Sophomore human resource major Noah Simpson is planning to bring a new registered student organization, water polo, to campus. As Simpson finishes up the paperwork, he looks forward to bringing the sport to campus. Sophomore business major and co-president of water polo Joe Zeltwanger and freshman anthropology major and treasurer of water polo Jessica Thompson are working with Simpson.
Simpson was an active participant in high school swimming, and after attending Xavier University, he realized how much he missed sports. Simpson soon joined Xavier’s water polo club and quickly realized it was nothing like what he and his swim team played in high school. Simpson transferred to the University of Indianapolis after a semester and a half at Xavier.
Simpson described water polo simply as soccer and wrestling, but in water. Water polo is a seven-on-side game played in the pool with a ball similar to a volleyball. The goal is to throw the ball into the opponent’s net.
The newly formed RSO’s goal is to get all types of people to come participate in the sport while learning about it. According to Simpson, in the future, they hope to compete against other universities.
“We want to go and have fun and compete against other schools,” Simpson said. “We’ve had Dayton, Xavier and some other Master’s teams reach out to us and express interest in playing us, so that’s pretty exciting.”
Simpson worked with the Director of Student Activities Stephanie Barry to get some assistance with the paperwork process.
“She’s fantastic at bringing up any issues that there might be with your paperwork,” Simpson said. “She’s there to help, and she does a really good job.”
Barry also helps students understand the requirements to become an RSO that are established at the beginning of each school year.
“You need to have at least three students that are interested in doing it [forming an RSO],” Barry said. “They also can’t duplicate what a department does or what a current RSO does.”
Once an RSO has been formed, it must put on an on-campus event and participate in or put on a service project. Each RSO must do a mid-year and end-year report. This allows Barry to see what the organization has done all semester. It also allows for a check-in to make sure the group is on track.
Barry said that if someone wants to start an RSO, involving interested students in the process of making the constitution helps. The constitution helps to form the goals and purpose of the group and is the foundation of the RSO. According to Barry, the goals and purpose of the group come out in the developmental stages of forming the RSO, so having multiple people involved brings others ideas to the table and may save time in the long run.
Once a new RSO is formed, it is up to the members to get the groups’ name out there. Barry said new RSOs are announced at the senate meetings, but getting their name out there is really up to the group.
Simpson said he will be getting the water polo club on the board with posters and Facebook posts. For more information on starting an RSO, contact Stephanie Barry at barrys@uindy.edu.
