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.
Contents
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. Spend a considerable ammount of time making sure that your team is up to these standards. Provide lots of work opportunities for your team early to see who is ready for the responsibility and who might not be able to take the heat.
Finding the right members to move you forward
After a group's leadership team, its members will take it from just a startup to a thriving organization with the ability to influence I&E change all across your institution. Cross-cutting student groups need to focus on finding students with diverse backgrounds and many connections to other students, faculty, and community entities across different diciplines. Here are some techniques to get your student group noticed, and rope in the members to take it to the next level.
The cold-calling method
What many see as the best way to reach students is sometimes the most difficult (and depending on how you do it, embarassing and fun). Simply stepping outside on campus with your leadership team with materials that attract students (free food, shiny objects, or simply a smile and a wave) can get your group noticed better than anything else, but it takes courage and a creative mindset. Many groups fall into the pit of fliers, posters, and telling people what they're all about. I'm sure any student has experienced this, bustling from class to class, trying as hard as you can to cold-shoulder all the fliers and "excuse me's" coming from people on the sidewalk. Instead, focus on asking questions. People inherently love to chat about themselves, and when it comes to student I&E, talking about themselves is exactly what prospective group members need to do.
Atin provided some fantastic insight into this subject. Through his work with University of Maryland's student innovation core 'The Academy,' he learned a lot about what it means to cold-call on campus. He and his colleagues found the most success by putting their efforts into something very out of the ordinary, and allowing people to come to their own conclusions about the group and if they would be a good fit. They did this by dressing up as what they cleverly named 'White-board Walkers' (after the ruthless species the 'White Walkers' from the popular HBO series Game of Thrones). They would travel from corner to corner on campus, donning white-board material from head to toe, and asked people what they were passionate about. People would respond with anything from 'human trafficking' to 'the implications of Rennaisance art in modern society,' and write it on the white-board clothing. Atin and his team would then begin to talk to them about how they hope to make changes in that field, and see what sort of burning ideas they might have. Eventually the passerby may come to realize that their passion fits right in with any other when it comes to need for innovation, and they would ask for more information on The Academy and how it worked.
Events and group fairs: creativity is king
Student group fairs and group-hosted events are two of the best ways to start getting the word out for your group, and start getting members in for your general meetings. The problem is, everyone is doing them. Twice a year at the University of Minnesota, the student union building is thronging with student groups and hundreds of students looking to learn a thing or two. Everyone has their poster and materials out, dressed in their best group t-shirt, and spewing information to dozens of students. It's a bit overwhelming, and standing out from the crowd is nearly impossible unless you have your tech group's hovercar on site. You and your leadership team need to figure out how to be unique in a sea of colors and noise. Again, focus on getting your prospective students to chat about what THEY hope to do, not what your group hopes to accomplish first off.