kind of community that I wanted to partake in.

This pro has a con counterpart that I (Amari) have experienced while working with the Ujamaa Black Student Union. Although creating your own programming is rewarding and increases engagement amongst students, the downside is that students’ ambitions sometimes outweigh their commitment.

Wesleyan’s lack of institutional memory places the responsibility of passing down a club’s legacy onto the students and thus prevents many organizations from progressing beyond their current state. Students do not always pass on their legacies, and many clubs fizzle out or find themselves rebuilding every couple of years. The Ujamaa Black Student Union has a rich history of activism, social change, and engagement at Wesleyan. Although Wesleyan’s lack of institutional memory has left many of us feeling like we are reinventing the wheel, we commit ourselves to hosting events with long historical traditions, such as Jubilee, and newer programming, such as the Ebony Ball. 

Every board member of the group wants the Black Student Union to live up to its potential and strengthen the Black community at Wesleyan. The caveat is that we are students ourselves, and we get overwhelmed with academic coursework and extracurricular activities just like the students for whom we host programming. Because of this, some initiatives are abandoned or are only successful due to the hard work of a few people. A solution to this problem would be to have more institutional support, but this would take away from the overall rewarding student-run nature of the experience, as Zara said. I propose instituting faculty advisors who help groups learn about their history and ensure that club legacies are successfully passed down to each class. 

Adding on to this point of too much ambition, sometimes students within these clubs don’t realize when they are taking on too much, or they simply feel obligated to help keep the club afloat. This could be mitigated by an adult overseeing the organization. Wanting to take on many different projects within a club is incredibly productive and prolific, but sometimes as college students we bite off more than we can chew. This is why I look towards the adults in my life to advise me on time management and overall wellness. I feel as though student-run clubs run the risk of not having a non-student individual act as this figure.  

We’re grateful for the opportunity to lead and partake in the wide array of student organizations at Wesleyan, although there are many pros and cons of leading student-run clubs. Being student leaders is very rewarding because we know that we are creating a community built on students’ visions. Wesleyan’s student-run clubs have a rich history, and the lack of institutional memory prevents their legacies from prevailing and places an immense responsibility on students. To run a student organization successfully, many leaders find themselves relying on adults and outside resources to help them manage stress, and we feel that more support should be required and provided to students. Therefore, a combination of student leadership and faculty advising is an ideal authority structure for a club at Wesleyan.  

Zara Skolnik is a member of the class of 2026 and can be reached at zskolnik@wesleyan.edu.

Amari Fontes is a member of the class of 2026 and can be reached at afontes@wesleyan.edu.