The father of all student groups

The committee usually meets every other week to decide which prospective student groups can join the other 200 organizations that already exist on campus. To be considered for official establishment, a representative from the prospective group must submit an application on the SGRC’s website.

Jordan Blashek ’09 and Sonia Bhaskar ’09 co-chair the committee, receiving the application e-mails and running the meetings at which they are reviewed. The last applications of the school year were reviewed a week ago.

Virginia Byron ’10, co-founder of the recently approved Princeton University Ballet (PUB), mostly commended the SGRC’s process of creating student groups. The “form online was pretty easy to fill out,” she said. The meeting at which she had to give her presentation was “friendly and informal,” she added.

PUB co-founder Liz Rosen ’10 agreed the process was straightforward. “We explained the idea for our club and our thoughts on where we might get funding” at the meeting, Rosen said in an e-mail. “About a week later, we received word that our group had been approved,” she adåded.

Some students, however, faulted the SGRC for its lack of timeliness. After submitting the online application, it “took a few months before anyone responded,” Byron said. It was not until she confronted Associate Dean of Undergraduate Students Thomas Dunne that the SGRC dealt with her application for the PUB’s official approval.

Becky Harper ’10, one of the six founders of the University’s new microfinance group, also found promptness to be the SGRC’s biggest flaw. The “annoying thing ... [was that the SGRC] wasn’t responsive very quickly, a bit disorganized,” Harper said.

“We had to badger them a bit to get our hearing, but they were very receptive and helpful when we finally met,” she added in an e-mail.

At the SGRC meetings, a representative of the potential organization gives a 10-15 minute presentation that describes the purpose of the group, what the University will gain from the group’s recognition and where the group will get its funding, Bhaskar said.

The representative is supposed to detail his or her planned procedure, goals, officers, how he or she wants to operate, the events he or she will be planning and other general information, Blashek added.

The SGRC co-chairs also outlined the various criteria the committee incorporates in its decision-making process.

An organization that is “viable and will be able to get enough members” is one of the criteria that SGRC looks for in a potential group, Blashek said.

Groups that appear able to last for several years are also favored by the SGRC, as well as groups that are distinguishable from already established on-campus organizations and ones that will be well publicized and non-exclusive, Blashek said.

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The SGRC also makes sure that the representative is enthusiastic about his or her project and is wary of organizations that overly endorse certain academic topics, he added.

The members of SGRC “want to make sure ... [the organization] is not using Princeton money to promote a certain department,” Bhaskar explained.

Once the group is “recognized, we will provide them with information and suggestions on how to best set up their group,” Blashek said.

To get funding, an approved organization can “apply to [the USG] projects board for funding,” Blashek said in an e-mail. “I’m not sure if they are automatically given funding upon approval,” he added. “That’s handled ... at [the Office of the Dean of Undergraduate Students].”

If the group is not approved, the representative is given one chance to appeal the decision and can re-apply once. Both Bhaskar and Blashek declined to comment about groups that had not been approved.

Besides co-chairs Blashek and Bhaskar, the other members of SGRC are Brian Jeong ’11, Will Wallace ’09, Mike Wang ’10, Alice Zhang ’10 and Reilly Kiernan ’10, who is a senior writer for The Daily Princetonian.