Several organizations that were active presences on campus last year have not yet been re-chartered for this academic year. Among them are Jewish lobbying group J-Street U, Bowdoin Entrepreneurs and the Bowdoin College Republicans, according to the Office of Student Activities.
Every spring, the leaders of all organizations re-charter their clubs for the next year with Student Activities. Nathan Hintze, associate director of student activities, explained that the leadership turnover is not always smooth and it typically takes some time at the beginning of each fall semester for Student Activities to get a fully accurate roster of campus organizations and their leaders. He expects that in the next month they will probably all be back.
“J-Street was very active last year,” said Hintze. “I know there are leaders this year, they just haven’t re-chartered with us yet.”
“The onus is on seniors to re-charter, sometimes there are mistakes or the paperwork gets overlooked,” said Hintze. “Some clubs haven’t had elections so they don’t have leaders for this year yet” to complete the chartering process.
Speaking about the College Republicans, Hintze pointed out that in non-elections years there is typically less activity from both the College Democrats and the College Republicans in the absence of active national campaigns that student groups can coordinate actions and events with.
Several groups of students have already approached Hintze about starting new organizations.
“There’s an a cappella group for students that aren’t musically inclined,” he said. As student organizations are driven by student interest, Hintze explained that as long as aspiring founders “make a case for how it would benefit the campus,” the organization can charter with Student Activities.
“It’s early in the semester. The Student Activities Funding Committee and the Student Organization Oversight Committees haven’t started yet, elections haven’t happened. Students probably aren’t yet aware that these organizations don’t officially exist,” said Hintze.