Last semester, I had an idea with a few other friends: an on-campus book club, catered specifically to students who liked to read before college, and found themselves not able to find time to read anymore. It was a more common phenomenon than we thought, and after a few days of asking around, we had more than enough people interested to start up a new student org. Working together, we planned out meeting dates, made a list of books, made a Google Form for people to send in requests, the whole shabang. I started a club in high school, and all that took was a good idea and a short presentation to the school senate. We thought we’d done everything, and that we could start right away.
It wasn’t until the next morning in our sketching class when we’d offhandedly brought it up to our friend in the Student Government Association (SGA) that we realized we were entirely wrong. He directed us to a long checklist of requirements. Keep in mind that we just wanted to start a book club! It’s not like we were trying to start a new sorority or anything.
First, we would have to meet with the Assistant Director of Campus Life to share our club’s purpose and goals and get initial approval to continue.
Second, we’d have to write an approximately three page proposal including our new organization’s name, purpose and goals, reason the organization will benefit students, reason the organization is different from others, plan to recruit new members, current Executive Board, list of programs and events, list of interested students, a potential advisor, and a potential budget. This is the step that threw us off – it’s just a book club! Isn’t this a lot for a small, free, simple organization to have to deal with? It’s not like we were too lazy to do it, or couldn’t. We were just busy architecture students who didn’t really have the time or energy to draft up all that for a book club.
Third, if we went through with it, we’d have to create a presentation and pitch our idea to SGA’s Senate and answer their questions. You know, for a book club. Because the creation of book clubs must be under intense scrutiny, you never know what they might do in a book club meeting.
Last, with all that done, we would have to create a club constitution and bylaws. Need I repeat myself? In some ways, I see the need for at least a little scrutiny in the creation of new student orgs – if anyone could do it, everyone would do it. I understand that it should be a careful process, for safety, school image, and all those good reasons. But it also seems like a little much for every kind of organization to have to go through the exact same rigamarole, from the most official branch of American Institute of Architecture Students (AIAS) that takes thousands to run to the most humble, ten person book club that doesn’t cost anything. Either way, fair warning, should you want to start your own student organization: you’ll need a lot more preparation than you think!