Think of the array of student groups active on campus. What role do they play? Are they merely for student enjoyment? Do they contribute to a sense of community? Can they help us build skills and gain leadership opportunities?

Numerous graduate institutions highlight the importance of taking part in student groups. Some universities even spell out in great detail the benefits for students joining these groups while securing an academic degree. In fact, it is now almost expected that you would start university life with some experience of belonging to a student organization in high school. 

Here is a quick look at some of the key benefits of joining or leading student organizations:

• Encourages Leadership: Students who have started or belonged to student organizations report they have faced a sharp learning curve before entering the professional world (see this or this). As universities like MIIS prepare their students for the professional world, leading a student organization provides hands-on experience on leading people.
• Improves Well-Being: Te-Erika Patterson of The Atlantic writes that most students who enter graduate school are academically qualified to obtain their degrees, but that “systemic issues at schools may lead to high attrition and mental stress among graduate students.” Research from the University of Texas at Austin found that 43% of grad students experience more stress than they feel they can handle. She notes that many graduate institutions tend to adopt a less collaborative approach and promote more individual work for the student. While this might not necessarily be true for MIIS, it highlights the necessity of working together, of forging connections with fellow students and developing a support system that extends beyond the classroom. For more, see this, this, and this. 
• Builds Networks: We may primarily think of participation in a student organization as a professional networking opportunity or a resume builder, but can they also be valuable for less lofty reasons? At MIIS we often bemoan the siloing of our programs–we rarely have an opportunity to interact with students across degree programs. Some student organizations may be the answer–they bring together students of all disciplines. “It’s helpful for networking, but I think it’s more helpful though for students feeling socially connected with each other,” says Jack J. Baroudi, a professor and senior associate dean for academic programs at the University of Delaware’s Alfred Lerner College of Business and Economics. Taking part in a student group underscores the importance of having something else other than schoolwork going on in your life. It also fits in well with the concept of self-care, which we have discussed previously. 
• Fosters Activism: Similarly, some student groups are created to foster activism. They offer students a chance to bring about change and apply their education into practice. So like student clubs and organizations,  student activism on campuses can also provide unique benefits in terms of encouraging collaboration and building community. In an article from Higher Education Today, a blog of the American Council on Education, academic campuses “derive their legitimacy in part on their commitment to developing excellence, integrity and a sense of community among their students. Student activism provides a space for institutions to be thoughtful about enacting those very commitments.” Having something at stake–whether a political cause, an opinion about an upcoming change to an academic program, or a student group–builds engagement among students that benefit both the institution and the students themselves in the long run. Research on student activists shows that they continue their political participation later on in life and develop a greater sense of social responsibility. Studies also suggest that students on campus with an active student body “experience gains in critical thinking, civic engagement, and a commitment to the larger community.”  

However, there may be some challenges in the running of student organizations that should be considered by students, faculty, and administration. 

• How to balance time and work between academic obligations and student organizations: The higher education environment puts immense pressure on students to excel, to compete with one another, and to build a resume. How much time do students get to devote to student organizations? More importantly, how would they balance the time and work student organizations require vis-a-vis their academic work? Usually, there is a long list of student organizations in any given university and MIIS is no exception. More often than not, students belong to more than one student organization or hold one or two jobs, making it difficult, if not impossible, to secure the full benefit and experience of a student organization. At MIIS, one often finds that student organization involvement and interests are centered around specific events and at other times, beyond those in leadership, participation dwindles because of competing interests and academic and work pressures. It raises the question then of how useful or relevant are student organizations to the broader MIIS experience. A question that has often surfaced at MIIS is whether students should be allowed to seek credits for their work through student organizations. Another big challenge is the growing trend in higher education to reduce program length (to bring down costs) and going online. What does that mean for the future of student organizations on campuses?
• How to ensure inclusivity in student organizations: Student organizations, by their very nature, are designed to bring together individuals who share a common interest. What happens when those interests do not intentionally or unintentionally foster diversity of thoughts, ideas, and even race and gender? Affinity groups are often finding themselves in these tricky situations of wanting to create a safe space for their members while being inclusive. Aliyah Wilson in this article details her initial hesitation in joining a BSU at Marist College and then discovered the welcoming space this cultural student organization provided to allies. While some might think this is exactly what groups should be like, Sarah Brown presents the case of Harvard where an incoming student could be penalized for joining a single-gender student organization. She writes: “Members wouldn’t be able to hold leadership positions on campus, serve as captains of athletic teams, or receive Harvard’s endorsement for postgraduate scholarships like the Rhodes and the Marshall. The groups could avoid the sanctions only if they went co-ed.” The result is that female-only sorority groups have disappeared while male-only fraternities still exist. This probably says a lot about male privilege. Another challenge that student organizations face in being truly inclusive is in ensuring the participation of online students. As more and more universities adopt hybrid teaching, these are new questions that student organizations must consider.
• How to define faculty roles in student organizations: Student organizations operate with an understanding that there is usually support (advice, resources) from academic institutions. Institutions recommend or even require student organizations to have faculty advisors, but most do not lay out in detail the role of these advisors. The benefit of more significant student-faculty interaction is often the primary basis for encouraging student organizations to work with faculty advisors. However, in many institutions, especially in graduate schools, there are no clear guidelines for the role of faculty advisors as mentors for student organizations. The ad-hoc relationships often have various factors that make or break these links between faculty and students: personality, availability, and willingness key among them. Should student organizations enjoy complete freedom, or should seeking guidance be mandatory? The answer is probably not either/or but more of where in the continuum an institution chooses to place itself. It might work better if universities made these decisions consciously rather than respond to crises like those detailed in the section above and below.
• How to deal with clashes between student organizations: A recent example from the University of California, Berkeley shows the difficulty in creating space for student organizations that promote causes on different ends of the political spectrum. A clash erupted between pro-Israel and pro-Palestine student groups at a student union meeting in February (for a similar case, see here). At the source of controversy was a display created by Bears for Palestine, a Palestinian affinity group, that featured female activists who had been indicted by the Israeli government. The university administration reported that they were “deeply disturbed by what happened” and that they wanted to have a better understanding of why this occurred. This seems to indicate that the university remains unsure of how to deal with two opposing student groups, particularly when interactions build in tension. An article by Eboo Patel explores what to do with these questions in more detail. He recognizes the difficulty in applying certain identity criteria to some student groups (for example a Korean-American group) versus others (a Christian group disallowing LGBTQ students from leadership positions). For another perspective see this. While these problems are not easily remedied, Patel encourages university campuses and student groups to “define a diverse society…where people with different identities and deep disagreements can collectively flourish, respecting one another’s identities, building relationships across disagreements and cooperating where they can to serve the common good.”  

Student groups are both an interesting and an important part of the student experience in any academic setting. However, given the changing environment and the newer challenges in the world around us, it seems there needs to be a more careful evaluation of the role of student organizations and the alignment with institutional goals and values. The creation of a student group, its workings, its approaches, all matter to the overall experience of university life and therefore should be everyone’s concern. 

We would love to hear from you on this topic. Please take our quick poll and we will report back on what you think in our next issue.