Students looking for something to do on Tuesday nights need to look no further than the center of campus.

The Illinois Room in the Holmes Student Center is dancing the night away because of one very “swinging” club: the Northern Swing Tips.

“Just show up to dance,” said Carolyn Paluch, a junior visual communication major and co-founder and treasurer of Northern Swing Tips. “The lessons are free. We start the lesson at 8 p.m. and they go until 9 p.m. Then we have social dancing afterwards until 11 p.m.”

Northern Swing Tips teaches swing steps and dance moves to the public.

“It’s mostly swing dancing,” Paluch said. “We have other [types of] music, but that was more last year. This year we’re focusing on swing.”

There is no mandatory dress code. The club allows students and members to come in their street clothes and dance late into the night.

“We’re pretty lenient about dress apparel,” Paluch said. “Some people show up [with] dance shoes. That gives us better grip and control of the floor, but a lot of people just show up in jeans, a hoodie and sneakers.”

If students aren’t available to dance Tuesday nights, other dancing options are available. The club also practices from 1 to 4 p.m. on Saturdays in an activity room at the Campus Recreation Center.

The president of the club, Brian Gosselin, teaches a class on the Charleston style of dance on the weekends. This is another type of dance offered by the Swing Tips.

The club also held a workshop in September where a swing dance instructor was brought in from out of town, Paluch said.

The club offers a night of swing dancing in a friendly, relaxing environment.

“I’ve been involved with Swing Tips since last April and I love it,” said Amanda Hoff, a junior French language and literature major. “The people are really friendly and this gives me the venue that I need to have fun. During the school week, I’m just so stressed out and this is my one night to hang out. I come as often as I can.”

Northern Swing tips gathers a decent-sized crowd every meeting.

“On average we get 15 to 20 people a night that show up for the lesson,” Paluch said. “Sometimes we have more people come later on in the night; people who have been dancing for a while and have taken the lesson.”

The club, which will help teach swing dance at DeKalb High School once a month, has several goals for the future.

“We’re hoping to have a dance sometime next semester, probably sometime in February,” Paluch said. “We’re going to have a big dance and hopefully get a band to come out and play, like a university band or something, but it’s still in the works.”

The club aspires to have more social dances in the future and wants to expand its membership.

“We’re hoping to get enough members where we could expand to a bigger dance space,” Paluch said. “Maybe to a place with a more suitable floor, like a hardwood floor, which is ideally what you’re dancing on.”

Even though the club has the future in mind, Swing Tips makes sure to keep members happy in the present.

“I’d say this club is great,” Hoff said. “It’s really starting to pick up more, and the more members we get, the better dancers we get incorporated into our club. Therefore the better everyone becomes from dancing with other people.”