To help create connections between military and non-military students, the Student Veterans Organization and the gaming club hosts a game night. PHOTO CREDIT: uri.edu
The Student Veterans Organization (SVO) and the Gaming Club held a gaming night on Friday as a way to create a bond between student veterans and non-military undergraduate students at the University of Rhode Island.
Jeffery Dang, a sophomore pharmacy major, is in charge of event organizing for the Gaming Club. He said that SVO came to them for help organizing the event.
“They wanted to hold a game night and wanted some extra support and since we have a collection of games, with board games and card games, they reached out like three weeks ago to set it up,” Dang said.
The event was fit into two rooms. One had a tournament of people playing “Super Smash Bros Ultimate” on multiple televisions. The other room also had a collection of board games and snacks.
Dang was in charge of making sure the “Super Smash Bros Ultimate” tournament ran smoothly for the people participating.
“I help run brackets and tournaments, making sure that everyone gets matches called in on time,” Dang said.
According to him, this is not something that the Gaming Club does often, and that they have never had a game night with the SVO, to his knowledge.
Tracy Santos, the president of the SVO, said that the organization approached the Gaming Club two weeks prior in order to get prepared.
“We contacted the Gaming Club because we wanted to create student and veteran cohesion and a way of doing that is through games,” Santos said. “I think because they already had a Gaming Club and they had things for us to do, we decided to contact the Gaming Club and get accustomed to the student veterans and the students here on campus.”
Santos said that it was easy to get them involved, as the SVO’s room in the Memorial Union is right next to the Gaming Club’s room. She got in contact with Frankie Annunziato, the president of the Gaming Club and they started coordinating, which went very smoothly, according to her.
She said that the Gaming Club advised them on what games would be easy to set up and play casually. Some games that were at the event included “Uno” and “Sorry,” which were chosen because of their simple appeal and easy accessibility.
Santos said that many veterans feel like outsiders on campus, as they are older than their peers, but she hopes that events like these will help form connections between students, whether they are veterans or not.
“It’s easy, not only in the classroom but just around the University, to feel ostracized and alone because we have had different life experiences and sometimes we feel like the only people we can relate to are other veterans,” Santos said. “What we are trying to do is break those barriers, and show students that we are just like them, and we want them to feel comfortable talking to us even if we are older.”
The SVO hopes to continue to host events similar to this in the future that help them connect with the student body.