[24434] in APO-L
Re: [APO-L] Proposed: Older Undergrads as advisors?
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Jason Risner)
Wed Sep 8 15:46:30 2004
Date: Wed, 8 Sep 2004 15:42:13 -0400
Reply-To: Jason Risner <zoomer69@mail.com>
From: Jason Risner <zoomer69@mail.com>
To: APO-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU
In-Reply-To: <Pine.PMDF.3.95.1040907232313.543163143A-100000@DRYCAS.CLUB.CC.CMU.EDU>
There's been good points made so far that seem to hit the crux of the
issue - we want to prevent inherent conflict-of-interest issues when an
active brother immediately becomes an advisor of a chapter, but we don't
want to arbitrarily exclude otherwise qualified advisors who want to
pursue an undergraduate education. Simple enough.
A simple age limit, however, misses the mark. Many active brothers are
that age or older, and it doesn't prevent the potential conflict of
interest that arises when someone who's participated as an active
immediately after becomes an advisor. It also unnecessarily excludes
those who may be younger but are otherwise very suited to being an
advisor (for example, someone who participated in Scouting as a youth
and immediately became a Scoutmaster shortly after high-school graduation).
And, as Todd Price noted, the same conflict-of-interest issues are
present when very recent alumni of a particular chapter participate as
advisors.
What this proposal is trying to do is legislate good judgment and common
sense, which is next to impossible. But I think setting some boundaries
to help prevent these conflict-of-interest issues is something the
fraternity should provide.
What I suggest is implementing a mandatory 2-year grace period for
inducting advisors who were formerly active brothers of the same
chapter. In other words, if you were an active brother, you are
ineligible for advisory membership for 2 years from the end of your last
semester as an active brother. This would do several things:
-- Allow any individual, regardless of academic status or age, to
participate as a chapter advisor.
-- Allow such an individual to participate first as an advisor, then
choose to participate as an active if that becomes appropriate. Such
people would have to go through the pledging process just like any other
brother. Inherently, the rule would prevent the same person
flip-flopping back to being an advisory member, to prevent an even more
dangerous example of conflict-of-interest from occurring.
-- Allow an individual who participated as an active at one chapter
to serve as an advisor at another chapter immediately upon graduating
from or leaving the school they were an active at. (I'm unsure if our
current bylaws allow for concurrent active/advisor membership at
different chapters, generally a bad idea and something that should be
addressed if that's the case)
Thoughts?
