LDS Student Association
LDS Student Association (also known as the Latter-day Saint Student Association or the LDSSA) is an organization affiliated with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints which offers Latter-day Saint university and college students and others social, religious, and recreational activities.
The LDSSA was established in 1960, and today a chapter of the LDSSA exists in every location that an Institute of Religion of the Church Educational System has been established. Every Latter-day Saint student is automatically a member of the local LDSSA. Interested non-members of the church may join by enrolling at the Institute of Religion building. Each local chapter is administered by a stake president, who delegates most of the day-to-day responsibilities of the LDSSA to a president and council chosen from among the student members of the LDSSA.
LDSSA chapters at some schools (for example, Harvard College[1]) are not formally and directly governed by the LDS Church, as a result of official school requirements mandating the "local autonomy" of recognized campus organizations.[2] However, they still interact with the local Institutes of Religion and church organization structure in ways similar to those of other LDSSA chapters. One key difference is that such LDSSA chapters hold elections for their president and other board officers, rather than those officers being appointed by local LDS church leadership.
In some areas of the United States, the members of the LDSSA may also be members of the Sigma Gamma Chi fraternity or the Lambda Delta Sigma sorority.
Two key figures in establishing the LDSSA were W. Rolfe Kerr and Elaine A. Cannon.
See also
References
- ^ Harvard College Latter-day Saint Student Association website
- ^ Harvard College Handbook for Students: Life in the Harvard Community: Regulations for Undergraduate Organizations,
Recognized organizations must maintain their local autonomy. The criterion for local autonomy shall be whether the College organization makes all policy decisions without obligation to any parent organization.
- Elaine Anderson Cannon (1992). "LDS Student Association" in Encyclopedia of Mormonism (New York: Macmillan) p. 817.
External links
- Institute finder : find an Institute of Religion and a local chapter of the LDSSA
- [1] : Official Website
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