When the Student Activities Commission Fair sets up on the front lawn this Sunday, three new campus organizations will be among the multitude of tables.
The organizations — Diversability, Community Garden, and American Public Health Association — were all officially recognized by SAC at the end of last fall semester.
Diversability — an organization dedicated to increasing disability awareness and updating the conception of the term “disability” — had been operating in semesters previous.
Jeffrey Kosmo (MSB ’12), the club’s president, said that one of the best things about the organization is that members can get as involved as they would like without reserving a huge amount of their busy schedule.
Community Garden strives to engage students in the process of creating a garden on campus and understanding and developing urban gardening methods. The group also hopes to get involved in gardening initiatives around the D.C. area.
The American Public Health Association provides a professional gateway into the largest public health organization in the United States, participating in networking events and helping to host the nationalAPHA conference in D.C.
Given the youth of the organization here at Georgetown, campus leaders of APHA emphasized their desire for members to participate actively in brainstorming and creating events.
“We are looking for students that are fun, interested in health and passionate,” Alexandra Melo (NHS ’13) said.
Although two of the three three clubs were formed toward the end of last year, no new clubs have been set up so far this calendar year. SAC Chairman Andy Koenig (COL ’12) said it is not unusual that no new clubs were formed in the last two semesters.
“It could just be that all the clubs that began the process the semester prior were assigned to different advisory boards. Clubs sometimes disband during the development process due to lack of interest as well,” he said.
The Center for Student Programming’s New Club Development Program spans an entire academic year. Students interested in forming a new organization need at least 12 undergraduate participants and three officers. The fledgling group must draft a mission statement, constitution and a list of possible future events. They also must hold programming co-sponsored by another student organization after which an assessment of each event must be submitted.
“These requirements are meant to serve as a measure of the sustainability of the organization after its founding members have graduated, determine the relevance of the organization to the Georgetown student body and assure the level of the commitment to the Georgetown and/or greater community,” theCSP policy reads.
Groups that do not complete the requirements within an academic year may be given an additional semester to complete the process.
