Molly Foster | Photo by Diana Jaber | The Wright State Guardian
Molly Foster originally came to Wright State University (WSU) for engineering but found her place with the Adapted Recreation program and athletics.
During her sophomore year, Foster changed her major to public health minoring in psychology.
This change altered her experience at WSU.
Forming the fencing club
After switching her major, Foster needed to replace a course to remain a full-time student. Foster chose fencing.
“I’ve always been interested in it, I thought it was a lot of fun and just cool watching it on the Olympics. And I thought oh well I have a chance to take the class, why not. I just kind of took the jump and ended up loving it,” Foster said.
Foster loved the class so much she helped form the fencing club that exists today. Foster helped with paperwork and tracking funding as the club’s treasurer.
She monitored equipment and helped plan retention events, eventually more than tripling membership, going from five members to 29.
Foster also served as president for a year and through the team’s work, fencing won the diversity and inclusion award in 2020.
Adapted Recreation and soccer
Foster also works at the Adapted Recreation program. She found them through their intramurals and applied for a job as a trainer soon after.
During her first semester, Foster started out as a trainer but took over as student manager when the semester ended.
As student manager, Foster ran several events, including Wednesday intramurals. Others included trips to the Columbus Zoo and Dayton Museum.
Similar to fencing, Foster increased attendance for the Adapted Recreation program so they needed to double the staff and hire two more employees.
Through her work, Foster earned the Kathrine W. Morris award for Adapted Recreations in 2020.
President of Sports Club Council
After working at adapted rec and helping to found the fencing team, Foster found a new purpose as president for the Sports Club Council.
“It was something new, it was something I hadn’t done before and I thought it’d be interesting to see what I could learn from it,” Foster said.
Future plans
Foster is uncertain about her plans after graduation.
“Eventually I’d like to go to graduate school, haven’t decided what for yet, I’m thinking maybe health communications through Wright State,” Foster said.
However, her primary goal is to work at Nationwide Children’s in Columbus, though she is considering applying for a job at WSU’s campus rec.
Currently, Foster’s main goal is to graduate and ensure what she has left behind continues.
“When you run so many things, it’s kind of like what happens when I leave? So I’m making sure that adapted rec has the tools that I’ve created to keep the program running and then the same thing for fencing,” Foster said.
