Student Organizations

Getting involved and creating community on campus is part of the core Emmanuel experience — as many as 85% of Emmanuel College students take part in at least one club or organization, according to Student Affairs. 

Campus life at Emmanuel doesn't just rely on a handful of flagship clubs, either. With dozens of active groups spanning academics, service, athletics, and identity-based communities, involvement is the norm on campus.

They don't always have fewer, despite the difference in the size of the student body, and the clubs and organizations are often more accessible at a smaller college. A larger university might have more clubs in absolute number, but a small college like Emmanuel tends to offer an easier path from "interested" to "member" to "leader."

If a club doesn't already exist to fit a student's interest on campus, Emmanuel College has a defined process to help students start one. It begins with a proposal outlining the group's purpose and a plan for recruiting members, submitted through Engage, Emmanuel's student organization platform. Full requirements and current approval steps are outlined on Emmanuel's "Starting a New Organization" page, since specifics like minimum member counts and advisor requirements are set by Student Affairs and can change from year to year.

Because relationships that make a campus feel like home form both inside and outside of the classroom. At Emmanuel College, 84% of seniors say they feel part of the community — a share Institutional Research reports as higher than both the national average and peer institutions — and involvement in clubs and organizations is one of the main channels students point to when they discuss finding their place at Emmanuel.

Emmanuel College students have access to two separate layers of student organizations: clubs run directly through Emmanuel, and a wider set of Colleges of the Fenway (COF) student organizations open to students across the COF consortium's member schools. Explore the COF's offerings to find more student groups ranging from creative arts to service and sustainability.

Emmanuel College fields 18 NCAA Division III varsity teams, each requiring tryouts and a full competitive season commitment. Club sports are a separate, lower-commitment path organized through the same student-organization system as Emmanuel's academic and service clubs — no tryouts, more flexible scheduling, and open to any interested student.