Navigating the Landscape: A Comprehensive Guide to Student Organization Structure

Student organizations form the backbone of campus life, providing opportunities for students to connect, learn, lead, and contribute to their communities. Understanding the different types of organizations and how they are structured is crucial for students looking to get involved or create their own groups. This guide provides a comprehensive overview of student organization structures, offering insights into everything from initial formation to long-term success.

Initial Steps: Laying the Foundation

Before diving into the specifics of organizational structure, it's essential to consider the initial steps involved in forming a student organization.

Defining Purpose and Mission

The first step is to clearly define the organization's purpose and mission. What kind of student organization would you like? Consider your options - is it a club, a cultural center, or a student organization? Discuss the mission and goals of the organization. If you're ready, craft a mission statement that can be shared with others.

Assessing Existing Organizations

Check your institution's student organization portal to see if a registered student organization like the one you are proposing already exists on campus. If so, have you contacted the organization to see if they are accepting new members? Or could your proposed student organization merge with an existing group to provide the same services/experiences to students? If there is not an organization on campus with a mission similar to the one you are proposing, or if there is an existing group but it conflicts with your mission/ideas/goals, then you can proceed with starting a new student organization.

Gathering Like-Minded Individuals

Bring students together who are interested in being a part of your organization. There are many different ways to do this, so go with your strengths! Mostly you are looking for like-minded people willing to share the work and likely to enjoy or appreciate the benefits of the organization. Some options include:

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Host a meet-up at an accessible coffee shop or space on campus
Pass around flyers directing people to participate in a short survey or meeting
If your school has a disability studies or Deaf studies program, talk to the department chair or hang out in hallways to talk with people after classes
Use social media to find like-minded people on campus

Contacting Student Affairs

Contact the coordinator of student organizations on your campus to find out what you need to do to become a recognized campus organization. This person is probably in Student Affairs, Student Services, or Student Life.

Formalizing the Organization: Constitution and Bylaws

The process of writing and maintaining a constitution clarifies your organization’s purpose, delineates your basic structure, and helps you build an effective organization. The objective is to draft and maintain a document that covers these topics in a clear and concise manner. The constitution will give members and the community a better understanding of what the organization is about and how it functions. An organization’s constitution is the basis for the operation of the organization. Each recognized student organization is required to have an approved and current constitution on file with Student Engagement. Student organizations are expected to operate according to their constitutions for all activities. Complete any required paperwork.

Key Elements of a Constitution

Your constitution should be well organized and include the following elements:

Name of the Organization: Choose the name of the organization wisely.
Mission and Purpose: Clearly state the organization's mission and purpose.
Membership: Define the criteria for membership and the rights and responsibilities of members.
Executive Board: Outline the structure of the executive board, including positions and responsibilities. Do not list a specific person.
Meetings: Specify how often meetings will be held, who will set the agenda, take minutes, and keep a record of both? What constitutes quorum? This is the number of members required to be present to transact business at the meetings. Quorum is usually a simple majority of members.
Elections: Describe the process for electing officers.
Finances: Outline how the organization will manage its finances.
Amendments: Describe the process of amending the constitution.

Code of Conduct and College Policies

All members of registered organizations are required to follow the undergraduate Code of Conduct and College Policies. If your organization becomes aware of any potential violations of the Code of Conduct or college policies, the organization will consult with the Office of Student Engagement about the appropriate next steps, including the possibility of filing a formal report with the College. Members may not be permanently removed from your organization for allegedly violating a college policy, including concerns involving possible Title IX violations, without receiving instructions to do so from the appropriate College office after a student is found responsible for the violation. However, your organization may work to support members who have been impacted by another member’s behavior while awaiting further instruction. In the case that a member exhibits violent, abusive, or threatening behavior at an organization meeting or event, that member may be asked to leave and/or College staff or Campus Safety may be contacted. This includes any attempted, threatened, or actual conduct that endangers or is likely to endanger a person’s physical health or safety, or that would reasonably cause a person to feel their physical health or safety would be at risk.

Organizational Structure: Executive Boards and Committees

A student organization’s leadership structure can say a lot about its mission and values. There are so many aspects for org leaders to consider. They may have an open-door policy, encouraging transparent communication, or members may be expected to follow a rigid communication chain. Leaders may be elected or appointed. Projects may get done through committees or there may be a greater focus on individual initiatives. An executive board’s structure should be determined by the organization’s mission and how each position will contribute to achieving it.

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The Executive Board

Some institutions will require new organizations to have what I call the Big Four positions: president, vice president, treasurer, and secretary. These positions carry out the organization’s core functions. If one or more of the positions remains unfilled, the organization will have a hard time operating effectively. What’s important for students to understand is that they can shape the responsibilities for each position to suit their needs. They can throw out their preconceived notions about what each position is “supposed” to do. Instead, they can start designing their boards by listing out what functions need to be accomplished each year for the organization to meet its goals. Once they have their list of functions, students can start assigning responsibilities to the Big Four positions. Students will need to decide if additional positions should be added to the executive board to fairly divide up these functions. For example, should fundraising responsibilities be overseen by the treasurer, combined with a community service coordinator role, or even managed by a separate philanthropy coordinator? With the organization’s functions divided up among the executive board, it becomes easier to assign specific duties to each position. If, for example, the vice president is in charge of member recruitment and engagement, then their duties might include facilitating member meetings and managing outreach to potential members.

Besides the Big four, there are many other executive board roles that students could incorporate into their leadership structure. Overenthusiastic students may pack their board with too many positions, so it’s the advisor’s job to help them decide if any positions are redundant and if it’s even feasible to fill all of those positions. Here are some additional roles to consider:

Business manager: This position combines the role of secretary and treasurer into one. Consolidating these roles might help keep the executive board at a manageable size.
Events coordinator: If the organization only plans a few events a semester, this position can streamline the planning process. The event coordinator doesn’t have to plan all of the events; they can chair committees that’ll help with that.
Marketing/social media coordinator: Social media marketing is complex. A position dedicated to routinely posting content and engaging with commenters acknowledges the importance of online interactions in recruitment and engagement.
Community liaison/outreach coordinator: This position can serve as a primary contact for forming and maintaining crucial relationships with organizations and individuals outside of the institution.
Risk manager: Risk management isn’t just for Greek life. Any organization that plans large social events or off-campus trips may benefit from having a dedicated person who is trained on mitigating safety risks. Just remember: even with this position in place, org leaders should still conduct pre-event reviews with a staff or faculty advisor.
Alumni liaison: Getting alumni involved can enrich the student organization’s programming. For academic-focused orgs, alumni may be interested in hosting industry-specific skill-building workshops and attending networking events with students. And alumni who share an identity with affinity-based groups (such as the Black Student Association, the LGBQTIA+ Pride Club, or Hillel), may want to stay connected through mentoring programs and community celebrations.
Diversity & inclusion coordinator: Although DEI is something that all executive board members should commit themselves to, a dedicated DEI coordinator can exclusively focus on creating an inclusive organizational culture. This student’s responsibilities could include reviewing whether membership requirements (such as time commitments and financial costs) might be preventing some students from participating or whether guest speakers truly represent the range of identities that students hold.
Member-at-large: This position does not have any specific duties on the executive board. Therefore, this person might take on any project that benefits the organization. Since at-large members are elected the same academic year that they serve (as opposed to the rest of the executive board who was elected at the end of the previous academic year), it gives new members a chance to vote on a leader.

Committees

Student leaders can use committees to organize members in a way that helps the organization accomplish its mission. A standing committee is a permanently established group within the organization. The purpose of each standing committee is often codified into the organization’s constitution or bylaws. If an organization has a continual need for a group of members to handle a specific activity or responsibility, a standing committee ensures that there will always be members assigned to it. For example, a programming board might have a standing committee that is in charge of booking comedy shows and a community service organization might have one that organizes its annual dance-a-thon.

The organization’s leadership should take some time to explain the purpose of each committee to their members at the start of each semester. Members should be encouraged to explore multiple committees during the first few weeks of the semester to decide which one(s) they are most interested in. It should be made clear whether members can join only one committee or multiple, and whether committee participation is a requirement of overall membership.

Student leaders will have to carefully decide the meeting times and locations of each committee. Say that the plan is to have an organization-wide meeting, followed by members breaking out into their committees. Someone will have to make sure that there is enough space booked for all of the committees to meet simultaneously and not have to shout to hear over each other. This arrangement works well if it’s more convenient for members to have meetings back-to-back and if no one is participating in multiple committees. Alternatively, committees could each pick their own times to meet. Organization-wide meetings could be held once a month while committees meet weekly or bi-weekly. This arrangement can create more buy-in from committee members when they are offered flexibility in how to accomplish their work. It can also be better for students who prefer to work in smaller groups.

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For large projects, such as events that you anticipate garnering a lot of attendees, it can be useful to divide up the workload even further through subcommittees. If, for example, a standing committee plans an annual carnival, then there can be subcommittees for planning games, picking and ordering food, and marketing the event. The feasibility of forming subcommittees will depend on the size of the parent committee. A committee with only a handful of people probably wouldn’t find it a great use of their time to split up into smaller groups. Instead, they could divide tasks among individual members of the committee.

A working group or task force is a small group of people who come together to accomplish a short-term, non-recurring project. The group disbands once the project is completed. When deciding who will be a part of a new working group, students should consider who has the skills to accomplish the group’s goals and which stakeholders will be concerned with the group’s end product or recommendation. For example, the group could consist only of executive board members, or it might also include other members with specialized skills or interests.

Whether the leader of each committee is called a chair, a coordinator, or has another title, student organizations need to outline how each leader is chosen and what their responsibilities are. For organizations with standing committees, it might make sense to have executive board members be the chairs. For subcommittees, the chair might be someone who volunteers for the role or is appointed by the executive board. Alternatively, committees could utilize a co-chair format wherein one co-chair is an executive board member and the other is a general committee member.

While committee leaders can be appointed by the executive board or voted in by members, some committees may have an additional ex officio member. An ex officio member is a member of a committee by virtue of them holding another position. For example, an organization’s president or vice president may be an ex officio member of each standing committee. Or, a committee chair may be an ex officio member of each subcommittee. Ex officio members are incorporated into committee leadership structures when it serves the committee’s purpose to have additional insight from the ex officio member. Ex officio members are usually not allowed to vote on committees, but each organization can do whatever works best for them.

Maintaining Success: Resources and Frameworks

To ensure the long-term success of a student organization, it's important to utilize available resources and frameworks.

The Student Organization Success Framework

The Student Organization Success Framework is a resource designed to help student organizations pursue excellence. The Framework identifies outcomes for member development, organization operations and community engagement that can be used by any organization. Use of the Framework is highly encouraged. All student organizations can use the Framework to help make their group better, stronger and more successful! The Framework outlines three key areas for member development, organization operations, and community engagement.

Step 1: Familiarize yourself with the outcomes.
Step 2: Identify 1-3 outcomes as upcoming priorities. It's important to set reasonable goals.

Successful student organizations create opportunities for their members to learn about their own strengths and abilities, gain confidence and build a sense of community. Successful student organizations have structures and processes to manage their overall operational effectiveness. Organization utilizes campus resources and policies (i.e. Successful student organizations foster engagement and contribute to communities larger than themselves.

Classifying Student Organizations: A Tiered Approach

Universities often categorize student organizations based on their relationship with the institution and their level of oversight. Understanding these tiers is crucial for navigating the registration process and accessing resources. Determine the student organization tier and category your proposed student organization will be applying for. These include:

Campus Life Organizations (CLOs)

Campus Life Organizations (CLOs) focus on serving and supporting the student experience in full alignment with the university’s mission and a sponsoring unit’s academic or co-curricular goals and objectives. CLO activities, operations, and decision-making processes are subject to direct university oversight, whether by the Division of Student Life, academic college, administrative division, department, or unit. CLOs include student leadership and professional development opportunities that guide the program’s activities and objectives. They are comprised of enrolled students and have an administrative advisor who is a full-time university faculty or staff member. Advising the CLO is listed in the faculty or staff member’s university local job description.

Registered Student Organizations (RSOs)

Registered Student Organizations (RSOs) at the University of Iowa are registered voluntary associations comprised of enrolled students. As stated above, Registered Student Organizations consist of three subcategories: Supported (including Sport Clubs), Affiliated (including social fraternity and sorority chapters), and General.

Supported Student Organizations (SSOs): Supported Student Organizations (SSOs) are registered voluntary associations of enrolled students that have goals consistent with the university’s mission and the academic goals and objectives of the supporting university college, division, department, or unit. The supporting campus unit shall provide the SSO with operational oversight and may provide SSOs with funding or financial and account oversight.
Affiliated Student Organizations (ASOs): Affiliated Student Organizations (ASOs) are registered voluntary associations of enrolled students that are affiliated with or related to an external, non-university entity, whether local, national, and/or international, that imposes its own requirements, rules, or regulations on the organization and often provides an advisor or oversees some degree of organization operations. ASOs are eligible for specific but limited benefits.
General Student Organizations (GSOs): General Student Organizations (GSOs) are registered voluntary associations of enrolled students organized around shared and specific educational, social, political, religious, or recreational interests or experiences. GSOs include interest-only student organizations, which focus on a shared passion or interest that lies beyond the traditional scope of student organizations, such as niche hobbies, unique fields of study, or uncommon activities, some of which may be considered moderate to high-risk. GSOs provide opportunities for students to find and develop their own university community, connect with like-minded peers, enhance their knowledge in a particular area or topic, and foster a supportive environment.

Navigating the Approval Process

Student organizations petitioning for registration are not eligible to use the name the University of Iowa in their organization’s name. The organization could be named “Student Club at Iowa” or Student Club”, but not University of Iowa Student Club”. All student organizations must be approved by the Student Organization Review Committee (SORC). This approval process happens after each open window period. To be considered, you much complete all steps in the new student organization process. Please note, you may be contacted to present to the SORC depending on the nature of your proposed organization’s activities. Through the new student organization review process consideration will be given to the following priorities: Mission/purpose alignment with the definition of a student organization. Registration only occurs during these four windows.

Please note, only Campus Life Organizations (CLO) and Supported Student Organizations (SSO) will be required to submit their Constitution to the Student Organization Review Committee (SORC) during the application process. Create a constitution for your proposed new student organization using Constitution Standards and Guidelines . Do not simply copy/paste, then answer, the questions/prompts asked in the Constitutional Standards & Guidelines. Put thought into your organization’s constitution; format the information so that it is easy to reference and use. Keep in mind, the goal is for your organization to outlast your time at the University. Sign in to Engage with your Hawk ID and password. Once all necessary steps in the process have been completed, the Student Organization Review Committee (SORC) will look at all proposals submitted after each application window closes. At least one member of your new organization is required to attend an orientation led by our staff.

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