Eight new clubs have been approved by ASB for the Fall 2021 Semester and have been added to the now total of ninety-nine clubs at UHS. These clubs are the Ancient Greek Language Club, Fashion With A Passion Club, Remote Control Car Club, BT4US Dancer Club, STEAM for All Club, Scientastic Club, Helping Seniors Club, and Talent Share Club.

The number of new clubs that applied for approval in the fall semester is greater than that of last year, likely due to the return of fully in-person instruction increasing the productivity of clubs.

Senior and Clubs Commissioner Quinlan Tobin has set new standards for incoming clubs and a stricter creation process for incoming clubs. 

“Alongside digital form submissions, I added polls to the Google form to collect data on how many clubs would be interested in participating in each event and free response questions for the new clubs in order to minimize and speed up the many many potential interviews,” Tobin said. 

With this year being the first fully in person year since the 2018-2019 school year, demand for clubs and students eager to create a new one caused Tobin to implement firmer requirements to create a club.

“Very few new clubs were automatically approved. A portion were later interviewed, and the majority were denied. 37 new clubs applied, which is about 30% more than the average year. Nearly all denied clubs were because they were too similar to an already existing club or because their goals did not line up with what Uni can offer or allow it’s clubs to easily do. 11 new clubs were admitted,” Tobin said. 

Talent Share’s president, junior Edward Jung, shares his intent for the creation of the new club:

“Seeing the passionate and diverse community of students at Uni, I decided to expand my impact by starting TalentShare, a nonprofit club at University High to inspire kids in at-risk neighborhoods to find their passion and dream during the pandemic,” said Jung.

New members can get the opportunity to help underprivileged children within the community as well as mentoring and volunteer experience according to the UHS TalentShare Instagram page.

“Overall, the club creation process went smoothly for TalentShare. Although I do think the process was more rigorous than previous years, it allowed me to consider new ideas and perspectives for TalentShare,” said Jung. 

Another of the eight new clubs is the Remote Control Car Club created by co-presidents juniors Azam Ahmed and Arvin Motamedi. 

“We had been participating in a hydrogen powered rc car competition beforehand and wanted to make this a club to recruit more students. This club is a place for people who like to work on a team to achieve a goal and to have fun. Our goal is to represent UNI at the international event,” Azam said.

Especially following the year of the pandemic, the new clubs at UHS allow for all students to pursue a variety of interests as well as getting them back into interacting with a group of people setting goals and sharing ideas.

The Ancient Greek Language Club is another new addition to UHS created by junior Andrew Bota. 

“Ancient Greek is a language full of complexity and beauty. Unfortunately, students lack access to this tongue, so I wanted to spread my knowledge and provide my peers with opportunities to learn while surrounded by their friends,” said Bota. 

Bota shares his club creation experience for the Ancient Greek Language Club. 

“As I have attempted to create a new club before and have held club board positions since freshman year, I was familiar with the club formation process, which made it run rather smoothly,” says Bota in response to the club creation process. 

These new clubs, along with Fashion With A Passion, BT4US Dancer, STEAM for All, Scientatstic, and Helping Seniors, are open to any student at UHS and give students a chance to be a part of something they are passionate about. 

Students can visit uhsasb.com/clubs as well as the various Instagram accounts specific to each club for more information. There will also be a Club Kick Off on October 22nd to give University High students a chance to learn and interact with the clubs.