Students interested in joining a social club that attend officer open house this Saturday, September 1, will be met by Harding University\u2019s newest men\u2019s social club, Theta.<\/p>\n
Theta\u2019s formation was spearheaded by juniors Cayde Newton and Grady Moore, both former members of men\u2019s social club Knights. According to Newton, he and Moore enjoyed their time in Knights but felt disillusioned by a pattern they felt was present in all of Harding\u2019s existing social clubs.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe felt like, with other guys\u2019 clubs and the one that we were in, the end goal \u2026 was, \u2018If you\u2019re in Knights, the best thing you can do is be a good Knight. If you\u2019re in another guy\u2019s club, the best thing you can do is be a good \u2018blank\u2019,\u2019\u201d Newton said. \u201cWe didn\u2019t feel like the emphasis, or goal, was, \u2018Be a good guy.\u2019 Everything was, \u2018Be the best version of this archetype that you can be.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Newton, Theta\u2019s president, said the idea to create a new social club began as a joke between he and Moore, one of Theta\u2019s two vice presidents, but after discussing it further with other students, they realized many of their friends were excited about the idea of a social club without archetypal pressures. Throughout the spring semester and summer, Newton and Moore worked with Kara Abston, assistant dean of students, to make their social club a reality.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople became interested, and that\u2019s the first time that it felt surreal,\u201d Newton said. \u201cWe had this idea, and other people gave validity to it, which is not something that we were expecting.\u201d<\/p>\n
With Abston\u2019s assistance, Newton and Moore developed Theta\u2019s name \u2014 the origin of which Newton said he would prefer remain a mystery \u2014 wrote Theta\u2019s constitution and enlisted two sponsors: John White, youth minister at Westside Church of Christ, and Dr. Heath Carpenter, assistant professor of English. Carpenter said he admired the goals Newton and the other charter members had set for Theta and agreed to participate.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a bit of a brave thing to do, to put yourself out there and try something new and not just go with what\u2019s the norm and what\u2019s expected. I appreciated that,\u201d Carpenter said.<\/p>\n
Like other social clubs, Theta plans to participate in club sports, queen, host functions and wear \u201cTheta blue\u201d on Fridays. However, Newton said he believes the club will stand out because of the unique mentality of its 19 charter members.
\n\u201cWhat Theta offers is a \u2026 truly diverse group of people who are all working towards being good guys over being a good fit for anything,\u201d Newton said. \u201cThere are incredibly artistic people in Theta, there are incredibly academic people in Theta, there are incredibly athletic people in Theta, there are incredibly spiritual people in Theta. More than that, everyone is accepted.\u201d<\/p>\n
According to Abston, Harding does not have a limit on the number of social clubs that are able to exist at one time. New social clubs are given approval on a case-by-case basis. Abston said she is looking forward to watching Theta integrate itself into Harding\u2019s social club culture.<\/p>\n
\u201cTheir excitement is contagious, \u2026 and it\u2019s a neat feeling to see those that want to be associated and be a part of it,\u201d Abston said.<\/p>\n
Men\u2019s social club Lambda Chi Theta formed in 2014 and most recently precedes Theta. With the addition of Theta, Harding now hosts 15 men\u2019s and 15 women\u2019s social clubs, all of which will be present at officer open house on Saturday, Sept. 1 from 1 to 3 p.m. on the Front Lawn.<\/p>\n
\u201cTheta started from us seeing a need, but not really knowing how to put it into words, and it came to fill that need in a way that we were not at all expecting,\u201d Newton said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Students interested in joining a social club that attend officer open house this Saturday, September 1, will be met by Harding University\u2019s newest men\u2019s social club, Theta. Theta\u2019s formation was…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15099,"featured_media":11064,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[173,172,171],"class_list":["post-11063","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-features","tag-harding-university","tag-social-club","tag-theta"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11063","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15099"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11063"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11063\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11140,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11063\/revisions\/11140"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11064"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11063"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11063"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11063"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}