Anyone looking for something fun to do on campus should check out the newly established gaming club. The gaming club will be a high bread club, playing both table-top games as well as video games.
A student at Eureka, Emma Hall, stated that she founded the gaming club to provide a fun and accessible activity for students, contributing to the clubs currently on campus.
The current goal of the game club is to build a community that enjoys games of all kinds. The first steps to achieve this goal is to increase student interest and to eventually have a consistent schedule.
“The tabletop meetings and the video game meetings could be very infrequent. They don’t even have to meet every month. It’s just trying to bring that community together,” Hall said.
Hall recounted the journey of starting the game club. Over the summer, Hall reached out to the Director of Student Engagement, Pammy Levinson, to start the process of creating the club. Levinson directed Hall to start writing the by-laws and constitution of the club. Emailing back and forth they were able to revise and rework the constitution to fit the needs of the club and Eureka College. By the end of the summer, Hall had her final draft and was ready to present it to the student senate. After getting approved, the Game club had its first meeting in September.
Anyone interested in starting their own club, joining the list of other clubs on campus, Hall highly recommended starting the process over the summer. It gave her the time to really think about what she wanted the club to look like and how she wanted it to function.
The Dean of Students, Dr. Prince Robertson believes the game club will fill a need here at Eureka College. He would love to see students use the Terrill Rooms or the Gammon room to have a Super Smash Bros tournament. Dr. Robertson sincerely believes that the club will provide students a place to join in “carefree engagement”.
Hall agrees with his sentiment. “A lot of students complaining that there is not a lot to do on campus. It is a small town. I personally know there’s not a whole lot a heck to do. If it’s just, we meet for certain games, certain times of the month, or whatever. At least it would give kids something to do and something to look forward to,” Hall said.
The long-term goal for Eureka’s game club is to build up to competing in the Esports leagues. The vision is to gain student interest and join Esports. The hope is that being a part of an Esports league will bring Eureka more students to Eureka College. Dr. Robertson stated this plan to join an Esports league is “Promising”, but something that is not likely to happen for quite a few years.
Why a game club? Hall and Dr. Robertson believes the game club brings something needed to Eureka. Providing an activity that is accessible and flexible for students.
The schedule for the game club is currently up in the air. Hall’s plan at the moment is to host 3 meetings a month. One meeting will be dedicated to tabletop games and Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) for any students to attend. Online gamers will also be meeting once a month. The last meeting for the month is when the officers of the game club.
Hall hopes that the club can get more students to come to the meeting in October that will happen sometime between the 12th-16th. The meeting will be open to all.
If anyone is interested in learning more about the game club, the meeting in October, or to join the game club they can get in contact with Emma Hall by texting 309-296-8110 or emailing her at ehall25@eureka.edu.
