From Star Wars Club to St. Luke’s Society, the school is home to over a hundred different student-run clubs. These spaces allow students to socialize, connect, learn, and explore their passions.
This year, the ‘Hotchkiss Hub 2.0’ has revamped the system clubs use for organization and communication. The new hub, created with the communication platform Campus Groups, provides a more efficient way for club officers to plan meeting times and contact members and for students to explore extracurricular opportunities on campus.
The original Hotchkiss Hub was first implemented in 2020. With this online venue, club meeting times were scheduled on a spreadsheet, and, once in-person school resumed, communicated through all-school emails.
As a result, inboxes were frequently overwhelmed with emails from the over 100 clubs on campus. Ethan Choi ’26 said, “It was a hassle to keep track of all the emails I was receiving. Often, I would get emails from clubs that I hadn’t even signed up for.”
Mr. Kevin Warenda, director of information technology services, researched multiple different platform options before deciding on Campus Groups. Ms. Marcie Wistar, Director of Student Activities, said that Campus Groups was the best choice because of its variety of tools and features, which include an app, attendance tracking, the ability for clubs to make their own websites, and more. She said, “I hope the new Hub will help to provide students with greater access to information about groups they are interested in joining and help them know when those groups are meeting.”
Commenting on some specific features of the site, Ms. Wistar said, “Soon, I’ll ask groups to take attendance at their meetings and activities through their Hub pages. This will help show the group engagement when we get to the renewal audits later in the year.”
Feedback on the new communication system has mostly been positive. Using the technology, club leaders, Mrs. Wistar, and school administrators can view clubs’ user log-ins, general usage of message features, and track event attendance.
However, some have expressed skepticism that the school is doing enough to educate students on its proper use. Kayla Rosenblum ’24, head of Photo League and Women in STEM, and Senior Advisor of the Creative Writing club, said, “I think the new Hub has the potential to be extremely useful if implemented correctly. However, I think it’s going to require a lot of training for everyone to understand it, and I’m not sure there is a plan for that right now.”
Since its introduction to club leaders, 70 groups have moved to the Hub and begun adding members. 30 have already added an event to the Hub’s calendar.
Henry Shattuck ’25, co-head of the Makers, Astronomy, and Climbing clubs, said, “The Hub is a great way to connect everybody and put things in one easy to access place. I’m very glad this change was implemented.”
