by Adam West
I remember reading this book when I was younger titled “Too Many Toys” by David Shannon. The main character, David, has too many toys, which cover the floor and make it impossible to walk through the house. When his mom finally confronts David about the mess, he has a reason to keep many of them. I saw this book floating around my house recently, and it got me thinking about the amount of clubs that Centre has. So, does Centre College have too many clubs?
Last year, over twenty clubs were created, which is crazy to think about. Since there are about seventy five clubs, roughly twenty out of those seventy five were created last year, for about thirty percent of the clubs being brand new. Centre prides itself on having a wide variety of clubs that people can participate in, as well as an active Student Government Association that manages all of these clubs. Centre has both of these things, an SGA that manages everything, and a wide diversity of clubs. However, with roughly seventy-five official clubs, some questions have to be asked, such as: do we really need THAT many clubs?
During spring expo last year and fall expo this year, I got to interview most of the clubs for The Cento, and one of the coolest things that I observed is how passionate people are about their clubs! There’s no club that I got to talk to that I wanted to go away, even the ones I disagree with. Clubs can provide a sense of community on campus, and can bring people together around any kind of topic.
However, there’s only so much money that Centre can allocate to clubs, which means that a lot of clubs got screwed over with funds for this year. This leaves SGA having to manage a growing number of clubs with the same amount of funds (or, recently, even fewer funds). The incoming freshman class was also meant to be a record high (the year before did have a record enrollment), which means that those Freshman came in with new interests that they will want to find their own community for. I don’t know how many clubs will be started this year, but it would mean that the already thin SGA budget would get stretched even further.
Clubs also don’t really “die.” When Covid hit, a lot of clubs either went belly up or went through a dark age of sorts. A good example of this is The Cento, which was not doing really well until new leadership took over and it became what it is today. A lot of clubs saw a resurgence after Covid and became the much more active clubs they are today. Some clubs have to hibernate for any number of reasons for a semester and then can become more active later, such as the Gardening Club when it isn’t really the season to garden. Those factors mean that clubs stick around, and getting rid of one is hard.
College students are busy. Especially Centre students, which means that we have only so much time to dedicate to clubs when there are things such as convocations (which can boost your grade), Greek Life, athletics, and basic hygiene (yes, first years, you do have to keep up with this), not to mention the course load.
There’s also the question of quality versus quantity to ask. The SGA budget is being stretched over more than seventy five clubs, meaning each club only gets so much money. I have ended up on the exec team for two different clubs, and I’ve enjoyed my responsibilities for both. Being able to say that you were on the exec team of a club can look really good on a resume. However, it’s also a time commitment, and can be a major one depending on the role and the club. Due to the time commitment, though, it can mean that you don’t have enough time to dedicate to club responsibilities. With all of that, does Centre College really NEED this many clubs?
In the book, David is convinced to try to donate some of the toys he has, including ones he hasn’t played with as much. However, when his mom is ready to donate the toys, she discovers them in a messy pile on the floor. David had converted the donation box into his new favorite toy. Whether or not the toys actually get donated or not is left up in the air. Does Centre have the same problem as David? Do we have too many clubs? It doesn’t seem like there’s a simple answer to this question, and David Shannon doesn’t provide any answers.