Navigating turnover in student groups

Whether they want to or not, student groups are tied to the starts and stops outlined by their school's academic calendar. While this can lead to challenges in momentum building, it also provides campus organizers the opportunity to map the natural 3-4 year cycle onto a timeline [1]. It's important that we ingrain processes for training and leadership development into our groups. 

Types of Student Groups

  The campus ecosystem is made up of four main types of student groups. 

Student Associations	Student Associations operate at the campus, faculty, and department level; and act as the democratic voice of students in their membership. These unions often have permanent funding collected through a fee-levy which allows them to sponsor events, make donations, and offer paid roles, both as elected executives and hired staff.	Elected executive positions (ex. SECMV : unpaid roles, ASFA: paid roles) Hired work-study program of Concordia (ex: Campaigns Researcher, CSU)
Fee-levy Groups	Other campus groups can get funded through fee-levy by gaining the support of the student body. Like Student Associations, these groups have recurring funds. Unlike student associations, they can focus on specific topics or needs, such as campus food security, grants for community projects, etc.	Sustainable Action Fund (SAF Concordia) QPIRG Mcgill
Campus Clubs and Committees	Campus Clubs and Committees are funded by wither the student association of the university. Generally, clubs and committees are small groups of volunteers or participants who are sign-up, are appointed, or apply to participate. They can get their funding through funds allocated each semester by student associations to various projects sur as clubs and committeees, but also grassroots student groupes	McGill Debating Union CSU BIPOC Committee
Grassroots Student Groups	Grassroots Student Groups or Direct Action groups are informal collectives of students organizing within a given campus or a collection of campuses. While some student groups have a long history, many are emergent and exist to give a space for students to organize around a popular issue. These groups apply for funding on a needs basis.	Divest McGill Coalition Étudiante pour un Virage Environnemental et Social (CEVES)

Grassroots student groups face the highest risk of dissolving as a result of an inability to property turnover the group to the next generation of student organizers. This is because they do not have the permanence of structure that is required of other types of student groups. While being informal gives these groups freedom and flexibility, the absence of a formal structure can lead to challenges when it comes time for one generation to hand the reins over to the next. These challenges can be avoided by working strategically before turnover happens to create systems of support and guidance for new members, as well as developing institutional memory within your group. 

Challenges faced

Those lived experiences were shared by learning circle participants.

• Divestment organizers were concerned about groups who won and didn’t know where to go from there
• Groups have been struggling to navigate online organizing
• There are ongoing concerns related to general turnover and capacity when students graduate (particularly those who have been members of a group for a while
• A lack of support from former members leads to more energy and time needed to restart after a high rate of turnover.
• Anger towards the school administration leads to forgetting about turnover periods, thus the workload for the next semester is larger.

Running effective student groups

Momentum's Structure Report suggests 5 key elements allow for groups to organize effectively:

1. The capacity to coordinate teams

2. The capacity to facilitate group deliberation and decision making processes

3. The ability to distribute work into roles on teams

4. The ability to set up systems and design programs to recruit people from your target constituencies

5. The ability to train and coach other leaders

This is what we should be striving for when developing our student groups that navigate turnover effectively.

Support and Guidance for New Members

The Buddy System

Many groups navigate turnover by pairing new members with someone who has more experience. This strategy encourages relationship building and offers a point of contact to new members to go to with their questions. Your group can do this in a number of ways: Make being a ‘buddy’ to new members a specific role in your group; Allow new members to choose their buddy; Partner new members with existing members based on their area of interest, for example, if a new member is interested in communications pair them with the communications bottom-liner.   It’s important that those assigned to be buddies have a strong sense of the group's identity and activities, their role is to make themselves replaceable by training new members and activating potential leaders.

In Practice...

In order to have a sustainable student group, veteran members need to take on the responsibility of building leadership and supporting people to learn and grow.  Below is a structure for skill-building from the book Exponential: I do. You watch. We talk.  I do. You help. We talk.  You do. I help. We talk.  You do. I watch. We talk.  You do. Someone else watches.

Institutional Memory

Having a strong base of institutional memory ensures the sustainability of your group by supporting new members to navigate turnover. A lack of institutional memory can lead to role confusion, lost vision, and copycat actions.

Create a Blueprint

Create a document that includes everything someone entering a new role would need to be successful. Be sure to include: Essential responsibilities Best practices Passwords Contacts Brief how-to explainers General tips

Have Strong Onboarding and Outboarding Processes

Onboarding process should include:  An overview of the group's mission, values, and structure Introductions to key group members Opportunities to questions A concrete action of next step for prospective members, ie. ask them to join an action, invite them to the next meeting, or plan a social activity Offboarding process should include  Request feedback from outgoing members on ways to improve the group (i.e. a google form, a meeting)