Starting A College Team (comp. Only)

[Amberlc21]

Hey everyone!! So I attend an art school that does not have sports programs, but I have had some interest from fellow students in starting a competition only cheer team. I'm wondering if anyone has advice on this and how to go about forming the team. Thanks!

 

[jessicaeasteregg]

I don't have advice specific to starting a cheer team, but it sounds like this would fall under clubs rather than athletics since your school doesn't have sports teams. If you have a student activities/organizations office, they'd be a really good place to start. They can let you know if this is something that would go through their office or if it's a different department, and if it's through them they should be able to walk you through what you need to do.

Some universities require you to be an actual entity before you can use facilities and hold meetings on campus. If you DO end up go through as a student organization, you'll want to find out requirements to be recognized by the school, fill out whatever forms need to be turned in, learn about other student life policies including budgeting/fundraising, how to book rooms, what space is available for your needs, stuff like that.

You should also look into acceptable use for your university name/logos/mascot. At my undergrad, only university departments and chartered student organizations (such as student government) could use the name in an official sense - student government was called XYZ University SGA. All other clubs had to say they were just a club at the school, like Bendy Straw Club at XYZ University.

Hope this was a little helpful!