DMACC Clubs – many options available

With most DMACC professors recommending three hours of study time per in class hour, it’s no surprise that students can find themselves easily overwhelmed during the average school year.

Luckily, DMACC offers students opportunities to have fun on campus and enjoy the company of others by taking part in different clubs. You may have been part of a club in high school and the ones offered at DMACC are not much different.

Currently there are over 40 clubs ranging from career-related clubs like Criminal Justice to recreational clubs like Chess Club. All these clubs are open to all people and you need only inquire with one of the club’s advisers to join.

The Chess Club meets in Building 5 on Wednesdays at noon and is visible right when you walk in the front doors of the building.

I first sat down at one of the tables set out for playing chess and observed a match in progress between Marc Brown, the club president, and Lucas Johnson, a first-year student at DMACC.

While the match was being played, someone asked if I wanted to play, and being interested to see how much chess I remembered, I accepted. Needless to say, the match ended with me losing, but I still had fun and remembered some lost techniques. My opponent also helped me analyze my playstyle and how I could improve, which that alone cannot be said for most competitive games.

Marc said the club started when Andy Langager, professor here at DMACC created the club in the fall of 2016, and it quickly gained interest.

I was also pleased to learn about how the club operates, being open to all DMACC students, anyone (such as myself) can come into Building 5 during club hours and sit down to have a quick game of casual chess with a friend or a stranger.

Club adviser Langager said they used funds obtained from the Student Activities Council (SAC), to purchase six chess boards and three timers, all of which lets more people enjoy the game at a time and attract more members.

Having had fun playing with the Chess Club, I wanted to look more into how clubs at DMACC are formed to help explain how easy it is for someone with an interest to start one up.

The prerequisites are fairly simple: the club needs to not already be a duplicate of another club, you need at least five Ankeny DMACC students, have a full-time faculty or staff member be an adviser for the club, and it must be open to all students.

Thereafter, you must fill out a form which can be obtained from the SAC in Building 5 and fill out the paperwork as well as create a constitution for the club. You then turn in both items to Erin Smith, the Coordinator of Student Activities, who will review what you have before it can go through the SAC for approval. Once that is done, you are eligible to receive SAC funding as well as set up an area for your club to meet on campus.

I hope that this information will encourage you the reader to check out some of the clubs around DMACC as well as set up one of your own.