Not all people have the courage, drive, and the creativity to invent a club on the University of Michigan’s campus. Sophomore Miranda Kahn, however, pursued her dream to do just that. She started a new club called Campus Chaos to bring cheer and laughter to students and to lessen stress levels around the school.
HC: Tell me about the new organization you’ve started on campus.
It’s a brand new club called Campus Chaos. Basically, we put on “missions” on the University of Michigan’s campus. The missions are public acts of random, unexpected chaos. The missions can be either small or large. Large ones are like, flash mobs, for example. They can involve hundreds of people. The smaller ones involve less people and a little more acting. You don’t have to be an actor to be in them, though; the missions are for everybody!
HC: What made you want to start Campus Chaos?
My roommate from freshman year and I discovered this YouTube channel called Improv Everywhere. Improv Everywhere is a famous New York City group and they inspired me to do the exact same thing in Ann Arbor. I realized that our campus is a great resource to use; it’s like a mini New York City. One of the things they did was act out the most famous Ghostbusters scene in a library in New York. Another example of something that they did was that they made a boy sit in the front of a lecture hall. He got a phone call and responded, “I’ll be there in a second!” and ripped off his clothes to reveal a Superman outfit underneath them. Little acts of humor are the types of things that can make anyone smile in a boring lecture. That humor might be just what somebody needed to brighten his or her day at that time.
HC: How often does your organization meet?
We’re going to meet about once a month in either the Union or the League, depending on my feedback from everybody. What will probably happen is that we’ll discuss the upcoming events and how many people they require at each meeting. For the smaller missions, all of the people that are interested in participating can e-mail me after and if some of the parts require specific roles, the first people to e-mail me will get those positions and the rest of the people will just fill the spots that I need. The bigger missions will be for everybody, and we’ll discuss them at the meetings. The great thing about the meeting times is that it’s not too demanding so everybody can get involved!
HC: How big do you want Campus Chaos to become?
Well, of course I would love to have hundreds of people, but the missions can be anywhere from 10 people to 200 people, so I want to focus most of the missions somewhere in the middle. It doesn’t matter how dedicated you are to a club like this. I just want to have a ton of people that are eager to entertain. It’s not about putting it on a resume or getting a board position; it’s just about making people laugh.
HC: What kind of people do you want to join the club?
The only requirement is the ability to do what you can to promote a good environment. You don’t have to be an actor to freeze in the diag. You don’t have to be an actor to throw on a white sheet and run around the Ugli. That’s a common misconception people have People think they can’t join the club because they don’t act; but where there’s a will, there’s a way. If you want to make people happy and have a great environment, you can do it. You don’t need to be an actor or an actress. However, if people are afraid of “performing,” I’m also looking for a photography department, filmography department, and public relations department. There are so many ways people can get involved and I want all types of people to be able to join.
HC: Does anybody help you with the club or do you organize everything?
If I have little tasks that I need people to do, I should be asking them, but generally, when I’m doing a project, I feel most comfortable doing it all myself. Once I know that this club is actually going somewhere, that’s when I’m going to start hiring position and giving myself a little bit of a break. Right now this club is like my baby and I would like to be the one guiding it through its adolescence.
HC: What are your main goals for the club?
I’m one of 40,000 people in this school. It’s impossible for me to reach out to all 39,999 other people, but one of my goals is for it to affect everybody. I would really just like to see that the missions that we put on are successful and that we get positive feedback from the community. I want this club to become almost like something that’s familiar to people. I want people to look forward to it. If they’re in a classroom and something funny happens, I want people to go “Oh, that must be campus chaos.” I want people to know that it’s a group of people trying to do something beneficial for the community. So often we find that people are locked in the library stressing out about work or their lives, especially at such a prestigious college. Sometimes you need something that’ll just bring you down to earth even if it’s something small. I guess that’s the goal. I want to lower the stress level around here a little bit. In life, we need to stop stressing out about everything and start appreciating the little things.