Welcome to the Fall 2011 semester at UWM. Whether this is your first semester at our university or you are finishing up your last few credits, there is so much you can do at UWM beyond attending classes and studying for your next exam. Finding ways to get involved with UWM will make your college experience more valuable and rewarding.

Learning about great campus activities to attend and organizations to join can be as easy as reading the flyers posted next to elevators or in campus common spaces. If you want to see a more detailed list of what’s available, I encourage you to stop by the Center for Student Involvement (Union 363) or spend time on its website (www4.uwm.edu/sao/).

The Center for Student Involvement recently added to its site PantherSync (panthersync.uwm.edu), whose purpose is to make locating and joining organizations of interest much easier. You can review the entire list of 300+ student organizations or narrow your search by categories like professional, cultural, academic, recreational, social action or religious.

There are plenty of informal ways to get involved at UWM, too. In your classes, you are sure to meet members of the university’s NCAA Division I athletic teams. Our teams, as you probably know, will be defending several conference championships won during the past year. They always need more fans in the stands, and using your student ID card to get into events for free is another good way to get involved.

The student ID also gets you into the excellent recreational facilities at the Pavilion. There are a wide variety of activities available in the gymnasiums, workout rooms and swimming pool. A visit to the Recreation Sports and Facilities website (www4.uwm.edu/recsports/) will give you good insights into what is available.

Keeping busy throughout your time at UWM is important. Although many students already hold full- and part-time jobs while attending classes, other students can find that getting a part-time campus job helps them become organized, meet new friends and make money to pay for those concerts, sporting events and other attractions that can be found throughout Greater Milwaukee.

One last suggestion I’ll offer for getting involved at UWM is to join an academic research project. As Wisconsin’s second largest university, our academic research programs are constantly expanding. And research programs are not just for masters and doctoral students. In recent years, we created the Office of Undergraduate Research (our.uwm.edu) so undergraduates could get involved in academic research much earlier in the college careers.

Regardless of which manner of involvement you choose, I hope you will find at least one more way to get involved at UWM this semester. More involvement means more opportunity to get the most out of your college experience.