Activities
Texas A&M has over 800 student organizations, including academic, service, religious, Greek, and common interest organizations. Orientation programs encourage students to become involved in campus activities and organizations from the beginning. An April 2005 campus survey found that 74% of the students were currently involved with at least one organization and that 88% participated in a campus organization in the past.
One of the oldest student organizations is the Singing Cadets, founded in 1893. Known as the "Voice of Aggieland", the Singing Cadets are an all-male choral group with about 70 members not affiliated with the Corps of Cadets. The group travels nationally and has completed several international tours; most recently, South Africa in 2010.
Texas A&M Hillel, the oldest Hillel organization in the United States, was founded in 1920 at the original college. The organization occurred three years before the national Hillel Foundation was organized at University of Illinois.
GLBT Aggies is the descendant organization of Gay Student Services (GSS), the only student organization to ever successfully sue the institution for official recognition. In the decision Gay Student Services v. Texas A&M University the Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals held that the First Amendment required public universities to recognize student organizations aimed at gay students.
The Graduate Student Council, founded in 1995, serves as the student government for Texas A&M University’s graduate and professional students. It is a council representing all TAMU graduate students with a purpose to improve graduate students’ academic, living and social experiences. The GSC represents student’s concerns and is their liaison with the University Administration.
Students exercise at the Student Rec Center, a three-story facility encompassing 373,000 square feet (34,650 m2), which includes exercise equipment, athletic courts, an indoor running track, a rock-climbing tower, and one of the top competitive pools and diving wells in America. The Rec Center also organizes intramural sports throughout the year.
Some national service organizations originated at A&M. Aggie students founded the largest one-day student-run service project in America known as The Big Event. The annual service project allows students to give back to their community by assisting local residents. The organization CARPOOL, a student run, safe ride program has provided over 179,000 free rides (as of January 2011) to Aggies unable to transport themselves home. Its organizers also assist other universities in establishing similar programs. In addition, the Corporation for National and Community Service listed A&M among the 500 academic institutions in the 2005–06 President's Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll.
The Student Government Association (SGA), one of A&M's largest organizations, consists of over 1,300 student members in 3 branches, 15 committees, and 4 commissions. SGA has changed little since 1972, except its relative position within the official framework of the university.
Read more about this topic: MSC Town Hall, Student Life
Famous quotes containing the word activities:
“Both at-home and working mothers can overmeet their mothering responsibilities. In order to justify their jobs, working mothers can overnurture, overconnect with, and overschedule their children into activities and classes. Similarly, some at-home mothers,... can make at- home mothering into a bigger deal than it is, over stimulating, overeducating, and overwhelming their children with purposeful attention.”
—Jean Marzollo (20th century)
“As life developed, I faced each problem as it came along. As my activities and work broadened and reached out, I never tried to shirk. I tried never to evade an issue. When I found I had something to do—I just did it.”
—Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962)
“No culture on earth outside of mid-century suburban America has ever deployed one woman per child without simultaneously assigning her such major productive activities as weaving, farming, gathering, temple maintenance, and tent-building. The reason is that full-time, one-on-one child-raising is not good for women or children.”
—Barbara Ehrenreich (b. 1941)