This year students at STA were given three new club options to choose from: Don’t Put This on Your Resume, Students for Life, and Philosophy of Mugs.

Don’t Put This on Your Resume Club is moderated by English teacher, Kate Absher, who thinks that STA’s college prep environment can sometimes put too much stress on students.

“I’ve always wanted to be a part of a club and there are so many options and I think that sometimes the expectations that surround our college prep environment really makes people stress and crazed,” Absher said. She then created Don’t Put This on Your Resume to give girls a place to have fun and be carefree, without the stress of resume building.

“So often I feel like kids will think about building up their resumes, which is important, but I do think we need to mellow out every once a while and that’s why I wanted to do this,” Absher said. “To encourage kids that not everything has to be as much about building the perfect resume as it is about building the person.”

The club, which has about 24 members, meets on regular club days once a month.  It has planned activities for the rest of the school year, the first one being a kickball tournament, planned to help students blow off steam and balance out.  The club would like to organize a school wide event, possibly before finals, for all students to come together, have fun, and lower stress levels.

Another new organization at STA is Philosophy of Mugs, moderated by theology teacher Robert Tonnies, who established the club as a way for students to delve deeper into the world of Philosophy.

“I find in each section in each class there’s always a couple students who are really interested in [philosophy],” Tonnies said. “They have so many questions and I don’t have time to answer them all in class. There seemed to be a need where students wanted to talk about more interesting philosophical ideas so I threw [the idea of the extracurricular] out there.”

Besides creating the Philosophy of Mugs as an outlet for intrigued students,  it was also created to add knowledge about philosophy where the curriculum cannot, according to Tonnies.

“I think [the club] serves the community by providing an outlet for more exploration of philosophy that doesn’t exist in our program,” Tonnies said.

The name is based on the theory that the mug you choose from the cabinet in the morning reflects your feelings for that day.  This also inspires what takes place during the club meetings. Every member brings mug and sits drinking tea and coffee while talking about philosophy.

Also new to STA is Students for Life. After having students approach her about the idea of creating the organization, Director of Campus Ministry Meredith Snyder decided to moderate it.  The organization focuses on educating peers about pro life issues while being respectful of all beliefs.

“[The organization is] helping students to learn how to explain their position in a way that recognizes where another person may be coming from,” Snyder said. “[Students] are learning how to articulate their beliefs which is something that can be really hard to do when what you believe is countercultural, they’re learning about respecting different opinions and spreading awareness about the dignity of all life.”

The extracurricular has a leadership team that meets once a month to plan their meetings, which the whole group then comes to. Organization members prepare presentations to give during the meetings. The leadership team has planned out the rest of the school year, discussing the death penalty throughout the fall, abortion in January and February and euthanasia in the spring. Even though it is an organization, Students for Life welcomes all to come to their meetings.

“We invite everyone to our club meetings, everyone is invited to attend the events,” Snyder said. “[Students gain] a safe place to talk about their opinions about different life issues and my hope would be to receive a broader perspective, and again learning how to defend your position.”