Otterbein students with new ideas can lead to new clubs on campus. What does this look like for students seeking this opportunity?
Otterbein Student Council President, Matthew Lanning, and Center for Student Involvement (CSI) assistant director of programming, Ashley Secord, are involved in the process of starting a club and where funding comes from.
There are two types of clubs: chartered and unchartered.
Chartered clubs receive funding from the school, and unchartered requires the club to get funding in other ways. If a student wants to start a club, they must decide whether or not the club should be chartered. After meeting with Secord, the student must complete basic information about faculty and students interested.
Then, the student must attend president's training. After attending the president's training, the student receives an email with information about how to get the club started. The student will have 12 months to complete the process to become a registered student organization.
“Clubs and organizations can fill out funding requests and can also organize fundraisers,"Julianne Hodge, a senior at-large senator and chair of the student appeals board said. "Every individual club or group has to figure out how they want to go about it.”
First, the student must complete the registration form. The form includes the club's name, primary leader, advisor information, and whether or not the club will be chartered or not.
Next, the student must submit the form electronically by uploading the paperwork to the registration form. This process includes a membership/leadership roster spreadsheet and a constitution.
In step three, the student gets advisor acknowledgment. This is to ensure that an advisor has read through the student’s registration form and acknowledge that they are serving as the student organization advisor.
For step four, the student completes president training with Secord and treasurer training with Caren Francis, fiscal coordinator for the CSI.
Lastly, the student should complete the charter application if that applies to their club. Steps one through five can be completed in any order and must be submitted by the 12 months of the student’s pending status by the Student Organization Development Committee. All steps must be completed before the organization will be reviewed for registration and chartering.
If requesting to be chartered, organizations are not eligible for funding until all registration steps have been completed and approved as chartered by Student Government.
