This was written for the University subject, BCM212.
This proposal for a research project I’m wishing to undertake is centred around investigating just some of the impacts on university student life in relation to their involvement or non-involvement in Clubs and Societies. I’ve decided to choose this as my topic of choice as I find it personally compelling as well as it being an important part of the regular day-to-day events in the life of a typical university student. In addition, the topic provides enough breadth and depth to focus in on a particular aspect of research into these student organisations, which is necessary as it avoids complications with the amount of time and resources spent on too wide a research project. This ability to focus on one or two specific characteristics of Clubs and Societies is evidenced by the vast number of clubs at the University of Wollongong alone, with the amount being in excess of 125 different Clubs and/or Societies (UOW, 2019). The amount of student organisations that exist means that there is a wide sample group to analyse for research purposes as well as being enough choices to choose specific Clubs and Societies for case studies or examples. In addition, this project is both timely and relevant as Clubs and Societies throughout history have evolved with wider public society and indeed pop culture in order to stay relevant to the sensibilities of a modern university student’s interests. This evolution is demonstrated by some of the more “exclusive” societies within the university sector - in particular, the ‘Skull and Bones’ secret society at Yale University founded in 1832 (Sommerlad, 2018) which, with the advent of increasingly numerous feministic movements, allowed women and more ‘ethnically diverse’ patrons into the society - starting in 1992 (Courtney, 2016).Furthermore, prior research into student organisations has indicated that a healthy university “would provide good choice of clubs and societies for students to take part in, to help them feel more involved with the university…” (Holt, Monk, Powell & Dooris, 2015). While the sample group was relatively small for this particular study (11 universities) and the universities that were studied weren’t in Australia (instead, they were either English, Scottish or Welsh), the paper is nonetheless a good starting point for further research as the quote was provided by a psychology student who was studying at one of these universities at the time. The student was a part of one of six focus groups made up of a sample size of 423 students from “a variety of programmes (e.g. Business and Law, Science and Engineering, Education, Health, Psychology and Social Care, Arts, Apparel, Food and Tourism, Humanities, Languages and Social Sciences)…” (Holt, Monk, Powell & Dooris, 2015). The students were also varied in terms of age and years spent studying at their particular university. These students were then asked for their opinions on what a healthy university was like in the form of a survey, and these opinions were then collated into the paper. Considering this research project centres around university student life, the opinions of actual university students are clearly valuable as they provide first-hand experience with various aspects of university life including their experience (or non-experience) with Clubs and/or Societies, and that the engagement with said Clubs and Societies should be more heavily focussed upon and is an issue that needs to be addressed.
As a result of the research emanating from this proposal, therefore, the project will investigate in particular the ways in which further student retention in Clubs and Societies could be achieved. In terms of achievability, this research project will only attempt to investigate only one or two of these possibilities into continued and/or improved student retention in order to minimise potential future problems with research workload. However, if this facet of University Club and Society life still proves to be too large a topic to investigate, another smaller, simpler and narrower topic in the same area will be chosen instead. Lastly, the subject of Clubs and Societies as a research project will provide a chance for reflexivity on a personal level (‘reflexivity’ - meaning the principle that acknowledges that we are merely participants in the world that we are attempting to understand more clearly). Being a second year university student myself, I will be able to determine why I haven’t joined any Clubs or Societies myself and whether that has significantly impacted my enjoyment of university life or not.
References:
Courtney, NJ 2016, ‘The Most Exclusive Student Clubs of the Ivy League’, Town & Country, viewed 10th March 2019, <https://www.townandcountrymag.com/society/money-and-power/news/g2223/ivy-league-clubs/>.
Holt, M, Monk, R, Powell, S & Dooris, M 2015, ‘Student perceptions of a healthy university’, Public Health, vol. 129, no. 6, pp. 674-683.
Home >> Clubs & Societies 2019, University of Wollongong, viewed 10th March 2019, <https://clubs.uow.edu.au/>.
Sommerlad, J 2018, ‘George HW Bush: Who are the Skull and Bones? The Yale secret society with three presidents among its ranks’, The Independent, viewed 10th March 2019, <https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/george-hw-bush-skull-bones-yale-secret-society-us-president-dubya-kerry-a8340596.html>.
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