This semester, all student organizations will be required to participate in the student organization census. The purpose of the census is to achieve better communication, update profiles, train students and advisers in OrgSync, create an online one-stop event registration and create a master calendar.
Katie Smith, Director of Student Organizations, said that the census is for updating out-of-date information.
“We were reviewing our policies and comparing it to other systems. Other schools do their update in the spring, and we decided to change it since many elections take place. Many student organization information is out of date, two years old or more, and it was to correlate the census with the annual update in the spring,” Smith said.
It has not been determined when another census will be needed, but Smith assures that the census won’t be annual.
Some student organization presidents find the census to be beneficial for their organization.
“I think PSE will benefit from the census, just to let the school know that a small organization is around and that we can do big things,” said Robert Tate, president of Pi Sigma Epsilon.
Executive of UTM’s Up ‘til Dawn Katie Jarvis said that she hopes the census will give organizations on campus the efficiency they need.
“I hope to achieve organization from the census. I want Up ‘til Dawn and all other organizations to be able to easily find out what exactly all the organization represents and who are the key people to contact if there is ever a collaboration for events or who to contact to become a member of the organization,” Jarvis said.
The census is broken into three phases. Organizations that fail to complete Phase I of the census will be considered inactive and removed from the system.
For Phase I, which is happening Feb. 11 through Feb. 28, student organizations must complete the census update form located on The Hub. Organizations will be required to upload a roster of all active members with the form; an Excel spreadsheet template is provided for the roster. Furthermore, organizations will be required to upload their constitution with the form. Those who cannot find their constitution can contact Katie Smith for the constitution that is on file. Organizations are encouraged to review their constitution to ensure that it reflects the purpose and operation of the organization.
Phase II will be from March 10 to March 28. For this phase, student organization presidents must complete OrgSync training and president training. Both training sessions will be administrated via Blackboard to allow for 24/7 access to the courses. An OrgSync representative will be on campus March 12 and March 13 to provide multiple in-person training sessions. Advisers are encouraged to attend one of the sessions. Presidents that attend an in-person training session will not be required to complete the online OrgSync training.
Phase III will be on April 2, and this is when the new online event registration goes live, giving organizations a streamlined process to report their programming activities, request facility space and gain event approval via a single form.
