The almost 90-year-old Creighton Students Union is undergoing some restructuring aimed at making it easier to run and more efficient. CSU is planning on forfeiting its status as a nonprofit corporation and switching to a student organization.

CSU President Adam Hare stresses that while nothing is set in stone yet, these are changes they’ve been planning for a long time.

“As it stands right now, it’s a state-registered nonprofit just like any church or charitable organization,” said Hare. “And in the past five years, we’ve come over a lot of evidence that suggests that’s not very conducive to student government.”

CSU has been a nonprofit corporation with the state of Nebraska since Dec. 15, 1925, according to its Web site.

According to Hare, changes over the past six years in state law and IRS tax codes have made things more difficult for CSU.

“[These changes] have made it more and more difficult to file our paperwork for being a nonprofit, and being a group of students, it is not time effective or cost effective to meet these demands,” said Hare.

CSU Vice President for Finance Kelly Nash has been instrumental in the paperwork filing in the past.

“Currently CSU has three bosses: The student body, the state of Nebraska and the federal government,” said Nash. “By restructuring we would eliminate the last two bosses, allowing CSU to return to the heart of a student government, which is serving the needs and issues of the student body.”

Nash stressed none of the executives nor the CSU advisor is an expert in these forms.

“This means that the CSU VP for Finance spends a lot of his or her office hours figuring out what is required for each form,” she said. “If these forms are eliminated, the VP for Finance can focus more on assisting organizations with funding and other issues with CSU.”

Hare stressed that the changes are entirely internal and nothing in terms of actual structure will change.

“The only thing that will change is that it will free up a lot of time for us,” said Hare. “The way we fund students, help student organization, run elections, etc, will not change. The only difference is now we’ll only have obligations to the university instead of the state. We’ll be treated almost the same as any other student organization.”

CSU is hoping that once it is no longer obligated to the state, it will be able to draw up a memorandum of understanding with the university detailing its rights and its duty to the students of Creighton.

“We’re planning on having a meeting to show the disillusion of CSU as a corporation on Dec. 3,” said Hare. “We’re hoping to get door prizes to draw people in. Mostly what we want to convey is that this is the best thing for CSU in it’s mission to help serve the students of Creighton.”