Resource:How to create a cross-cutting student organization

The subject matter of this wiki was gathered and edited by Emmet Dettweiler of the University of Michigan, and Christopher Kuehn of the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities after an extensive interview with the University of Maryland's UIF alumni Atin Mittra.

Overview of a cross-cutting student organization

When it comes to spreading the influence of the student I&E mentality, nothing has more power than the well refined mission of a large group of dedicated students. In any system, the actions that that organization follows through with are most often driven by those that it serves. In this case it comes down to the demand of the university's main customers, it's students. Before you can gain the respect of faculty members, professors, and eventually the key figures needed to get the change put in place, you need people behind you supporting your ideas and sugguestions. A 'cross-cutting' student group is the best way to do this. 'Cross-cutting' groups are those that focus on diversity of dicipline amongst their members, and seek to cut down barriers between different areas of study within the university and their respective faculty systems. This wiki provides tips and tricks to better a groups ability to gather the right kind of people and spread the group's I&E influence over the entirety of the university.

Establishing a quality leadership team

The most important element in any startup is it's leadership team, and a student group is no different. The leadership team is the flagship of the operation, and in the early stages, finding the right people may mean success or an early end to your journey. Here are some tips and tricks to make sure that your people are the best people for the job.

Focus on finding people with leadership experience (but be wary)

When choosing who will assist you in the leading of your student group, look for people who already know what it means to have the responsibility of being in charge. All too often student groups fall apart after the first few months because the initial excitement of the startup fade, and the actual work starts. Many people believe that they have leadership skills, but forget that leaders are also some of the biggest doers on the team. When the group jumps from 10 to 50 people, and email-lists need to be managed, meeting places need to be secured, events need to be ran, and faculty/community relationships need to be attended to, un-experienced leaders might break under the pressure or think that their job is done. During any interview with a prospective leadership team member, focus on their previous leadership experiences. Ask what difficulties they experienced and how they overcame them. Did they have a mission that they were trying to complete? Competition they were looking to sweep? How did they manage their team? How did they overcome adversity? Although there are some inherintly talented leaders out there, they are few and far between.

However, you need to be careful. Someone that can be commonly seen in the student body is the resume builder. These are the students who see leadership positions as little more than an opportunity to utilize the name of the group to invest in their future. Their past is filled with leadership experiences, but none of them probably lasted more than a semester. They are always looking for something new and exciting, but when it comes down to getting work done in the long run, they will be off to something new. They may feign interest in your mission to begin with, but somewhere down the line that interest will fade and they will walk away. When interviewing a potential leader, go in-depth about their experiences. Look for leadership opportunities that proved difficult over a long period of time. An experience that lasted over a year but was a failure can be much more valuable than that that lasted only a month or two but was a great success.

Make sure they align with your mission

The most important thing to look for in a leadership core team, and most often the most difficult thing to find is other students who align with your student group's initial mission. It takes more than just being interested in university innovation to want to expand an I&E student group, it takes passion and drive steming from past experiences, and future ambitions. You shouldn't have to teach them about everything your institution has to offer, they should already know many of the things that you are looking to work on. If they teach you something that you didn't know about your school's student I&E system, they might just be a good match for your team. This is a struggle for all leadership teams starting out. Members need to be ready to stick around for the long run, and if they are not passionate about the subject matter at hand, the chances of them doing that might just be very small.