Clubs Find New Life in Distance Learning

Since Northwest Academy shifted to distance learning, clubs have changed from faculty-led to student-led, allowing more unique ideas to come to fruition and allowing club leaders to provide creative activities outside of the school curriculum.

In previous years, clubs were mandatory meetings led by faculty members that would meet when convenient during lunch events. Sometimes, months would pass without a club meeting.

Simone Coker-Kamna, the school’s community engagement and high school activities director, helped create student-led clubs and feels that they will both increase interest and give students more influence.

“I think we always knew that the mandatory, advisor-led clubs were not the most exciting to a lot of students, so distance-learning felt like a good way to test that theory,” Coker-Kamna said. “We felt that student-led clubs would both empower students to start or join clubs they were actually interested in and also feel excited about going to those club meetings.”

Mary Wamsley and Lily Brooks, two seniors at Northwest Academy, founded the Social Club to keep their peers connected.

“We really wanted to have a club where people could just come together and catch up,” Wamsley said. “We acknowledge the fact that a lot of kids are not leaving their houses much or maybe don’t have siblings and are not getting those social interactions that they used to, so that’s where the idea for our club came from. Lily and I were very adamant about not having serious conversations, just because there’s so much bad energy in the world and we wanted to distract from that.”

Meanwhile, juniors Mazie Drummond and Jamie Mack, do want to have serious conversations and their Social Issues Club provides a space for students to discuss everything from politics to climate change.

“Hopefully [in the future] we can do in-person actions, make things together, and continue our conversations with the greater school community,” Drummond said. “With Social Issues Club, there will always be something to be done, and always an action to take whether in-person or online.”

For those looking for artistic escape, Liam Thrailkill, a senior, started a Photography Club.

“I wasn’t able to fit a photography class in my schedule this year, but I still wanted to photograph with friends and talk through what I was working on, so I decided to start a club for anyone else who felt the same,” Thrailkill said. “Clubs were always an expectation and not a choice, so because they’re not mandatory this year there’s definitely lower attendance overall, but the people who do come are there because they genuinely want to be, and I think that’s something special about this year compared to previous years.”

But what about clubs for people interested in computer science? Manu Klein, a sophomore, started the Programming Club to fill in the lack of a class.

“I didn’t really like clubs last year because they met so infrequently,” Klein said. “Now I feel like I can meet with my club frequently enough to get things done. When school is in-person I think it will be a lot easier to troubleshoot problems, but it will probably be harder to find times to meet.”

McCune McCormack, a senior, saw a deficit in athletic options at Northwest Academy, and started the Outdoors club.

“I feel like our community is lacking an outdoor adventure and activities club to build good experiences in the outdoors,” McCormack said. “I feel like [clubs] don’t work out due to our school’s parameters on club meetings. I also think that expectations for clubs were met at first, but then dissolved into a less fun thing where people check out and did their own thing. I feel like being able to schedule meeting times has made this much easier and made the whole club run smoother.”

When school is back in-person, McCormack said the club might venture into areas outside of Portland like Mt. Hood, Hood River or Bend and try to do outdoor activities.

Coker-Kamna envisions clubs continuing to be student-led when distance learning ends.

“Students being able to meet on their own time without the mandatory aspect seems to be the biggest thing that’s working,” Coker-Kamna said. “The students who felt that they could lead stepped up to do so and they are doing great! Some students aren’t showing up/responding to their club leaders, but I do think that this is something that will change over time as students get used to this format, should we move forward with it in future years.”

Other clubs include ASL Club, Dog Meet-up Club, Food Club, Minecraft Club, Horror Film & Media Club, Animal Crossing Club, Crafting Club, Tea Drinking Club, Dungeons and Dragons Club, Discord Club and the Space, Astronomy & Philosophy Club.