Stay in shape, chartered student organizations: Those CSOs that remain inactive for too long will face the consequence of dechartering.

Executive Vice President Samantha Howard said dechartering is the removal of Student Government Association charter status of currently chartered organizations.

In the Wednesday, April 9, SGA meeting, 41 inactive CSOs were decharted.

“Our goal [is] to set up a sustainable structure that we can form and communicate to CSOs, better defining charter status for the future,” said Howard in an e-mail interview with The University News.

Howard and the External Affairs Committee have been working on developing standards for CSOs in the future and requesting feedback from current CSO leaders about the process.
“It’s a good idea to remove outdated groups, especially for freshmen,” said senior Barbie Clabots, member of Campus Kitchen. “To say that [the University] has 121 organizations . [but] 40 of them don’t have any members is false advertising.”
Work is primarily focused on creating an updated record of the CSOs on campus by dechartering those that have been inactive for some time.

“We’re changing the by-laws for automatic dechartering of groups long inactive,” said Grand Forest Senator Ben Corrado. Corrado said that this change took place at the SGA meeting on April 2 and is purely aimed at cleaning house.

This change included a list of CSOs, long inactive, to be dechartered.

Caroline Landree, president of the group formerly known as the Public Relations Club, said that her club was on the list and that this was a mistake–a mistake remedied in time.

“Part of the mistake is due to a name change. We were formally the Public Relations Club, but we’re now the Public Relations Student Society of America,” said Landree.

This name change took place in October 2007, though the members still refer to themselves as the Public Relations Club.
“This focuses on the number of members and should focus more on supporting struggling CSOs and getting students more involved with their organizations,” said Clabots.

In addition to Campus Kitchen, Clabots is also a member of the Equestrian Team and is concerned because the group has only seven active members, only one of which is a freshman.

“It shouldn’t affect [current clubs], because they just need to submit the required information at least once every four years, and that gets them off the list,” said Corrado.

Standards so far include a four-year inactive period before the group is dechartered and the ability to recharter within this time period.

“Once the standards are set, things will take effect right away. But not much change would be noticed until, potentially, the end of next year, when the next annual funding deadline comes around for SGA,” Howard said.

Landree said the club is not affected by this new standard because the group does not “operate on an SGA budget” and is completely “self-funded.”