Summer Welcome promotes involvement

Recruiters aim to attract incoming freshmen and future leaders.

By Kaylen Ralph

Published July 7, 2009

Throughout June and July, the incoming freshman class is being immersed in aspects of MU through the two-day Summer Welcome program. One way this is accomplished is through the student organizations early recruitment at the Mizzou Services Fair.

The program aims to ease the transition freshmen will face. This gives students an opportunity to be exposed to different organizations on campus and possibly make some decisions about which organizations they would like to become involved in.

"I really liked the early recruitment,Ó freshman Sara Smelser said. ÒI've always been very involved at school, so I was excited to learn about opportunities to be involved at Mizzou. It gave me time to go back home and think about and research organizations I might want to be involved in so as to lessen the stress of such decisions once school starts in the fall."

With only a limited time in which to attract students to their informational booths, those organizations recruiting at Summer Welcome need ways to stand out among the various organizations present so students are interested in joining.

"I stopped at tables that I hadn't originally planned on if people made eye contact and looked at me like they had something to say," Smelser said. "They were so ready with information and looked like they were really excited about their jobs and organizations. If I didn't see enthusiasm I moved on to another booth."

Former Sustain Mizzou President Pat Margherio has been working the recruitment booth for his organization all summer. He said Summer Welcome is the best opportunity to reach a large amount of students because theoretically every student will walk past the table.

"This the only opportunity to have a chance to connect with every freshman at Mizzou, even if it is just talking to them for a few seconds," Margherio said.

Margherio said getting people to stop by the table and sign up is important because any student could become the next great volunteer for the organization.

One of the main tenets of Sustain Mizzou's mission is to foster leadership development by encouraging young leaders and having younger members in leadership positions. They are not the only organization to which this is important. STRIPES Director Tanner Tucker has also been working at Summer Welcome and said they have several pages worth of students signed up who are interested in volunteering for STRIPES.

"I would love to see some of the incoming freshmen take on leadership positions and see how wonderful holding a leadership position in STRIPES or any organization can be because it's very rewarding," Tucker said. "If people want to put in the effort we can definitely use them as volunteers and eventually as leaders in our organization."