Running A College Group?

[starsgoblue]

Does anyone here have experience with starting/running a new group in college? I have been talking to Keep A Child Alive about setting up a chapter at Ohio State. Keep A Child Alive is an organization that is mainly focused on educating about the AIDS epidemic and providing ARVs to children and families that need it. I would love to be a part of this but how no clue whatsoever about the actual 'setting up' part. I wonder whether or not I can do it. Anyone have any experience with this or words of wisdom to impart.

 

[Utoo]

Find out from your Student Association what the requirements are. I went to Georgetown & we had a Student Activities Commission, and they were the ones who had all the info on how to start a club. For us, it was pretty easy to start a club---you pretty much just had to have a handful of people as founding members, and you were set. The red tape would come if you wanted money from the school. If that were the case, you had to have a constitution outlining the goals of your club and how it would work. You also had to have at least one member attend monthly Student Government meetings.

That was always too much work for me, so we always bypassed school money!

 

[Liesje]

I started one way back in the day for AIDS awareness. Our school's orgs all have their own group in our online program called KnightVision (it's a customized Blackboard 7.0, if you school has that). Anything important at school somehow gets worked into the KV interface. In order to start a KV org, we have to have a "sponsoring" professor, so on our political science profs that teaches "Politics of AIDS in Africa" was our official faculty person.

After setting that up, I also had a listserv, which is an official school e-mail address that goes out to all the people in the organization.

We only ever did a few things though, because I discovered a lot was already being done by the Social Justice Committee, which is much larger and more well known, so I ended up handing them the materials I was using because they could reach more people.

I guess it depends on how your school's orgs go. I'd first contact Student Life or Student Development (whatever you call it) and see if there's not already an existing org. that needs help or needs to be reorganized. If you've got something really specific in mind, see if anyone on the social justice org (or whatever your equivalent is) would be willing to help, or make it like a "sister" project. But yeah, it all depends on protocol and where the money comes from. I'd try to do it "officially" so maybe the StuDev office can give you money for materials and events.

 

[U2democrat]

I'm an officer in Young Dems but other than that I don't know much about starting an organization There should be some office you can go to that would help you along, some organizations office maybe.

 

[redhotswami]

Well, first I'd say pull together some friends who are interested in helping out. Then pass out some flyers about holding an interest meeting.

At the interest meeting, all you'll have to do is perhaps put together a powerpoint, or show a movie clip or something about the issue at hand. Then get into discussion about the organization itself.

After that, I'd take a sign up of people definitely committed to the org, and take that list to a faculty who you think would be interested in being the faculty advisor.

When all that is said and done, contact your Student Activities office and fill out the paperwork to be recognized by the university.

Then, hold elections, devise a constitution, and save the world!

Good luck to you! And congrats! I work in Student Activities, so I am always excited to see students who are motivated to get involved and make a difference.