 "Photo:")
Redhawks are aware of the positive effects getting involved in on-campus organizations can have on the overall experience at Miami University.
"For the last year we had about 70 percent of the students participating in an organization that is not Greek," said Andrew Ferguson, vice president of student organizations. "If you add the Greeks, it's 85 percent."
With 15 fields of interest, these organizations range from the Accounting Association of Miami to the Roller Hockey Club.
The most popular type of organization is academic with 100 academic organizations. These are followed by Greeks with 52, club sports with 45 and then cultural organizations with 39.
"We have numbers that say over half the people involved in these organizations spend over six hours a week participating in them," Ferguson said. "Last year, there were 110 campus-wide events linked with these organizations and about 80,000 people participated in them."
Explaining the "student involvement theory" at Miami, Ferguson said a direct correlation between how well a student is doing in school and how much they like where they are with their level of activity in organizations exists.
"Student organizations are the perfect balance between the academic and social realm of school," Ferguson said.
J.S. Bragg, assistant director of student activities, works closely with organizations at Miami.
"Most of the students' best memories are from activities that they take part in outside of class," Bragg said.
Bragg said Miami has many cultural and social groups.
"There are so many that I think are great," Bragg said. "I like how our performing arts groups let our students use and show off their talent, whether it's in music, theater, dance, or art."
Bragg said students have a greater academic development if they get involved.
"It's where students find a sense of themselves and a sense of place; it's fun too," Bragg said.
Bragg is also an adviser of the Shriver Center Board, Miami After Dark, the Miami Electronic Gaming Association and the brand new Quidditch Club.
For those who are familiar with the Harry Potter series, the thought of developing the sport of Quidditch into a realistic pasttime may be puzzling. However 250 students showed interest at Mega Fair.
"This is a game where people run around playing," Bragg said. "The 'golden snitch' is a cross country runner who runs all around campus, the 'bludgers' are dodge balls and the 'quaffles' are another type of ball that is thrown into a hoop."
The information meeting for this club is at 8 p.m. Sept. 22 in ART 100.
Other schools in Ohio seem to be on the same boat as Miami in terms of encouraging students to get involved.
"On any given day there are usually 350 different organizations registered," said Ann Addington, administrative associate at Ohio University. "Some may only have a few members while others have hundreds."
In addition to this, Addington said 12 percent of the OU population is involved in Greek life.
"There seems to be a rather high level of involvement here," Addington said.
Kim Hitchcock, administrative secretary at Denison University, said Denison has more than 160 organizations.
"About 40 percent of our students are involved in the Greek system," Hitchcock said. "Intramural sports are the most popular thing to get involved in."
Adam Burden, coordinator of student involvement at Ohio State University (OSU), said in 2008 OSU had 952 registered organizations overall. Burden said more than 3,000 students are involved in Greek Life at OSU.
"Our best estimate is about half the students here - which is 25,000 students or so - are involved in some type of student organization; there's something for everybody," Burden said.
Terry Hurdle, program coordinator at University of Cincinnati (UC), said UC encourages students to find a place at the university through organizations. UC's two most popular organizations are the Colleges Against Cancer and Relay for Life programs.
The complete list of Miami's student organizations can be found at http://www.muasg.com.
