The University of Rhode Island’s Spring Student Organization Fair on Feb. 5 featured over 40 different clubs and organizations, including the Resident Housing Association, URI Lego Club, Student Action for Sustainability and the URI 101 mentoring program.
Allie Brown is a graduate student advisor for the RHA, a new organization that was formed this academic year and is still working on getting a foothold at URI.
“We’re really excited to help unify some of the students and establish another area where students can use their voice if they have something to say,” Brown said.
RHA is looking for students who want to have a say in residential life at the university, as well as help organize events within residence halls, according to Brown. The fair was very exciting for RHA as it was their first large public outreach event for students.
The URI Lego Club is another newer organization that was hoping to attract potential members at the fair. The club started in fall 2023 but did not have established meetings until last semester, according to the club president and third-year student, Drew Babigian.
“We sit around in a room with a big bucket of legos and we build,” Babigian said. “There’s no instruction really, just build whatever you feel like.”
Liam Flemming, second-year student and secretary of the Lego Club, said they did not get much traffic, but the event was a great way to network with other clubs participating. They plan to collaborate with other organizations like the URI Gender and Sexuality Center and the Latin American Student Association.
The Lego club is also putting together a “Pinewood Derby” style race, in which participants build Lego cars and race them along a track, according to Flemming.
The fair took place within the Memorial Union Ballroom. Some club organizers complained that the event was not well advertised.
“The problem is there’s no sign leading into the room,” Jonah Steinweh-Alder, fourth-year student and director of operations at SAS, said. “So no one really knows what’s going on here.”
SAS is a student organization working on multiple environmental initiatives across campus, including composting in the dining halls and the annual Earth Day event on the URI Quad, which brought in over 4,000 attendees last spring according to Steinweh-Adler.
“We are action-based,” Steinweh-Adler said. “We don’t just say it and think ‘oh that’s a good idea,’ we actually say it and we go do it.”
The URI 101 mentoring program also attended and was looking for new applicants for the upcoming fall semester.
Its table had sign-up sheets for students interested in becoming mentors for URI 101 students. Any student who has completed their first semester of their first year is eligible to apply, according to Molly Fitzgerald, second-year student and first-year experience logistics coordinator for the mentor program.
“We’re all working hard to make this program the best it can be,” Fitzgerald said. “So we can recruit awesome people to lead our first year students.”
Students looking to learn more about URI clubs and organizations can visit the URInvolved website.
