Starting an NSLS chapter at your school is a great way to provide transformative leadership development programs to your students while also connecting them to a larger community of more than 1.5 million NSLS members at over 700 other chapters nationwide.
One of the best parts about our accredited program is that once your chapter is established, it will begin to run—and even fund—itself. But first, your chapter needs to start out on the right foot.
To help make this process as easy as possible, here are the top three best practices when launching a new NSLS chapter.
Connect with Your Registrar Early
One of the most important steps in launching your chapter is ensuring that the NSLS National Office has the information they need to invite students from your school.
While the National Office handles the actual invitation process—alerting students who are eligible to join and mailing formal invitations—we require a list of students that meet the criteria you have set for chapter membership.
You can help us gather that information by contacting your registrar as early as possible to ensure the National Office has the necessary information to invite potential members.
The best piece of advice is to start this process as early as possible so you can successfully kick off your chapter.
Launch with Student Involvement
Administrators can fully launch a chapter without having any members involved beforehand, but the strongest chapters bring students into the fold as early as possible.
If you have students in mind that would be a good fit to join the NSLS, we suggest that you work with those students when launching the chapter to establish your chapter’s leadership team before inviting others to join.
Early student involvement can ease the workload of running the chapter plus you get a jumpstart on healthy chapter best practices, such as creating an executive board and planning events throughout the semester. In short, recruiting a few members early helps you get your chapter closer to running itself faster.
Remember, student involvement isn’t a requirement. If you’d like to launch your chapter and have the National Office invite new members and help establish chapter leadership, we are happy to do so.
Get Ready for Frequently Asked Questions
Launching a new NSLS chapter means that your students will likely have many questions about the NSLS, how they can sign up, what’s involved with running a chapter, and many more.
It’s important to understand that with all new initiatives, questions like these will often arise.
The best way to handle these questions is to familiarize yourself with our FAQ page. We also suggest that you bookmark this page for easy reference when questions come your way. Learning the FAQs can save you time while also helping your members understand everything the NSLS offers (see a full list of benefits here).
Need More Support?
While these best practices will help you establish your NSLS chapter, we understand that additional support may be required. We have a Program Development Team comprised of caring individuals that were once NSLS advisors! Their job is to help guide administrators like yourself through the process of launching an NSLS chapter. Please don’t hesitate to reach out to our team with any questions or concerns you may have. They’re here to support your chapter now and into the future.
