Setting Up and Operating an ERC Student Leadership Council

A Student Leadership Council (SLC) is a combination of a service organization, a social club, and a student government entity for students at an Engineering Research Center. Most ERCs have one. Involvement in an SLC is fun, useful, and a great way to get more deeply involved in the day-to-day workings of the ERC. I recommend it for any ERC student who wants to get the most out of the ERC experience.

The following is a very brief outline of what is entailed in forming and operating a successful SLC.

1. Getting started To form a Student Leadership Council, the first thing you will need is a core group of ERC students (graduate and undergraduate) who are interested in starting one.

You should come up with at least a general--but preferably specific--plan for what you want the SLC to accomplish and how you would like it to be structured. Present this plan to the Director, Administrative Director, and other appropriate individuals at the center for their buy-in, suggestions, and how they might be able to further support your efforts.

Find out from your university administration what paperwork, if any, is required to start a new student organization and comply with those requirements to make the group official. Additionally, investigate what possible resources (funding, student info requests, mailbox, business cards, etc) are available at the university, and from where.

Depending on the nature of your situation and how democratic the group feels, they can either establish the SLC directly from the core group of students, or have a full-scale kick-off meeting and hold elections for the SLC.

One thing to be aware of, dependent somewhat on the make-up of your center, is to try to make sure that the SLC represents all the students. Don't have all graduate students, or all undergraduate students, or only tie-dying, vegetarian, swing dancers on the council. Strive for a diverse membership if you want the SLC to succeed.

Other helpful setup tasks: establish a web page for your SLC and possibly their own e-mail account to simplify communications in the normal event of changing leadership. See if it is possible for the SLC to have an office on campus as a headquarters for planning and for storing relevant materials.

2. Once you are on your way Okay, you've got a Student Leadership Council, so now what do you do? Well, hopefully, some of that was planned out before you started, but here are some ideas for what to do, activities to pursue, and how to keep things running smoothly.

• Maintain frequent contact and good relations with the "powers that be" at your center.
• Make T-shirts with the center's logo or an SLC logo on them.
• Plan community service or environmental clean-up projects in the local community or surrounding areas.
• Plan a tour of a company affiliated with your center.
• Plan a "welcome back" BBQ for all ERC students.
• Organize a spring/summer retreat for the students involved with the center.
• Have a fun day-trip one weekend for stress relief at a key time during the semester.
• Host monthly pizza lunches where ERC students can present dry-runs of their papers.
• Encourage all students at the ERC to get to know each other better even if they don't directly work on the same research.
• Sponsor events for industry affiliated with your center to meet and interact with the students informally.
• In a more formal capacity, the SLC may be able to represent all ERC students before the Director and other officials at the center. Presenting concerns or requests on behalf of the ERC students in an organized manner is effective and can be influential if it can be shown that the SLC is representing many other ERC students who feel this way.
• Events to promote awareness of your center, what it is all about, and how other students can find out about the ERC and get involved can also be a great idea.

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