Simpson recently introduced a new club called PLACE geared towards learning what it is to be human and how to get in touch with our ideal selves.

PLACE is an acronym which stands for Peace, Love, And Cooperative Enlightenment. The club answers questions we have about ourselves through identity exploration workshops, intentional development concepts, guest speakers and more.

Senior Lexi Johnston created the PLACE club and talked about the journey of making the club official.

“I had the idea this year around January or February and I brought it to Amy Kennel who’s a TRIO advisor. I explained to her that I had this idea of what I wanted to bring to my peers here. I wanted to give them a space to explore less academic things about themselves.”

The registration was finalized in the summer before attending Org Fest this fall.

“To me, it’s a space where we can put our humanity and authenticity first. In college, a lot of times, we exist as students first and can forget we are young adults developing into people who we do or do not want to be. We’re not learning how to write an essay, we’re learning how we want to exist in the world,” Johnston said

The PLACE club meets every other Wednesday, with their next meeting being on Oct. 5. They meet at 4 p.m. in the Flemming Room in Kent next to Millie’s. Johnston said there are a lot of exciting activities coming up in future meetings.

“On Oct. 12, we’ll be in the meditation room with Colin [guest speaker]. He’s going to speak to us about useful fiction, which is a really cool concept. What I’d like to do around finals time is do tabling and/or a meeting focused on reminding ourselves we are more than a grade.”

Senior Marissa Dorr said she initially decided to join the club because of the advisor but also enjoyed the first meeting.

“The club does a lot of things for self-reflection and trying to better yourself, which I really liked, “ Dorr said. “The values of inner reflection and trying to change yourself for the better is very important to being a human, and less so of being a student.”

Dorr said the PLACE club is a great way to meet people and help the transition to college life.

“One thing that the club definitely does is give you friends and a little support system. We start off by saying names and getting to know each other individually. By the time you leave after an hour, you really know the people.”

The club also offers free snacks, and they are creating a playlist of songs picked by the members to be played at meetings. Make sure to catch their next meeting on Oct. 5 at 4 p.m.