CHESTER, S.D. — Homecoming brought joy to Betsy Daniel this fall, when classmates chose her as homecoming queen. A similar scene played out this month in New Mexico, where students erupted in cheers when a classmate with special needs was named homecoming king. In Lawrence, Kan., a boy with Down syndrome is on the homecoming court after classmates went to administrators and demanded his name be on the ballot. The king and queen at that school, Free State High, will be crowned Friday . “It’s really amazing to see because there was a time when they were never even invited to go to prom, so to be the king or queen is just phenomenal,” says Kirsten Seckler, a spokesperson for the Special Olympics . Under federal law, students with special needs have the right to be in the same classes as the rest of the students, to the maximum extent possible, says Frances Duff, a teacher at Cibola High School in Albuquerque. As that has happened, and students with special needs become more integrated into the school culture, “they’re no longer seen as different,” Duff says. “There’s a climate of acceptance and enjoying each other,” says Duff, who has seen this first-hand at Cibola, where students with special needs have been chosen homecoming king twice in the past couple of years. A student with autism, Luke Sachs, was named Cibola High homecoming king in 2008, Duff says. Then, James Keefner, who has Down syndrome, was named homecoming king this fall. “I thought the gym was going to implode because of all the cheering and the stomping of the feet,” Duff recalls. “It was really joyous. It was quite a celebration.” Seckler says activities such as sports have led to more friendships. Special-needs students “start to feel accepted and included in their society and in schools, and their confidence grows and they excel,” she says. In the South Dakota prairie town of Chester, Daniel walked the high school hallways with a sparkling tiara and a grin from ear to ear during homecoming festivities earlier this month. Classmates say her smile and outgoing attitude earned her this year’s title because Daniel, who has Down syndrome, is everything a homecoming queen should be. It punctuated a homecoming week that has brought unity to the community, joy to the queen and her parents, and hope to the families that know Daniel through Special Olympics. “The tears of happiness just keep coming,” says her mother, Connie Daniel. “I’m overwhelmed that the community and the school would do that for her.” At Free State High in Lawrence, some friends of Owen Phariss were telling their classmates to vote for him. When the ballots were distributed, they noticed that Phariss — who has Down syndrome — was left off, says his mother, Nancy Holmes. So they began a petition, and collected 800 signatures to get his name on the ballot, she says. School administrators decided to hold a second vote — this time with Phariss’ name on the ballot — and he was elected to the homecoming court. Holmes says many students have gotten to know her son because she’s always tried to keep him in regular classes with everyone else. “I’ve done that since he was born,” she says. “Even in preschool, I just fought for it and I got it.” Now, he could be named homecoming king Friday. “He’s so pumped,” Holmes says. “And it won’t surprise me if he does win.”

The gender gap among college majors once dominated by men is narrowing, and younger generations of women account for nearly half of science and business graduates, a USA TODAY analysis of new Census data shows. In 2009, about 47% of science and engineering degree holders ages 25 to 39 were women, compared with 21% among those 65 and older. For business majors, about 48% of younger graduates were female — more than double that of older generations. MAP: Participation in 2010 Census FULL COVERAGE: Census 2010 VIDEO: 10 strange facts about the Census The data, released Tuesday in the government’s annual American Community Survey, come as women this year for the first time outnumbered men in the nation’s workforce of 130 million. “Larger percentages of these professions are attracting women,” says Betty Shanahan, executive director of the Society of Women Engineers. But, she says, disparities persist among strictly engineering majors, where more than four in five are men. In the sciences, women account for a majority of graduates in psychology and the biological sciences, 2007 data from the National Science Foundation show, but trail in engineering and computer science, around 18% of both majors. “Girls see (engineering) as a very ‘white male’ profession, which it is, and they don’t get messages about how they can balance their personal lives and a very exciting career,” Shanahan says. This Census tallied, for the first time, the number of bachelor’s degrees among women and men 25 years or older. Among all majors counted — humanities, business, education, science and engineering — women under 40 had greater parity among men when compared with older generations of Americans. Still, gender pay inequities persist in the workforce: Among full-time workers in 2009, the new Census data show a woman’s median earnings were roughly 78% of a man’s ($35,549 compared with $45,485). Newer Labor Department figures from the second quarter of 2010 show women earned about 83% of a man’s median weekly wage. Overall, the new Census data show more Americans are earning college degrees, a likely byproduct of the recession. Those with a bachelor’s degree or higher rose from 27% in 2006 to almost 28% in 2009.

PUEBLO, Colo. — At 8:28 a.m., the cafeteria ladies of Centennial High School take up positions in the second-floor hallway, just outside closed classroom doors. Each woman is pushing a cart loaded with milk, juice, whole-wheat doughnuts and individual packages of Cocoa Puffs and Lucky Charms cereal. When science teacher Sue Aronofsky opens the door of her classroom, kids stream into the hallway. “You go around, you get your stuff, and you tell the lady thank you,” she says. Students eat at their desks as announcements drone from the public-address system. After a brief pause to pledge allegiance to the U.S. flag and toss empty milk cartons, Aronofsky’s freshmen turn to examining pill bugs under magnifying glasses. Time: 8:45 a.m. The same scene occurs all over the 1,034-student school. Last year, when Centennial served free breakfast in the cafeteria each morning before the start of classes, fewer than 100 students showed up to eat daily. On this morning four days into the new year, with breakfast delivered to classrooms, 864 students have been fed. That many children eating school breakfast is rare. Although the number of hungry children in the U.S. is rising, fewer than half of the kids who could be eating a free or low-cost breakfast at school are getting one. TRAFFIC: Cities opt for creative commuter options COACHING: Qualified students aim higher ‘DROPOUT FACTORIES’: Program fights truancy at young age BACKYARD COTTAGES: Extra income in Seattle In Pueblo, school officials take a counterintuitive approach: They offer free breakfast to all children regardless of income, so no one is embarrassed to be eating it. In most schools here, breakfast is served right in the classrooms. As a result, 76% of Pueblo’s needy kids eat school breakfast. That’s more than any state and almost every big city, according to the Food Research and Action Center (FRAC), which tracks participation in school meal programs. Now, states such as Colorado and Florida, anti-hunger groups and congressional lawmakers from both parties are pushing schools to follow programs such as Centennial’s — an effort not only to improve students’ performance in school but to combat rising hunger in tough economic times. The number of U.S. households that can’t consistently put food on the table rose to 17 million, or 14.6%, in 2008, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture , the highest level in a decade. The use of food stamps is at an all-time high, and so is the percentage of children receiving free or reduced-price school meals, which rose from 59.3% in 2007 to 62.5% in 2009. DELINQUENTS: For D.C., hope in treating young offenders SOLAR CITY: Toledo reinvents itself as a solar-power innovator STAYING FREE: Unlikely mentors give felons hope The low number of needy kids eating breakfast at school “is a tremendous concern,” says Gary Davis, founder of the Got Breakfast? Foundation, which gives schools grants to increase breakfast participation. “It’s a message that really has to be heard: that there’s just a simple way that we can improve our society.” The cost of school breakfast for needy kids, such as the cost of their lunches, is eligible for federal reimbursement. Most U.S. schools — 86% — offer it. But of the nearly 19 million children who eat a free or reduced-price lunch at school, only 8.8 million also come for breakfast, according to FRAC. Efforts to change this are underway: •In Colorado, where only 39% of needy kids eat a school breakfast, Democratic Gov. Bob Ritter launched an effort in July to get school districts to increase participation in breakfast with the help of Share Our Strength, a national advocacy group that fights childhood hunger. •In Florida, a new law this year requires free breakfast in all schools where 80% of the students are eligible for free or reduced-price meals. •In Congress, renewal of the Child Nutrition Act would allow start-up grants for universal free breakfast programs. The bill also would make it easier for high-need schools to serve universal meals by allowing more ways for schools to make kids eligible for free and low-cost meals. The renewal, postponed from 2009, passed the Senate in August with $4.5 billion in increased funding. A version with $8 billion in additional funding awaits action in the House. The current law expires Sept. 30. “There are just a lot of kids whose families are not going to be able to supply all their meals for them,” says Bill Shore, co-founder of Share Our Strength. “The impact (on hunger) of adding 50,000 kids to the school breakfast program dwarfs anything else we could do.” ‘It’s the right thing to do’ In Pueblo — a city of 103,000 that is 104 miles south of Denver — 72% of schoolchildren qualify for free and reduced-price meals. Under U.S. Department of Agriculture guidelines, a family of four with an annual income of less than $40,793 can receive school meals at a reduced price of no more than 30 cents. A family of four with income less than $28,665 is eligible for free school meals. But in Pueblo, breakfast is served free to everyone in all 38 schools. In 24 schools, children are served breakfast in the classroom or, if the food carts can’t be hauled upstairs, kids grab breakfast at the front door on their way to class. Jill Kidd, Pueblo’s nutrition services director, started serving breakfast in class in 1998 in four of the district’s poorest schools, and she has been expanding the classroom breakfast program ever since. “It’s simple,” she says. “And it’s the right thing to do for kids.” Pueblo serves a burrito, French toast or other hot breakfast four times a week, and offers cereal every day, including an unsweetened variety such as Cheerios. (Centennial students got only sweet cereals the first week this school year because adding the school to the in-class breakfast program initially stretched district supplies, Kidd says.) Cheyenne Roque, 15, a freshman at Centennial, grabbed the high-fiber doughnut from the breakfast cart. Her mother works at a craft supply store and her dad at a discount store. The family includes three kids, her grandmother and uncle. Food stamps help the family make it through the month, but school breakfast and lunch make the groceries at home go further. “That’s why we have more food at home, because we eat breakfast and lunch at school,” she says. Removing the stigma Getting more kids to eat breakfast at school is key to achieving President Obama’s campaign pledge to end childhood hunger by 2015, according to groups such as Share Our Strength and Feeding America, a food bank network. The best way to do so, they say, is with a program like Centennial’s that feeds rich and poor kids alike. In a 2001 U.S. Department of Agriculture pilot program in 79 schools, offering free breakfast to all kids in the cafeteria increased the number of students who ate breakfast in school from 19% to 28%. At schools that served free breakfast in the classroom, participation rose to 65%. Feeding free breakfast to students who can afford to pay avoids the stigma for students who can’t but don’t want everyone to know. Serving breakfast in class means kids don’t have to get there early to be fed, Kidd and other school nutrition directors say. Bus schedules, parents’ work schedules, and, for high school students, the desire to sleep as late as possible make getting to school early for breakfast difficult. Andrea Ayala, 28, an unemployed single mom of four, grew up in Pueblo eating breakfast at school when it was for poor kids only. She and her four siblings “always had to go to the cafeteria and be there before school. … My mom made us,” Ayala says. Now her four kids eat breakfast at school along with everyone else, she says: “They see everybody else getting what they’re getting.” Feeding more children breakfast is an easy pitch to budget-squeezed school districts because if enough of their kids are eligible for low- or no-cost meals, federal reimbursement can cover the cost of the entire program. The more breakfasts they serve, the more federal reimbursement they get and the greater economy of scale they enjoy. The USDA spent $12.7 billion on school breakfast and lunch last year. Reimbursement to schools for breakfast range from 26 cents for a child who pays full price to $1.74 for a free breakfast in a high-poverty school. More than half of all students in Pueblo eat breakfast at school. The program pays for itself and doesn’t require any money from the district, Kidd says. “We aren’t asking taxpayers to feed every kid a free breakfast at school,” says Courtney Smith, director of Share Our Strength’s No Kid Hungry program. “We are saying that in very high-need areas, a way to effectively provide breakfast at school is through a universal breakfast program.” Part of an education In Pueblo, Kidd has converted schools to free in-class breakfast one principal at a time. Administrative reluctance is typically the biggest obstacle to classroom breakfast, its proponents say. Since the federal No Child Left Behind law made performance on state tests critical to schools, the pressure to maximize class time is intense. “As a principal, you have to guard instruction time,” says Tharyn Mulberry, Centennial’s principal. When he first mentioned classroom breakfast, his faculty “did not like it,” he says. “They did not want the disruption of it.” First, Kidd arranged to serve breakfast in class last year on the days when Centennial students took the all-important state assessment tests. Then she told Mulberry, “If it’s good for test days, it’s good for every day.” Studies indicate that children learn better when they aren’t hungry. Kids who eat breakfast right before taking tests score higher than kids who ate hours before. Results of pilot programs in the city of Milwaukee, statewide in Maryland and elsewhere show that serving breakfast in class results in less tardiness, less disruptive behavior and fewer visits to the nurse. “We’re a little obsessive about it at this point,” Kidd says. She has pitched one principal on the idea of in-class breakfast so many times — without success — “if I mention it again, he’s going to kill me.” At Park View Elementary, on Pueblo’s east side, where all 418 students qualify for free or reduced-price meals, breakfast is served only in the cafeteria, not the classroom. “I don’t feel that that truly is the best use of the instruction part of the day,” Principal Shiela Perez says. “By the time that it’s been delivered, by the time they’ve been given the opportunity to eat and everything’s been cleared up, that can drag out … into 45 minutes of the day.” Instead, children must arrive by 7:40 a.m. to eat, 20 minutes before class begins. A little more than one-third of the students — 37% — eat breakfast at school. “If they walk in at 7:55 they’re not going to get turned away,” Perez says. “We’re just trying to encourage them to get here.” Like it or not, making sure children get fed has become central to schools’ mission. Feeding hungry kids “is a given. We’re in many cases the biggest social support for our children,” says Stephanie Garcia, president of the Pueblo school board. “This is a necessary part of the educational process.” For Kidd, the next step in helping hungry children is to move beyond the school day. Like other schools, Pueblo has a program that sends bags of food home with needy kids on Friday to get them through the weekend. Kidd would like to add an after-school supper program, and start farmers markets at schools located in “food deserts,” neighborhoods without food stores. She is also now in charge of the 10% of Pueblo students who are homeless. It’s a job Kidd feels highlights the difference a school can make in a kid’s life, especially if it comes with decent meals. “We’re the safe time in their day. We’re the good time in their day,” she says. “If we can feed them and love them, maybe we can make the other 16 hours more tolerable.”

PHILADELPHIA — Duong Nghe Ly can’t wait to begin his senior year at South Philadelphia High School. A day of violence there last year changed his life, and he wants to learn if his school has been transformed as well. Last Dec. 3, after years of attacks on Asian immigrant students, something finally snapped. Fueled by rumors, a group of students roamed the halls searching for Asian victims until one was attacked in a classroom. Later, about 70 students stormed the cafeteria, where several Asians were beaten. About 35 students pushed past a police officer onto the so-called “Asian floor,” but were turned back. After school, Asians being escorted home were attacked anyway by a mob of youths. Almost all the attackers were black — but few observers believe the violence was due to racial hatred. Instead, they cite isolation of different groups within the school, certain students’ warped “gangster” values, and for some, simmering resentments over perceived benefits for Asian students. About 30 Asians were injured that day; seven went to hospitals. Past attacks had been reported to administrators and police, but students say nothing seemed to change. Ly (pronounced LEE) was in the lunchroom for what he calls “the riot.” Days later, he was followed home from school and punched in the face on his front stoop. He had arrived from Vietnam two years earlier, speaking nearly no English, the son of poor, uneducated parents. He thought America would be like the Hannah Montana TV episodes he had watched in Vietnam. What he found was closer to The Wire . So he kept his head down, sought silent refuge among his countrymen and tried to make his way through the broken system. Dec. 3 was a turning point. He realized the system must change — and that he and his fellow immigrants were the ones to make that happen. Their method? Guided by local activists, and despite reservations from some parents, about 50 Asian students boycotted school for a week. “Before, I was timid. I didn’t really want to get myself into trouble,” says Ly, 18. Then he realized, “If everybody’s silent, nobody speaks up, the problem keeps going on without being resolved. I feel like I or my friends have to speak up and organize to tell people this is not right. “We had to fight for it.” ‘Just suffer it’ Duong Ly’s parents, ethnic Chinese who grew up in Vietnam, worked 27 years to grasp the bottom rung of the ladder to American success. His mother, Phung Mac, attended school through the second grade, when her family ran out of money to pay for more. His father, Tu Ly, made it through the sixth grade. In 1981, they submitted their first paperwork to immigrate to the United States. “You had to have a certain background to go to school, be in the Communist Party,” Tu Ly says in Cantonese as his son translates. “Your grandparents had to be a party member for you to get into good schools. Otherwise it cost a lot of money to get an education.” Ly’s parents lived in Ho Chi Minh City, eking out a living selling “pho” noodle soup, rising at 5 a.m. and working in their shop until 9 or 10 at night. All extra money went toward school for Duong (pronounced YUHNG) and his older brother, and fees for immigration paperwork. At times they could not pay their rent and were forced to move, but they always made sure their boys stayed in school. Ly’s mother developed painful hip problems. Her younger brother, who had already moved to America, sent money to pay for an operation. It was unsuccessful — the doctor said it was “an experiment. If you want a better … operation, you need to pay more money,” she says in Cantonese. In 2008, after spending about $20,000 on immigration fees, the family was approved and came to Philadelphia. “We finally achieved our wish: freedom,” Tu Ly says. “We finally had a chance for a better education.” South Philadelphia High looms over an entire city block in a poor section of South Philadelphia long populated by descendants of voyagers from Italy, other European nations and the black American South. Asians and Latinos are now coming in greater numbers. Today, the school is about 70% black and 18% Asian. During Duong Ly’s first year, there were 45 reports of “dangerous incidents” such as weapons possession or assaults at the school of about 1,000 students, enough to earn a “persistently dangerous” label from the state. There also were 326 reports of lesser crimes such as fighting, threats or robberies. The graduation rate was 48%. Only 16% of students were proficient or better in reading and 8% in math, according to state test results. Within weeks of starting school, Ly was robbed in the bathroom. His older brother was punched in the face. “Our friends told us, ‘Just suffer it,’” Ly says. They didn’t report either incident. ‘Discrimination happens’ Duong Ly speaks dispassionately, expressing no racial animosity, when asked to explain how fellow students could commit such vicious attacks. “Because they live in a violent environment,” he suggests. “Maybe their parents have problems and troubles, so they want to express their anger by violence.” His father also declines to condemn the attackers. “In Vietnam,” he says, “the original Vietnamese people don’t like us because we are a different ethnicity. People from the countryside who move to the city get discrimination from city people. It’s the same here. They don’t have an understanding about who we are. Discrimination happens in every society.” About a dozen black students were suspended or expelled after Dec. 3. Their names have been kept secret, and they have not commented publicly. Some other black students show little sympathy for them. “They’re just hating on other races. They don’t have anything better to do with their lives,” says Tyreke Williams, who graduated last June. Wali Smith makes no excuses for the attacks, but understands where they come from. A community specialist who holds workshops on anger management and conflict resolution in various schools, he witnessed the Dec. 3 violence. The South Philly native says blacks have always felt marginalized in the neighborhood dominated by Italians and Irish. Now, some students feel an almost unconscious resentment when they see their Asian counterparts studying on their special second-floor sanctuary, which was established to provide language programs and provide a more welcoming environment. “Those (black) kids feel the majority of the staff there does not care about their education,” Smith says. “They see these Asian kids come in and be nurtured, and they want that same kind of comfort.” Then there is a small group of troublemakers with a value system that says, “it’s cool to be gangster,” Smith says. “But really you’re afraid, a scared coward. So you take advantage of weak people.” “It’s not based on race, it’s based on opportunity,” Smith said of the history of violence against Asians. “If they go to the bathroom and take your money, and you don’t report it, they’ll just keep riding it until the wheels fall off.” School, community and beyond The Asian students and activists reserve almost all of their criticism for administrators and the school district, which they say consistently failed to protect students. A school district spokesman did not return a call for comment. Administrators have insisted that they responded to Asian students’ complaints and tried their best to combat violence that has become part of the culture for some Philadelphia youths. “These problems are long-standing and go beyond the school and into the community,” district superintendent Arlene Ackerman said a week after the attacks. A report by a retired judge, which was commissioned by the district, said there were confrontations between a small group of black and Asian students on Dec. 2 that led to the widespread Dec. 3 attacks on random Asians. The report was criticized by Asians who say it failed to account for years of documented violence and that investigators did not interview many student victims and witnesses. Yet Duong Ly is still enthusiastic about his school. He says the English as a Second Language program is good, the teachers care, there are plenty of computers with Internet access — and it’s all free. “If I study hard I will get a lot of opportunities, scholarships, grants…,” he says. “It’s rewarding to work hard and study hard here, more than in Vietnam. I can go to a better school, go to college, get a career, then I can take care of my parents. So I like it more here.” He also likes his new home, a narrow, two-story row house bought from his uncle. They are the only Asians on the block. The front door opens into the living room, where the family’s bicycles (they have no car) share space with an old, fat television, couches and a folding table for meals. On the far wall is a handsome curio cabinet of polished wood, ornately carved, holding photographs of ancestors. Tu Ly works as a cook in an Asian supermarket. His wife is unemployed. The family has permanent resident status and expects to become naturalized citizens within a few years. Recently, Medicaid paid for a hip replacement for Duong’s mother. “We owe this country a lot,” Tu Ly says. “The government paid a lot of money for my wife’s operation. We will work our best to contribute to society. My children can choose whatever job they like, as long as they do something to contribute to this country.” New initiatives The boycott was not an easy step to take. Some students were afraid of being expelled. Many parents were against it, fearing their children would become even more conspicuous targets. Some said local activists were making the situation worse. Once it started, though, attitudes changed. “After the boycott, I felt much more confident and powerful because our voices were heard by the people,” Duong Ly says. The district installed 126 security cameras. A “50-50 club” took Asian and black students on group outings. More bilingual staffers and diversity training were added. Principal LaGreta Brown was forced out on the eve of a faculty no-confidence vote after a local newspaper discovered her certification had lapsed. All eyes are on the incoming principal. Otis Hackney III is 37, a black Philadelphia native, fresh from two years as principal of a mostly white suburban high school. He got the call from Philly one night when he was standing on the sidelines of his school stadium, watching a lacrosse game under the lights. “My first thought was, you’ve got to be kidding me,” Hackney says during an interview in his new office, the cinderblock walls bare except for a picture of the singing legend Marian Anderson , class of 1921. Soon, though, Hackney accepted the challenge. His immediate agenda includes building a relationship with the Asian community and creating a group of school stakeholders who meet regularly to set goals. Hackney says all students should feel comfortable approaching him: “I want to listen more than I speak. Students are often much more honest than adults.” He bought a new conference table and spiffed up a room for community meetings: “The message is, this is an important place where we talk about important things.” He’s getting Asians out of their special floor and into the rest of the building. He’s looking at United Nations-style translation headphones for immigrant parents. He is the fifth principal in six years, and he wants to stick around. There is much to heal. The Vietnamese embassy has complained to the U.S. State Department. The Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund filed a complaint with the Justice Department, which on August 27 found merit in the claims and advised the district to settle the matter. An investigation by the state Human Rights Commission is pending. The dynamic that exploded on Dec. 3 has not disappeared. “If you’re that angry and frustrated about something that your behavior manifests itself that way, what are we not addressing as a school, as a community?” asks Hackney. “As African-Americans, we can’t forget our own struggle to the point that we become what we fought so hard against.” “That’s one side. The other side is, when you have an immigrant population that comes in, what are the skill sets they need to function in this society? It can be very difficult for that child and that family to function in schools. So how do you put all that together? That’s my job. “Part of it is getting people to see the human side in every person, identifying with their struggle. Once people begin to do that, you realize folks aren’t as privileged as you think they are. They don’t speak the language. They don’t have that many advantages over you. You’re just not taking advantage of the ones you have.” Hope ahead? Duong Ly had a busy summer: An internship at the University of Pennsylvania on Asian health issues; a psychology class at a community college; trips to conferences in Houston and Boston to discuss his new activism; being photographed for a Philadelphia magazine story that labeled the boycotters “heroes.” In between, he spent a little time working on his college essays and a lot of time on Facebook . On Wednesday, he will walk through the battered metal doors of South Philadelphia High to start his senior year at what he hopes is a changed school. “I’m really looking forward to it,” he says. Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Want to feed squirrels, transform into a zombie or use science to whip up bacon-flavored cotton candy? Forget chess club. College students today are attracted to clubs with activities that are more innovative — maybe even downright wacky. College experts say students who participate in extracurricular activities are more engaged in the college experience, and benefits can be seen both in and outside the classroom. Students who participate in co-curricular activities study more, have higher GPAs and are more satisfied with their social lives, says Kevin Kruger of the National Association of Student Personnel Administrators. DISTANCE EDUCATION: Students form clubs online STUDENT ENGAGEMENT: Survey measures it using five categories The average student participates in two campus activities, according to a 2009 NASPA report, which surveyed more than 14,000 students from 35 U.S. colleges and universities. Students who attend smaller colleges tend to become involved in more organizations, the report says. Joining clubs is one of many ways students network and develop lasting friendships, says John Gardner, president of the John N. Gardner Institute for Excellence in Undergraduate Education and author of Your College Experience: Strategies for Success . Students interact, learn more David Bebeau, 20, founded the Humans vs. Zombies club at the University of Wisconsin in 2009. Bebeau describes Humans vs. Zombies, which has become popular on campuses across the country, as a “massive game of tag.” Players are split into two groups; humans who are tagged by zombies become zombies themselves, and the game ends when the last human is tagged. As many as 300 students play the week-long game that goes on 24/7. Bebeau says the club brings together a diverse group of students who wouldn’t otherwise interact. “We get athletes with the hardest of the hard-core nerds, and people who would never actually play together have become very good friends,” he says. Though the main purpose of some clubs is just to have fun, others extend the learning experience. At the Culinary Institute of America , students may sit in a wine class for several hours a day and then attend a wine-tasting sponsored by the Bacchus Wine Society later that night, says David Whalen, associate dean for student activities, recreation and athletics. “They’re back there lining up at the door because they want to learn more about wine.” Students also flock to cooking demonstrations by the Avant-Garde Cuisine Society, which has taught aspiring chefs how to make ice cream using liquid nitrogen. Students who had a handful of clubs at their high school are often overwhelmed by the hundreds of organizations they can join once they step onto large campuses. Officials have different views on whether they should dive in right away or wait a few weeks until they’ve adjusted to their new courses and environment. The answer depends on the student, says Tina Samuel Powellson, associate director in the Office of Student Involvement at Indiana University-Purdue University-Indianapolis, which offers about 345 student organizations. She says there is no “cookie-cutter” plan — “I would encourage students to take their time, to get to know what’s the best fit for them,” she says. In the NASPA survey, 65% of students said participating in campus activities helps them learn to balance their social and academic lives; 14% said their commitment to clubs caused their grades to drop, but 25% said their grades increased. Gardner says it’s good for students to “jump in” and join clubs right away because clubs can make a large campus feel smaller, and students can immediately make friends. “Friendship formation is task No. 1 for most students,” he says. “If you don’t make friends, you’re lonely, you’re anxious, you feel sort of adrift.” But he adds that students should be careful not to join too many organizations at once, so they’re not distracted from other activities such as studying and going to class. “It’s a question of balance and not overdoing it,” he says. R?sum?-building While some campuses boast hundreds of clubs — the University of Michigan has more than 1,200 — students attending smaller schools don’t lack opportunities to get involved. Cape Fear Community College in North Carolina sponsors about 40 student organizations. Because it’s a two-year college with about 9,000 full-time students, clubs experience a high turnover. This can present a challenge for less popular clubs, says Chris Libert, student activities coordinator. “Most likely, the club advisers are here, but the participants might not be,” he says. But Libert says it’s important for students to partake in activities — even at community colleges — if they want their r?sum?s to stand out. Employers look for “well-rounded people” and students who did more than one activity, he says. Even if clubs like the University of Minnesota’s Campus People Watchers or Princeton University’s Muggle Quidditch Team (based on the Harry Potter stories) seem to have no apparent benefit, college experts say they provide a way for students with similar interests to “connect” and “engender creativity.” They also offer an alternative to the party scene. “They’re a very healthy form of stress relief,” Gardner says. “It’s better to spend time in this kind of group, rather than drink excessively.”