The Pace Pleasantville campus with its dozens of student organizations and clubs all must follow the same rules; the Student Organization Handbook. Every year, the handbook gets an update from Student Engagement. This year, the Center for Student Engagement has made multiple changes to the document. The 2024-2025 Student Organization Handbook was updated on December 6th.
The biggest change to the document is in the TAIL Budget section on Page 30 of the handbook. This includes weekend events as an opportunity to use the TAIL budget. Student organizations will now get an extra $500 to use to plan an event on the weekend. To encourage weekend events and more activity on campus on the weekends, the budget maximum for weekend events is now $1500, whilst all other events using the TAIL budget still get $1000.
According to the Assistant Director of Student Engagement, Maria Lemus, this decision was made due to student requests. She said, “Many students have reached out to SGA and asked for more weekend programming, so SGA created an incentive idea to help increase the number of programs student organizations are doing on the weekends. They are also planning a couple of events throughout the year and want to continue to advocate for the interests of the student body.”
According to the new policy, all events with budgets made under TAIL must now fall under at least one of the following categories: Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion; Wellness; Weekend event; Community Service/Philanthropy; or Leadership.
The new Student Organization Handbook includes Safety & Security Policies, which were not present in the 2023-2024 edition of the Handbook. The policies for obtaining event security are detailed in this section, as well as guidelines for guest speakers and outside guests. With the growing size of events organized by student organizations, these policies are now essential.
On page 15, the Safety and Security Policy states, “The Center for Student Engagement staff can consult with the Pace University Safety & Security team to identify risks associated with event(s). This review determines the need and numbers for security, metal detectors, or if a performer or act should be denied. This can include a need for a meeting between the student organization, the Center for Student Engagement, and Safety & Security.”
Maria Lemus explained how the Safety and Security policy was created. She said, “We worked together with our campus Safety & Security team to have processes for events with different risk levels. We want to have open communication with Security and with the students planning events, and wanted to be able to help guide the orgs with these processes by including it in the handbook.”
Another addition to the handbook is a section for off-campus trip guidelines. This section states that there is now a requirement for all participating attendees of any off-campus trips to fill out a Student Travel Consent and Release form. On page 12, the Handbook states, “Student organization leaders are responsible for requiring all attendees for the trip to complete the Student Travel Consent and Release form located here and on the Center for Student Engagement SetterSync page. Each student attending the trip must complete this form.”
The Travel Consent and Release form was made following an increase in off campus trips, Lemus explained. She said, “We have seen an increase in off-campus trip planning, which has been so exciting! We created the form to help keep our students safe and to collect important information, such as emergency contact information.”
On page 29, the handbook now details event funding requirements. The funding requirements state, “All student organization meetings, activities, services, or events funded by the Student Activity Fee must be open to the entire Pace University full-time undergraduate student population on the Pleasantville campus.”
These requirements also specify that the student activity fee funds cannot be used in ways that violate university policy. How violations are determined is not detailed in the Student Organization Handbook.
Lemus explained what sort of items this requirement applies to and the potential consequences of violating it, She said, “This statement refers to items that go against the Guiding Principles of Conduct, Pace University Student Handbook, and other official university documents/policies. Violations of this can lead to conduct processes as well as other processes explained in the Student Org Handbook.”
The handbook now specifies the timeline for budget requests specifically for apparel and customized items. These requests must be made 6 weeks in advance of distribution. In previous editions of the handbook, the timeline was 3 weeks in advance.
Lemus explained why this change was made. She said, “As we want to work efficiently so that student org supplies and materials are arriving in a timely manner and to avoid delays, the timeline has been changed to 6 weeks. This gives more time in case any issues with design, purchasing, or delivery come up so that the organizations have their needed supplies on the intended dates.”
The 2024-2025 Student Organization Handbook can be found on The Center for Student Engagement Settersync page or on the Student Org Leader Settersync page.