By Rahul Kaul ’12, News Editor

The club scene at Newark Academy this year is fantastic. This “club scene,” of course, comprises the various Newark Academy student-run groups that were initiated just this year.  Members of the NA community can now discuss controversial current issues, write letters to international pen pals or throw Frisbees on the campus lawns, all in a productive manner. With strong student leadership and dedicated faculty mentoring these new and hopeful groups add to the already impressive repertoire of Newark Academy clubs.

Dean of Students Ms. Galvin elucidates how the two biggest challenges in forming a club are finding a faculty advisor and convincing her and the rest of the Newark Academy staff that a club is plausible. Ms.Galvin tells prospective club leaders to answer their own questions about “who, or club membership, what, or club goals, when and where, or meeting locations and how, which deals with the way a club will accomplish its philosophy and goals.” When reviewing an initial club proposition, Ms. Galvin tries to see “if there is a specific reason [a club] cannot work, like a surfing club for insurance reasons.” Generally, a club proposal is viewed by NA staff  and after an advisor, who is given a small monetary supplement, agrees to assist in managing student leaders, a club can theoretically be passed. As for this year’s new clubs:

The founders of NA-Help Darfur Now, one of the many blossoming clubs at the school, aim to educate the community about the current crisis in Darfur and to accordingly take responsible action. Co-President Junior Shane Neibart explains how “fellow Junior Zack Widmann and I were members of a Middle School Darfur club at our old school and [we] had participated in events before so last spring we studied the [Darfur] issue and developed a club proposal, which got passed.” Neibart hopes to teach members about the situation in Sudan, to organize bake sales and trips to rallies and to sell T-Shirts in order to propel the club forward. NA-Help Darfur Now is just one example of a conscientious and appealing Newark Academy student cause.

Africa Initiative, another support-oriented club, hopes to help improve the educational situation in areas of the  African continent. Club Co-President Eliza Huber-Weiss, a sophomore,  emphasizes that “our focus is education in Africa” and she believes that “if we can educate African youth then they can improve their own countries without relying on outside resources,” a noble goal indeed. This past summer, club members individually travelled to Tanzania and to South Africa, home to the Sam Nzima Primary School, the pen-pal sister school to Newark Academy. Huber-Weiss wishes to hold the inter-school relationship for an extended period of time. The club’s focus is to help to form links to a new, self-reliant Africa, one dedicated piece of mail at a time. (Link: A Letter Received by the Africa Initiative)

While members of the Africa Initiative club fly letters off to African youth, members of the burgeoning Frisbee Club fly Frisbees on the school grounds. Most days from 2:30 to 3:30 PM, a horde of NA students, as excited as the Physics teachers who mentor the club, play Frisbee.  Senior Jaxon Gruber, the face of the club, describes how “Spring Term last year, a bunch of Juniors would go out after school and play pickup games of Frisbee. We thought that we might as well make a club but now we will actually be competing against other schools in the area.” After a serious selection process, Gruber eagerly hopes that the “winter Frisbee warriors” of the club will be able to scrimmage against the likes of Chatham High School, Delbarton and Morristown Beard. Clearly, Newark Academy students have the capacity to make even fun and games a productive, challenging experience.

One of the more intellectually oriented new clubs, NA Think Tank meets every week to discuss the latest controversial issues in a regulated setting. Such issues include the planned construction of a mosque in Manhattan, the topic that the club opened with this autumn. Although NA Think Tank was established by current Upperclassmen, Club Vice President Junior Alistair Murray notes that a substantial amount of club members are actually freshmen. Murray believes that advisors Mrs. McNeilly-Anta and Mr. Gertler, along with the well-informed club founders, will help keep the NA Think Tank alive with a flurry of ideas. He also wishes to make clear that the club “is much about discussion, not debate.”

Members of the NA Think Thank might discuss issues using rhetoric and political jargon, but students in the Sign Language and Braille Club communicate in an entirely different language. Sophomore Sararose Nassani, founder of the club, thought of the concept over four years ago. With the help of Vice President Senior Kelsey Mulgrew  and advisor Mr. Scerra, Nassani hopes that members of the club will eventually be able to partake in short conversation in sign language and realize that sign language, like any other language, has its own accompanying culture.

The list of new clubs does not stop there. With new groups like the Asian Diversity Club, the Film & Media Club, the Middle School Mock Trial Club and the Animal Welfare Club, new and returning Newark Academy students are spoiled for choice when it comes to extra-curricular activities. Nearly every student can now pick any card out of the deck of fifty NA clubs and activities without being disappointed. Should students for some reason feel that a cause or way of creatively using time is not expressed in a current club, they can carry on with the NA student tradition of taking matters into their own hands and propose their own club.

As Ms. Galvin summarizes, the clubs add to Newark Academy’s vibrant culture since students “both apply and develop interest and expertise, whether they’re neophytes or experts” on a subject.