New group on campus provides diversity

There is a new group on campus that will be stepping to a new beat.

The Ottawa University Step Team (O.U.S.T.) was created by sophomores Aaprara Mills and Jocelyn Clardy, as a school organization to entertain and have fun.

"The reason why Jocelyn and I started the step team was because we just wanted to give the students at Ottawa University another opportunity to participate in an activity," Mills said. "We wanted to bring diversity to the traditional way of supporting our school through stepping, which means that this is one more way to actively participate in showing Ottawa spirit."

While step team can be described by its name, Clardy says it's all about making rhythm with your body.

"A step team is no more complex than it sounds actually," she said. "It's an organized group of individuals that come together to use their body to make different beats, rhythm and sounds."

She also said that the team will work to recruit members by communicating through different university outlets, even in a social atmosphere.

"Like any other organization we will send out emails, make posters and spread the word by word of mouth," Clardy said. "The cool thing we will be doing is stepping during one of our lunch periods."

Sophomore cheerleader Breanna Jones thinks the idea of the school having a team like this would be good.

"I think it would be interesting," she said. "It would give students another productive activity to participate in."

Mills said that she was not exactly sure what events the team will be able to perform at, but they are getting certain ideas in their sights.

"We do not have exact dates and times as to when we will be performing," she said. "But we would like to be able to perform at the basketball halftime games and other events."

Clardy said that there will not be a specific number of people allowed to be on O.U.S.T., but there will have to be a limit to how many people perform in certain routines and events.

"One of the fundamental elements of a step team is precision," she said. "Being sharp and on time is very important during practice and performance. The more people that are performing at one time, the more difficult it may become."

Mills thinks being a new different group on campus will add some diversity to what Ottawa University has to offer future students.

"The benefit that the university gets is knowing that they have successfully added another student activity group," she said. "It also gives students another option to choose from and will show how diverse of a campus this school is."