[20811] in APO-L
Re: advisors
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Stephen Merrill)
Thu Aug 26 16:54:57 1999
Date: Thu, 26 Aug 1999 16:54:08 -0400
Reply-To: Stephen Merrill <smerrill@MINT.NET>
From: Stephen Merrill <smerrill@MINT.NET>
To: APO-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU
Shana,
You raise a good question regarding the participation level of advisors.
Advisors are often underutilized at chapters, which can be unfortunate.
First I would suggest evaluating the skill set and background which each
advisor brings to the chapter, and try and address it that way. The person
lined up as the Scouting Advisor is the most obvious, since they hopefully
will provide a link to Scouting events.
With Faculty and Staff advisors, assess what their position is on campus,
and use that to your advantage. I know a chapter that has the head of
Substance Abuse Services on campus as an advisor, and one of their projects
is funded by his office, which is a safe ride program around the campus
community on Friday and Saturday evenings. Faculty and Staff are also great
in helping to cut through the red tape.
Hopefully, with community advisors, you will have someone who will also
provide a link to possible activities in the community, maybe through one of
their own activities. A sensitive topic with some Brothers is when an
alumni brother holds the title of community advisor. The right person in
this role, can do a great job in being able to provide a historical
perspective on the chapter's past successes and failures, and can help to
avoid the same pitfalls again.
I would hope that the chapter's advisors would want to attend ceremonies
during the course of the semester, such as Pledge Induction, and Brother
Initiation. It is still a good idea to invite the advisors, since their
calendars can be very different from the active Brother's and Pledge's.
It is not at all unreasonable to ask one or more of your advisors to attend
at least one meeting per month, a great way to get them involved. In my
time as an advisor, I loved doing the service projects, and from an
advisor's perspective, you are able to learn a great deal about the Brothers
and Pledges of a chapter. You should want your advisors to have an active
role in the chapter. Remember, an advisor has all the rights and privileges
of active Brother, except that of voting, and holding an office with the
exception of Chair of the Advisory Committee (per National By-Laws.) Take
care of your advisors, and let them know that you want them to be around.
One of the reasons advisors fade away the most is neglect.
If an advisor becomes too involved, politely tell them. In most cases this
will not be a concern, since the time they will have to offer will be
limited. An advisor will also likely notice their influence will suffer if
they speak up too much, for obvious reasons.
You should want your advisors to be an active and strong force within your
chapter, from what I can tell, they definitely do make a difference. To
that point, I know of two advisors from Region 1 who have had the honor of
having a National Pledge Class named after them in the last 15 years, Mrs.
Phyllis Tenney of Phi Epsilon at Maine Maritime Academy in 1985, and Mr. Joe
Kuchta of Alpha Chi at The Massachusetts Institute of Technology just last
year in 1998. Both these chapters are strong and healthy, a fact which can
be attributed in part to the strong Advisors they have enjoyed for the last
30+ years.
I have rambled on quite enough, but hope this helps.
YiLFS,
Steve Merrill
Section 94 Chair
Advisor-Sigma Xi, University of Maine-Orono 1996-1999
-----Original Message-----
From: SHANA ALLIE <sallie@SIUE.EDU>
To: APO-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU <APO-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU>
Date: Thursday, August 26, 1999 12:04 PM
Subject: [APO-L] advisors
>I have a question for everyone. I am in charge of a new interest group at
>Southern Illinois University-Edwardsville and we are just starting to get
>our advisors in place. My question is how do you determine what you
>would like your advisors to do? None of the people we have found have
>ever been advisors before, and they want to know what we need them to do
>for us (besides signing documents) My alumni chapter did not utilize
>their advisors at all and has even questioned certain advisors for being
>"too involved" so I really don't know where to start. I don't want to ask
>too much out of these people, but I want to be able to utilize them.
>Thanks for your input
>InLFS, Shana
>
>***************************************************************************
****
> Deep inside each of us is someone striving to do absolutely
nothing.
>
> Shana L. Allie
> sallie@siue.edu
>
> Life Member--Alpha Phi Omega National Service Fraternity
> Delta Delta Chapter Alum/Scouting Advisor
> Section 49 Extension Chair
> Current rechartering effort-Epsilon Pi Chapter
>
