Similarly to our Alliances, we work with other student organizations to form "virtual chapters." This allows us to cosponsor activities and events that are mission-centric for us on many more campuses than we can otherwise reach, and provides the organizations we cosponsor access to our membership and resources. Here's how it works:
- If your student group or organization is running an event or program that overlaps with our mission, and you would like our assistance getting it accomplished or making it more effective, contact us about cosponsorship.
- If we agree that it's the kind of program Pugwash would run ourselves, we'll announce it as a cosponsored event to our members, and work with you getting you the resources you need—including our own, budgets permitting.
- In return, we'll ask that you present Student Pugwash to your own members, and let them know about who we are and what we do. If you're holding an event that overlaps with our mission, most likely, some of your members will be interested in us as well. There's no pressure on them to make time for us—we just ask that interested students become members here. (That costs $12 annually for students, and can be waived for financial hardship.)
- We're not too concerned about getting credit for our contribution, and we certainly won't take any away from you. After all, you're doing all the work, and your organization should get the credit. It's preferable if you put us on the website or posters to let people know we're involved, but it doesn't have to be the top of the page. The only place we're going to announce it as a Pugwash event is internally to our members—and we'll make it clear it's cosponsored with you there too.
- If we cosponsor other events on your campus or nearby, or more of yours, we'll also announce those to our members—which now include a few of your students. And each time, we might pick up a few more people. Eventually, we'll have members in multiple scattered groups in your area—and voila, virtual chapter.
- There's no requirement for the virtual chapter to organize, get university recognition, or do anything else that's normally required of chapters in other organizations. We hope that you choose to do these things after you get to know us better, and after you're excited by the things we do.
Basically, we know that all extracurricular activities are a zero-sum game against the available time you have, and the kind of people who join any extracurricular are probably in progress on joining a dozen. We certainly want to have active chapters doing things—and we'll take those when we can get them. But we want to lower the barrier to entry. If you're doing Pugwash things and you don't have the time to explicitly do Pugwash—no problem. We'll support the work you're already doing, and leave it open whether you get involved in the future, as a student member or after graduation in the Rotblat Society.
Interested? Get in touch.
