On Tuesday, Nov. 18, Student Union Treasury will take a final vote on whether to de-register 61 on-campus clubs and groups from Student Union.

Groups up for deregistration failed to meet one of several different criteria. Failing to submit a budget for two consecutive semesters, not registering a president and treasurer or misusing SU funds were among the reasons the SU website listed for a group becoming eligible for deregistration. Treasury’s vote will be combined with that of the Student Group Activities Committee to decide whether groups will be deregistered, moved to a lower funding category or allowed to operate as before.

A variety of groups are facing deregistration, ranging from large clubs such as Debate Team to smaller clubs such as the Political Science Student Association and the WU Army Reserve Officers Training Corps. If a club is deregistered, it will neither be recognized by Student Union as an official group nor receive support or funding. Several active clubs were put on the deregistration list without prior notice and are now uncertain of their future.

According to the SU constitution, SGAC should meet with SU every semester to discuss which groups should be deregistered. Junior and former SGAC chair Michael Schumeister was unaware of the last time that this process happened, but SU president and senior Emma Tyler communicated with him over the summer to make sure that it happened this semester.

Schumeister has worked throughout the beginning of the year to prepare SGAC for the process and hopes the student body does not misunderstand the motion, which he said was intended to make the awarding of funds more efficient.

“I think on the face of it, it can seem like a malicious thing, like us trying to cut groups,” Schumeister said. “But it’s us trying to improve efficiency and just making sure we know what’s going on on campus and not allowing these groups to sit on our system when nothing really happens.”

Schumeister noted that the deregistration will help to make SU more effective in catering to student needs.

“I think we will now know if there is a void or a niche that’s not covered,” Schumeister said, “and that we can work to actively fill it instead of saying we have a group that fills that void, but in actuality there is no active group that fills that void.”

Groups were given a period of two weeks that ended Nov. 7 to submit letters or evidence to prevent their deregistration. SGAC reviewed any documents after they were submitted and has already voted on the issue. However, SU was unable to contact several groups, which has led to problems in verifying if clubs are still active.

“We used a couple of different methods to try to find anyone involved in them, and we don’t know how successful we were,” Schumeister said.

Senior Olivia Lugar, president of the Self-Defense Club, was surprised that her club was one of the 61 on SU’s list. After being told of the potential deregistration by the treasurer of another club, she passed the information on to the president of the Student Alumni Ambassador Program, who was also unaware that the group was up for deregistration.

“It was a little upsetting just to find out the way I did,” Lugar said. “It’s just weird to be in that situation without, like, not feeling it was necessarily our fault to a large degree.”

The Self-Defense Club was facing deregistration for not having a president or treasurer registered with SU. Lugar, the club’s treasurer last year, believed she had taken all of the necessary steps for registration because she was able to access the club’s portal on the SU finance website.

“I think [SU] needs to better about communicating things sometimes,” Lugar said. “If it becomes clear that so many groups are not responding, if [61] groups are not getting the information, there’s a larger problem. So I feel there needs to be a set way to make sure people are getting information.”

Lugar has submitted a letter to resolve the issue but has no official confirmation as SU has not officially told her that her group will keep its registration.

“It’s kind of a little unnerving,” Lugar said. “I felt like we had a near miss there; thankfully we got it resolved.”

Freshman Pranita Kaginele believes that SU’s actions could potentially be justified.

“I feel like it’s really situational; it depends on the clubs,” Kaginele said. “If you stop the clubs that aren’t helping at all and use the funding for those clubs and distribute it among those clubs that are actually doing something, then it would be [beneficial].”

Despite the potential miscommunications, Schumeister does not want the vote to ruin any student groups and believes the deregistration process is necessary for the well-being of the student body.

“I hope that it doesn’t negatively affect anyone,” Schumeister said. “I hope no one’s group is disbanded even though they’re active, but at the same time I think it benefits students that would potentially have interests in topics that those groups covered and allow them to know their needs aren’t being met, and they can get involved by creating a group for themselves and they don’t think those groups are brushing them off.”