As summer comes to a close and fall term begins, this time is a great opportunity to explore the different activities offered on campus. There are many ways to get involved on campus and student groups are a great outlet that can provide that full university experience. With so many student groups on campus, it can be difficult finding the right one. Here are some organizations to get involved in.

Asian and Pacific American Student Union: Members represent Asian and Pacific Islander students at the University of Oregon campus, as well as fight for social and political equality. General meetings: Wednesdays at 5 p.m. in the Multicultural Center. Location: EMU 18P.

Black Student Union: This organization host and sponsor different events on campus that serve the entire UO community. It hopes to provide skills and minority empowerment to its members and UO staff. The club promotes cultural awareness and works with other organizations. General meetings: Wednesdays at 6 p.m. in the Mills Center. Find them on Facebook at University of Oregon: Black Student Union.

Kultura Pilipinas: For co-director Luis Palomar, KP is more than just a student organization. It’s a place that he can meet people, talk with friends, share common interests and interact with students of similar backgrounds. “I think it’s important for students to get involved with student groups because the experience is completely different,” Palomar said. “Whether you’re in KP or a different organization, it just enhances your experience at the UO.” Palomar’s mission for KP: Teach students about the Filipino/Filipino American culture and identity. Aside from hosting general meetings, KP also offers fundraisers throughout the year and works with Lane Community Filipino Association, putting events on such as their culture night. “My main goal is to keep KP going in terms of members,” Palomar said. “We definitely want to keep KP going and let students know there is a Filipino presence at the UO.”

MEChA de UO: Internal director Mayra Gutierrez has been involved with MEChA since her freshman year. It’s an environment where students can get involved with the community. “Getting involved with a student group you’re able to help the community and get away from campus,” Gutierrez said. “We have our mentor program, Ganas, where we mentor middle schoolers. It’s a great feeling to know you’re helping your community.” MEChA also offers conference at the state and national level such as their Raza Unida Youth Conference in the spring. You will also experience retreats, collaborating with other groups like BSU, Chicano explosion where they put together talent shows or movie screenings as a member. “We also focus on our advocacy agenda where we raise awareness on social and political issues that marginalized groups face,” Gutierrez said.

Vietnamese Student Association: This organization promotes Vietnamese culture and awareness through campus and serves as a social hub. The VSA will celebrate their 25th anniversary this upcoming year. Events include Pho night, fall term reception, Lunar year and beach retreats. “We hope to build a strong membership and keep putting on successful events for the public,” media coordinator Thuc Vinh said.

Follow Yuliana Barrales on Twitter @YulianaBarrales

With a year full of events, members leaving halfway through the year, and maintaining strong leadership, the International Student Association was able to hurl over barriers and end the year with pride. Like all groups there are always ups and downs, but as an organization and family, ISA reflects back on the year as a year to remember and looks forward to the future years ahead.

ISA is a student group that strives to bringing cultural awareness on campus through various events. ISA worked this year to bridge the gap between domestic and international students through the various events it hosted this year from iParty and International Week to its biggest event of the year, International Night.

As an organization that includes many international students, ISA primarily focused on forming a relationship among all students, and it hopes to form bonds with other groups on campus next year.

“We would love to work with the MCC and get a sense of culture,” ISA president Sandra Benny said. “We definitely would like to become an umbrella for different groups and become a resource for them. We have some good ideas that we would like to try.”

For various students in ISA it means more than just being involved in a group — it means sharing similar interests with others and forming bonds as well as teaching students about their cultures and coming together as one.

“ISA means family,” ISA vice president Ina Song said. “It’s a group of passionate people from different cities and countries that gather together and work with each other to reach the same goal. ISA is the place where I can always go to when I’m sad or happy because I know they will always support me.”

This year ISA was able to host various events and showcase different aspects of ISA. ISA hosted Social Butterfly in the fall where it welcomed students to the new year, Thanksgiving dinner to international students who didn’t have plans for Thanksgiving, International week and its weekly coffee hour session. With much planning ISA was able to get a lot of students involved in its events and strengthened its presence on campus.

“We had a great year compared to last year,” ISA fundraising coordinator Luca Lin said. “We had some great success this year and it was because of all the people involved in ISA. We had charismatic characters and had a perfect combination of international and domestic students. ISA had great sponsorship, we built our website, Facebook page and our publicity got us very known.”

As the end of the year approaches ISA has been generating ideas for next year on how it can strengthen ties between other groups and continue success as a group. Some ways ISA will be able to accomplish this is by offering and creating new positions as well as reaching out to student groups. ISA hopes to build more relationship with other groups and create new friends along the way.

“Next year we would like to build a strong international community through collaboration and charity events,” Song said.

Leaders have been elected and results are in. Student groups like the Vietnamese Student Association and Kultura Pilipinas welcome new leaders. While MEChA de University of Oregon gears up for elections. These student groups welcome VSA co-directors Ngan Luu and Thuy Ann Nguyen, KP co-director Luis Palomar, and MEChA’s internal director candidate Mayra Gutierrez.

VSA co-director Ngan Luu

Major: Human Physiology

Why did you decide to run for co-director?

“I’ve been involved in a lot of different things in VSA and I want to help it grow. Also as an international student I want to help with the different perspectives of being an international student and Vietnamese American student.”

Why did you join VSA?

“I was involved in the Lunar New Year event and working with the people reminded me of where I come from. I wanted to be a part of something and VSA offered that.”

What is your favorite movie?

“I love Disney movies. My favorite Disney movie is Cinderella.”

VSA co-director Thuy Ann Nguyen

Major: Accounting

What can you bring to VSA as a co-director?

“Definitely as co-director my partner and myself want to bring a balance between the aspects of international vietnamese students and vietnamese american students. We want to bring those two perspectives and bring unity.”

What was your reaction when you found out you got the position?

I was really happy it took me awhile to run for co-director. It was great to see people vote for me and believe in me.  I look forward to working with my new team.

What do you like to do for fun?

“I’m pretty girly. I like to shop, read, go to museums and I love outdoor water rafting. I love any form of art and hanging out with my girls.”

Kultura-Philipinas co-director: Luis Palomar

Major: Accounting

Why did you run for co-director?

“I was really involved as an intern and junior executive. I did a lot of work for the fundraisers and went to every meeting. I showed that I was committed to KP. I also gained personal growth in my Filipino identity.”

As a co-director what would you like to see next year?

“I want to focus more on culture night and the regional conference. Also to make a better connection with the Pilipino American Association of Lane County and work with them.”

What is your favorite movie?

“Easy A.“

MEChA candidate for internal director: Mayra Gutierrez

Major: Ethnic studies, sociology, and spanish  

What position(s) have you had before?

“This year I was Raza Unida Youth Conference director and the year before I was Mujeres director.”

If elected what vision do you see next year?

“Having more on campus activities for members and create a better bond within the group. Also to work more closely with the Black Student Union and create a better relationship with them.”

Why are you running for internal director?

“I feel like I have good organization skills and I’ve been involved long enough that I have good experience. I have good ideas to bring to MEChA.”

A year ago the current freshmen class of the UO was wrapping up its senior year of high school and gearing up for graduation. Now, as most of campus anxiously awaits summer, the first year of college is already over.

Part of the first year experience for many is living in the residence halls and being partnered with roommates. Often, it’s their first time living away from home and getting out of their comfort zones, but that’s all part of being a freshman. For some, living in the residence halls was a fantastic experience.

“I loved living in LLC. I’m a little upset that I’m moving out,” freshman Sara Ilanit said. “I love having food so close and it was nice to live in the center of campus and be able to walk everywhere in a short amount of time.”

Living in the dorms, freshmen get the advantage of being able to scan their I.D. cards to buy food. On campus, freshmen are provided with an array of different dining options, from Hamilton’s Big Mouth Burrito to Carson’s all you can eat buffet. But after months of eating the same food, some get tired of the dorm food experience.

“I loved the food. It was really good and I would have a lot of rollover points,” freshman Susanna Jung said. “Towards spring term I got tired of eating the dorm food and now sometimes I go off campus but with that I have even more rollover points.”

When starting college, many freshmen do not know many people. For Jung, joining Fraternity and Sorority Life was a good way to meet other students. Being part of FSL wasn’t her intention coming to college, but she is happy that she decided to rush.

“My roommate told me about it and encouraged me to rush with her,” Jung said. “It gave me the opportunity to meet a lot of nice people. In all honesty it’s a once in a lifetime opportunity. I mean when else are you going to be able to have this opportunity in your life besides college?”

Freshmen learn to adapt to taking fun classes and exploring their interests. They also must learn to adjust to the idea of buying text books every term.

“My recommendation is renting textbooks or buying them online,” Ilanit said. “It’s a lot cheaper and there’s no need to buy textbooks unless you’re taking a language — then you should. Otherwise you’re just going to end up selling them.”

As the year winds down and freshmen look forward to next year, some have advice for the incoming freshmen class.

“If you live in the dorms make sure to get to know the people in your hall and try to get involved in different clubs,” freshman Taylor Barnhart said. “Enjoy the freedom.”

It was an eventful year for various student groups on campus from philanthropic fundraisers, to inspiring conferences, to the ultimate dazzling culture nights, it’s no doubt this was a great year for student groups hosting various events all throughout the year. For many, it was an opportunity to welcome students and for others it was a chance to give back to the community.

For one particular group, this year was an opportunity for bringing ideas and events to campus. Kultura Pilipinas worked hard this year to put together various events and educate students about the group’s mission. One particular event that Kultura Pilipinas was very fond of was its Spaghetti Dinner Feed last fall. Kultura Pilipinas created this event to fundraise for Typhoon Haiyan and collect relief funds to support those affected by it.

The second biggest event of the year for Kultura Pilipinas was the Pilipino Culture Night this spring that took form as a game show “Laro Tayo, let’s play!” This event included authentic Pilipino cuisine, comedic skits, games and a performance by JR Aquino, contestant from “The Voice.” It was a year to remember, and Kultura Pilipinas looks forward to next year and becoming bigger and better.

“Our culture night was a success. We exceeded our expectations,” 2014-15 Kultura Pilipinas co-director Luis Palomar said. “It ran smoothly and I would definitely say that culture night was my favorite event this year. I was the MC for both culture night and the spaghetti dinner, and I had a lot of fun.”

Like all groups, making an impression on campus is a huge deal, especially if the student group is new. This year, one new group was able to bring students together with its various events. The Students Activities and Resource Center was able to create new traditions and hopes to continue them in the following years.

SARC was able to offer students Ducks After Dark, partner with PitCrew on the Matthew Knight Classic basketball tournament, homecoming in the fall, Mallard Madness and the spring carnival. SARC had a lot planned this year and with a couple delays due to the move in Mac Court, SARC still worked around those issues and have successful events.

“This year went really well, we had some great events and made a lot of students happy,” SARC coordinator Mandy Chong said. “The spring carnival was the first carnival on campus and it turned out to be more popular than we thought. We anticipated it to be a big event and got double of the participation we expected. We will continue to support all the events we were part of and hope to make long lasting traditions.”

It was a busy year for MEChA, the Chicano Student Union, accomplishing various events this year such as Dia de Los Muertos, Ganas, middle school tutor program and the Raza Unida Youth Conference, a high school conference that brings students from across Oregon to campus and hosts various workshops.

“My favorite event was Dia de los Muertos last November,” MEChA co-director Ricky Salinas said. “I remember feeling intimidated when I was about to step on stage and someone said there was over 400 attendees.”

Members of the Graduate Teaching Fellows Federation and its sympathizers took to Johnson Hall Friday afternoon to rally as contract negotiations between the union and the University of Oregon administration began to plunge into disarray.

Culminating after a week of voting, in which union members authorized a strike for fall term, GTFF members squatted in the lobby of Johnson Hall from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. as part of a union-wide work-in then took the lawn with pickets and chants for changes at the bargaining table. Union members, some of whom joined just this week in order to vote, okayed the strike with 98 percent voting yes.

“I think it’s been successful,” said Matthew Hannah, a fifth-year Ph.d student in the English department. “We’ve never seen strike authorization numbers like these as GTFs before. Ever.”

If talks between the two sides continue to deteriorate and they reach an impasse, the state requires 15 days of state-run mediation followed by a month-long cooling off period. Considering about 1,000 graduate assistants won’t even be in Eugene this summer, union leaders want to hold off until they’re at full strength at the start of the 2014-15 school year.

GTFs crowded the main level of the administration’s house for three hours, grading assignments and doing their own homework. Mock traffic signs were printed and hung around entryways calling for improvements to their previous contract, which ran out March 31. The GTFF are still obligated to work until a strike or a new contract is ratified. At around 1 p.m., graduate assistants crowded around the hedged ‘O’ on the lawn and chanted at the administration.

“The work of graduate students and GTFs in particular is important and the activities inside and outside of Johnson Hall were fine by our standards,” university spokeswoman Julie Brown said. “They weren’t blocking any entrances and everyone was very respectful.”

Disagreements in the bargaining room remain. The union called for a vote after the May 14 bargaining session in which the university team ended early and cancelled the next day’s meeting.

“There’s this attitude that somehow we are charity cases when in reality what we do allows them to have this number of students. What we do allows them for admissions,” said Brianna Bertoglio, an operations officer with the union. “You can’t teach thousands and thousands of students at a particular time as you add more and more students. You can’t do any of that without an army of GTFs who provide a third of classroom hours.”

In response to the vote, the university’s bargaining team wrote a statement saying that it is “disappointing that the Graduate Teaching Fellows Federation organized a strike vote this week while the teams are still at the table working toward an agreement.” Friday afternoon’s session saw the administration’s team glance off the protests and focus solely on non-financial topics. The GTFF bargaining team maintains that the organization’s chief points are to receive a cost-of-living bump in take-home pay, better vision and dental benefits, and changes to the paid leave structure.

The GTFF is currently asking for a 5.5 percent annual pay bump, but the administration is countering with 3 percent. Coupled with disputes over health insurance, tuition paid leave, the university and the GTFF have no current plans to return to the table to discuss anything with any price tags attached.

The saying goes that college can be the best four years of your life. While making memories with friends and enjoying the life of a college kid — college also makes leaders.

Several students at the UO balanced leadership positions during their senior year, while also keeping on track with their academics.

Asian Pacific American Student Association director, Roseanna Ling feared that APASU could fall this year, but despite the contemplation, APASU managed to surpass the challenges.

Ling gained a variety of members that joined APASU’s spring retreat and building unity for the group by providing different perspectives to events and creating an alliance with OSU’s APASU program.

“I believe that to have a successful student group teamwork is needed,” Ling said. “I personally do not have a strong leadership — my leadership style is using my team’s strengths to get the job done. So teamwork is what is really needed because without it nothing is able to be accomplished.”

After graduation Ling plans to stay another year at the UO and attend the UO Teach program.

Godwin Nwando, Black Student Union co-director, found there are always ups and downs, but with dedication the team can move forward.

As a dedicated ROTC cadet and leader, Nwando managed to balance his academics with his BSU schedule. This year, Nwando wished he had better communication with his team and also wished he would have emphasized the meaning of BSU more to the union.

“A student group is no stronger than the member of the union,” Nwando said. “You can’t have a great union without people who care — that is the biggest thing about BSU. It’s making the connections and helping move great stories for BSU members. It’s the staff and our members that make us strong and all in all this was a successful year.”

Nwando’s post graduation plans include studying for the MCAT, applying for medical school, training as second Lieutenant and later attending graduate school.

Similar to Nwando, MEChA internal director Ricky Salinas worked around his busy schedule as internal director for MEChA and held the co-director position for the middle school tutoring program, Ganas.

Salinas felt that holding two positions tested his ability to support both organizations; although, at times it was difficult to give his full attention to both organizations and maintain a balance between the two.

Salinas is most proud of the active involvement members have given to MEChA and its increase in members. Last spring Salinas remembers the membership was on a decline and made it his goal to attract students to join MEChA.

“All groups and organizations need strong leadership,” Salinas said. “Leadership looks different within each group and for MEChA — it’s about communicating with members and facilitating discussions.”

After graduation Salinas will be doing an internship in Israel.

Beginning May 25 Beatriz Gutierrez will take office as the new ASUO president. The transition has included current president Sam Dotters-Katz preparing Gutierrez for the position with having weekly meetings to go over different aspects of the job. This includes day-to-day tasks, such as going over the email and networking process, as well as what her responsibilities will be.

As Dotters-Katz is preparing to step down he looks back on his experience and couldn’t be more proud.

“I’m really proud of the dedicated staff that I had this year,” Dotters-Katz said.

With Gutierrez preparing to take office Dotters-Katz has been impressed with Gutierrez’s enthusiasm and her willingness to learn and believes she will do well in serving the student body.

Gutierrez was not available for comment at the time of publication.

The opportunity to provide hope for young Chinese children with broken hearts is one of the many missions that the University of Oregon Chinese Philanthropic Leadership Association strives towards.

Members of this organization seek different service projects and apply skills from the U.S. to China. One of the ways to obtain funding for projects is through fundraisers.

The university recently hosted one of the first events, The Voice UO.

The Voice UO was the first of its kind, and CPLA hopes to make this event annual.

The top ten singers of campus performed on May 18 in the EMU Ballroom. It was also an opportunity for students to learn what CPLA is and about their purpose.

While audiences enjoyed the performances of the night, CPLA also had a successful fundraiser, on their biggest service project yet.

“The event was a singing competition where we welcomed all the students and the community,” Shu, the vice president of External Xiaolei, said. “It was also an opportunity to fundraise our biggest project, Spread the Love. We believe that our members that contribute in various service projects take what they learn and apply it back to China.”

Spread the Love, is a project that takes members from CPLA to help influence the lives of those in China and give them a reason to see beyond the limits they may encounter.

Particularly, Spread the Love members work with children and take them beyond their village to let them see the big cities in China. Members hope that by working with children and providing love and support, they can influence the children to build dreams and enrich their knowledge of the outside world.

“I’m new to this organization and Spread the Love will be my first project to help out in,” CPLA program group member Zixiong Yin said. “Charity is a good thing and this organization gave me an opportunity to furthermore help the lives of others. I was impressed with last years project and I wanted to be part of it. I hope that on this project I can build leadership and no one really knows what it’s like and I want to experience it myself.”

By the end of the night the winner of the competition was Sasha Rawlinson, followed by Zuo Yue and Xinxin Zheng.

“We hope that audiences enjoyed the show and that they got a sense of what we do,” CPLA President Qian Wu said. “We planned this last term and it was a complete random idea. We believe this was a great opportunity and we hope to bring that back and continue to spread our work through our projects.”

Whether it was attending various workshops or hearing key note speakers senior Joel Iboa remembers being among the 400 high school students that attended the Raza Unida Youth Conference hosted by the University of Oregon and MEChA. He remembers being advised by his high school counselor to attend this conference and learn about the various things. Now Iboa is proud to host his very own workshops in the conference that taught him a lot and influenced him to attend the UO.

“The focus of this conference is to provide students (Latinos) an opportunity to visit a college campus,” Iboa said, “To high school students who perhaps have never stepped a foot on a campus before.”

May 13 marked the 10th annual year of the RUYC and welcomed 260 high school students on campus. In the past the conference welcomed anywhere between 400 to 500 high school students, but due to the EMU construction the number of high students admitted had to be reduced. RUYC is an all day event that brings together various Latino high school students all throughout the state of Oregon.

Iboa believes that the RUYC provides essential information to students and much of what is taught in these workshops students aren’t learning in high school. He believes showing them the various resources that high school students have available to them helps.

“Most schools don’t stress to students about the importance of taking the SATs or telling them about priority dates,” Iboa said. “A lot of students don’t know how to approach it and we hope that when students attend this conference we can plant a seed and motivate students. We can show them that there are students who are similar to them.”

At the conference Iboa’s workshops focused on a session of ‘Know Your Rights.’ At these workshops students learned about their rights as individuals and how they can manage situations that involve the law enforcement. For example he talked about various issues as well like immigration in Oregon and what rights illegal immigrants have.

“We don’t assume that students are undocumented but we assume that they at least know someone who is,” Iboa said.

While the conference’s big focus is on the high school students it’s also an opportunity for current and past Mechistas to come together and chime in together and support a big event like the RUYC.

RUYC coordinator Kimberly Mejia was one of the two in charge of coordinating the conference, and this year was her fist time planning it.

“I want to impact the students and make a difference in their lives,” Mejia said. “A lot of the things they are being exposed to I wasn’t exposed to and we want to provide the resources and knowledge. We want them to know si se puede (you can do it) and overcome obstacles.”

MEChA recruit and retention Julia Martinez-Plancarte looks forward to the high school students being on campus.

“I’m excited to see the students and show them that higher education is a must,” Martinez-Plancarte said.