Investigative: Club Changes
By: Anvi Bhate, Selim Kim, Minseo Kim, Ellie Ana Sperantsas, Andrew Yuan
From online conferences to accommodating teammates’ different time zones, the past year brought many pandemic-related changes to the way clubs function, including a greater adviser presence. Recently, as COVID regulations begin to loosen, clubs look for a return to normalcy. At the same time, many clubs evaluate unexpected boons from the past year.
A few big clubs on campus–MUN, Mock Trial, Daniel Webster Debate Society (DWDS), and Exeter Forensics (EFT)–are navigating their way through and adapting to the changes the pandemic brought, while also reflecting on the influence it’s had on their members and club culture.
During the period of virtual learning, speaking clubs such as Daniel Webster Debate Society (DWDS) and Exeter Forensics (EFT) noted the drastic changes they saw to both the clubs’ culture and operation. “I love debate as a place where you have to talk to people collaboratively. You always ended up having a partner who you had to work with for the next hour and a half, which helped students bond and have fun,” cohead of DWDS and senior Alexandria Westray said. “In virtual learning, we just saw a downtick in attendance. People were always late. People were here because they felt they had to be here and we tried our best to make it fun… but it's almost impossible to have a fun meeting and have things like cookies, food and laughter if you're [on] Zoom,” Westray continued.
Fellow DWDS co-head and senior Cyrus Braden agreed. “Zoom meetings just aren't that successful when it's a verbal club,” Braden said. “So much of [debate] is based on body language and it's really difficult to transition that to an online space in a successful way.”
MUN also faced difficulties in transitioning to virtual meetings. MUN member and upper Sam Creelan explained challenges of online conferences. “I know that I definitely missed a lot of the traditional MUN experience: reading people, influencing people and kind of understanding how people are interacting... Over Zoom, that's definitely harder,” Creelan said. “The first day was definitely challenging just because it was so different. It’s like a total paradigm shift.”
Mock Trial member and upper Val Whitten noted advantages Zoom brought to meetings. “It was really easy to just kind of hop on a Zoom. And even though sometimes you could have appointments and other stuff... we could meet a lot easier than we would on campus where people would meet with teachers and have a bunch of different clubs,” Whitten said.
Despite convenient online meetings, Whitten anticipates in-person meetings and changes moving forward. “I'm really hoping for a lot more in person meetings and a lot more space where you can meet a bunch of people. The only difficulty is capacity limits,” Whitten said. “I'm kind of excited for in-person trials, especially after experiencing so many zoom difficulties and technical difficulties. And I really liked that experience of traveling on a bus somewhere or staying with my team overnight for states and for nationals. I think that would be really fun...I haven't experienced that yet.”
Mock Trial co-head and senior Bona Yoo also speaks on the excitement for in-person club activities. “With the pandemic, I can tell you that a lot of the excitement and community that comes with attending tournaments in-person, going to town for dinner, or having entire-team meetings have been subdued because these simply weren't possibilities last year,” Yoo said. “Mock Trial is a curious and difficult mixture of argument and theatre, neither of which are easy to train virtually. For that reason, I think I can safely speak on behalf of the other coheads that we are thrilled to be going back to in-person workshops and collaboration.”
Braden also noted how the social distancing policies created difficulties in finding spaces to meet. “There aren't that many [rooms] anymore because some of the rooms at EPAC are now being used by [the health department]. Some of the rooms in the Academy Building are just closed. And so when we're looking for practice debates, there just aren't that many rooms, “ Braden said. “We had a bunch of debates last year that were in, for instance... in hallways, we had some in places that are less than ideal because rooms are either locked or the whole buildings are locked.”
As pandemic restrictions loosen up, many co-heads and members hope for a return to normalcy. “All of our tournaments last year were of course virtual, but now we're starting to cycle into a more in-person space, at least for some of the local tournaments,” Braden said. “Beyond a sort of tournament focus, our actual meetings now can be in person, which means that we basically can see [the club] transitioning to essentially what it was before COVID.”
Member of DWDS and upper Ophelia Bentley agreed. “I really hope that we can go to more in-person tournaments. I really hope we keep meeting in-person again because I did miss being able to see people face-to-face,” Bentley said. “I hope that we move from an overly formal kind of relationship between board and advisors and the rest of the club, and between the more advanced debaters and novice debaters, and are able to kind of bridge gap levels between skill and age.”
MUN members also reflected on their club culture. “[Before the pandemic] there was a bigger emphasis on award performance,” Creelan said. “I think one of the things that new co-heads tried to do is emphasize alternative paths of engagement, like these programs where you can just learn about the world, learn about geopolitics without feeling so much pressure to do well at these conferences. I think in general that's a positive shift because we haven't lost our competitive drive... In the past, I know they had issues with DEI... but now I think the curriculum has shifted a lot and it's a much stronger club.”
Creelan speaks about his hopes for MUN moving forward. “I think the club still probably has work to do in terms of building out and being inclusive and, you know, supporting kids interested in talking about geopolitics and interests without necessarily wanting to dominate the competitive landscape. On the flip side of that, we also have to preserve that core competitiveness that has defined the club because I think that's really the sport,” Creelan said. “It's always going to be a challenge to balance those two things... I'll just say that the current co-heads are doing a great job, I think, and it's going to be a great year.”
