North Carolina State University is home to many different organizations and clubs open to their students, including the Spanish Club. The club has been around for over 15 years, and has attempted to help and connect any students who have an interest in speaking Spanish or the cultures of the Spanish-speaking world throughout the time it has been present at NC State.

Heather Keleher, a fourth-year student majoring in business administration and international studies, is the current president of the group.

“Our goal is to help students get as fluent and as comfortable with Spanish as fast as possible for whatever their level is,” Keleher said.

Keleher and Dylan Bradford, a third year student studying Spanish and communications and the club’s vice president, help to do this in two different ways. The first is through conversational meetings, where they split members into groups based on general skill level and have them practice speaking Spanish at whatever level they feel comfortable with. The other meetings emphasize learning through different cultural activities that range from soccer games in the Court of Carolinas to dance lessons.

“[Bradford] does soccer and I do dance,” Keleher said. “I teach bachata and the merengue. We have that every semester, and then we switch it up, so depending on if it’s cold, we do movie night. We always have an event around holidays.”

Other events that they do outside of their cultural meetings include trips to local restaurants, such as Coco Bongo and Gonza Tacos y Tequila, which they use to practice their Spanish in a different setting. Bradford spoke about some of these other events.

“The only ‘field trip’ that we do is that once a semester we go out to either Coco Bongo or in the past we’ve gone to Gonza Tacos y Tequila to have an informal ‘Here’s where you can practice Spanish in a restaurant,’” Bradford said, “And if you don’t know, here’s some terms on how to order food.”

Keleher and Bradford have worked to not only increase the number of members, but also to create a welcoming environment within the club. With an increase from what was about 6 members to what is now over 40 active members, they have not only gotten more people to join but have built a welcoming community around the desire to learn Spanish.

“I think it’s important to stress that when you come to Spanish Club it is a judgement free zone,” Bradford said. “We all come from no knowledge in the language till whatever level we are at now. I think we all, members, do a good job of never making fun of someone for not knowing a word or laughing at someone if they say something wrong. I think we’re all very cognizant and very supportive of each other.”

With an emphasis on an enriching learning environment, Keleher and Bradford work with new members to ensure that they feel comfortable in the club and are willing to work one on one with people who desire to learn for whatever reason someone may have. The group works to ensure that everyone that comes to the club’s meetings feels like they are welcome to have fun and learn, with the overall goal to teach people about Spanish across the world.

“We had [an] exchange student last semester who said she had never heard a Spanish word in her life, and she came to the first meeting,” Bradford said. “And she came to a couple more after, and she sat down with all of us. And after the meeting, we all did a few introductory phrases and words.”

Keleher also spoke about their time with the exchange student.

“And by the end of the semester, she would see me on campus and be like “Hola, ¿Qué tal?” and it would just make my day,” Keleher said.

They encourage people to join their club and participate through their membership policy. Attending three different meetings with the Spanish Club makes a student eligible to get a free t-shirt at the end of the semester, where they are then considered to be a full-fledged member of the group.

The club holds meetings in the Withers Hall lobby during the conversational meetings and in Withers room 311 for other cultural events, which are held on Wednesdays at 6 p.m. Information on events can be found on the club’s Get Involved page.