Division for Student Affairs officials paused the formation of new student organizations through the end of the 2025-26 academic year, a University spokesperson confirmed.
University spokesperson Claire Sabin said the Office of Student Life, which coordinates the formation of new student organizations, implemented the pause at the end of the spring semester and will revisit the application process “after extensive review of the 2025-2026 academic year.” Officials have since updated the DSA’s student organizations webpage to reflect the pause and do not have any scheduled New Student Organization Info Sessions on Org Help’s Engage page, which students are required to attend if they want to form a new student organization.
Sabin said officials paused the application process to “improve the support structures” that serve more than 500 current student organizations at GW. She said it is critical that DSA officials provide “equitable and well-rounded” support to current organizations on campus to help meet their goals.
This appears to be the first time officials have put a hold on the formation of new student organizations, according to Hatchet archives.
She said students who may need assistance finding an active student organization to be a part of should visit the DSA’s office or reach out to Org Help.
Aiden Milne, a rising graduate student studying international affairs, said he attempted to register for a New Student Organization Info Session on Org Help’s Engage page last week, and emailed Org Help when none of the forms worked online.
Milne said he received a response from Org Help a few days after he initially inquired about forming a new student organization, which informed him that officials wouldn’t permit any new clubs to form. As the administrator of @gw.propaganda, an Instagram account that posts content about student life and campus culture, Milne posted the email response from Org Help to the account.
Milne said he was looking to form an organization similar to the GW Foghorn, an Instagram account that posts satirical news headlines about the University, its administration and students.
The response from Org Help, which Milne shared with The Hatchet, said it is crucial to officials that current student organizations receive a “high level of support” and emphasized distributing available resources for current student organizations.
“We are working to better align that need with our capacity for managing the existing organizations with respect to funding, training, advising, and distribution of other resources,” officials said in the email to Milne.
After posting the email on Instagram, Milne said two other students messaged him sharing similar experiences. He said one student who messaged him had initially inquired about forming a new student organization in March, but heard back from Org Help three months later in June that officials were pausing the formation of new student organizations.
One of the students who messaged Milne, Arjun Kamineni, a sophomore majoring in political science and economics, said he also attempted to form a new student organization this summer without being aware that officials had paused applications.
Kamineni said he had initially messaged Org Help through Engage the first week of June, where he received no response after a few days. He said he then sent an email to Org Help on June 11 and received a response from the group over a week later, with the same response Milne received.
Kamineni said he was looking to form an Ethics Bowl team, where a group of about five students make ethical arguments about pre-assigned cases. He said the teams compete with other universities, and unlike traditional debate teams, these groups do not have to disagree with each other.
He said the inability to form the organization here at GW is “very disappointing,” especially as a student who enjoyed competing in this form of ethics debate in high school.
The pause comes as officials completed the first year of a new advising system for student organizations. The “Pathways” advising system classifies student organizations into four paths named after different lines of the Metro system.
Most student organizations would be classified under the orange path, the path for fairly active student organizations with typical events throughout the academic year.
Organizations classified under the silver path had lower involvement on campus and minimal needs, while those placed under the blue path would receive specialized adviser support and additional training. Organizations assigned to the red path had a higher level of funding needs and would receive an adviser as well.
