Kelly Rulison
staff writer
For any students wishing to pursue their dream of becoming an automobile technician, or just gain general knowledge about cars, a new club has been introduced this year at Lewis and Clark.
The Automotive Club just recently was approved, and therefore is still in it’s infancy stage, but is already looking to make an impact on campus and in the community.
Students of the club begin by working on cars that are donated to the program. Once the instructor feels that the students have gained enough practiced and know how, the students then will be allowed to work on their own cars individually.
“In general, it takes a student technician three times as long to perform any given task when compared to a professional,” Automotive Professor, Christopher Reynolds said.
There is no prior experience or knowledge necessary to join the club.
This new program is being supported by automotive repair shops throughout the region. Mungenast Toyota in Alton, Helmkamp Automotive in Bethalto, Quality GMC in Alton, Enterprise Holdings in St. Louis, Al’s Transmissions in Edwardsville, Lowe Performance in Alton, Trickey’s Towing in Wood River and several more have joined forces with L&C.
The mentioned local area supporters are providing internship opportunities, short-term employment, and/or long term employment for students and alumni of the recently formed club.
The Automotive Club will not work on student’s cars for repairs unless the car is in poor enough shape to where it is incapable of getting the student home. The reason behind this policy is due to the high liability involved with learners who work on the public’s vehicles.
At some point in the future, the club hopes to offer services that would be able to make them financially independent.
“The notion of service, is literally what drives our program. We’d like to shift the context of service as a club, from servicing automobiles to serving the community in any capacity possible,” Automotive Professor, Christopher Reynolds said.
The Automotive Club will soon be running fundraisers in hopes of helping the community members in need, while also being able to get their name out in the public’s eye.
“Food drives, toy drives, disaster relief, fund raisers, shelter work, road/refuge cleanup, benefits, and general charity work are the categories of service the faculty and automotive student body have expressed great interest in. We want to prove that we are an integral part of this community,” Reynolds said.
The Automotive Club’s first meeting will be Dec. 2 at 4:15 p.m. in Trimpe, room 174. The club plans to meet collectively at least once a month.
For more information about the new club or the automotive classes offered at L&C, contact Christopher Reynolds at cereynolds@lc.edu.
