Potential supporters for Barack Obama swarmed around a life-sized cardboard cutout of the presumptive Democratic presidential candidate at the Penn State Students for Barack Obama table during the Student Involvement Fair yesterday.
Surrounded, club President Zachary Zabel frantically tried to register students to vote and to sign up volunteers.
"We are trying to get all students registered to vote at school, and we're also signing up kids to volunteer for the campaign," Zabel (sophomore-geography) said.
Students for Barack Obama was one of the 150 clubs featured at the Student Involvement Fair held yesterday, which brought out a "huge turnout," said Jen Grossman-Leopard, the interim program director for new student activities.
The involvement fair will continue until Thursday. It will host representatives from different clubs today, volunteer organizations Wednesday and Greek life Thursday, she said.
The Student Involvement Fair is held twice a year in the HUB-Robeson Center for "new students to get involved and make friends," Grossman-Leopard said.
"The main importance is it gives the new students an opportunity to get involved and the more involved they are the more successful they are in college," Grossman-Leopard said.
There are more than 700 clubs and organizations at Penn State, and the involvement fair features about 150 of them per day of the fair, Grossman-Leopard said. In addition to the political clubs, the fair features a variety of other organizations.
Nittany Nation fan club President George Beatty wanted to "get the word out about when [basketball] student ticket sales are and get more people interested in the basketball games and the Nittany Nation planning."
Nittany Nation includes all the students in the Penn State student section, but the meetings are for people who organize events and lead cheers at the games, Beatty (junior-division of undergraduate studies) said as he handed out VIP cards.
VIP cards allow students buying tickets to enjoy special benefits such as jumping to the front of the line and meeting the players, Beatty said.
The Christian Student Fellowship (CSF) attended the fair "to offer students the opportunity to get involved with something that is very beneficial to them," said club President Zachary Strawn.
Students attending the fair were as varied as the clubs, and included both new students and upperclassmen.
Elizabeth Guest (freshman-telecommunications) said she came to see what clubs were offered on campus.
"I want to get involved from the start. I heard there are a lot of neat things here," Guest said.
Kim Hawk (junior-history), a transfer student from Elizabethtown College, came to the fair to see what Penn State has to offer.
"There's a lot more than I thought," she said. "There are a lot of clubs that help people in the community, and that's what I want to do."
