[11990] in APO-L
Role of Advisors
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Ben Assaf)
Thu Apr 20 13:19:13 1995
Date: Thu, 20 Apr 1995 12:15:03 CDT
Reply-To: Ben Assaf <bassaf@BSC835.BSC.EDU>
From: Ben Assaf <bassaf@BSC835.BSC.EDU>
To: Multiple recipients of list APO-L <APO-L@VM.CC.PURDUE.EDU>
In-Reply-To: from "Automatic digest processor" at Apr 20, 95 12:00 (midnight)
Greetings fellow Alpha Phi Omegans!
My name is Bernard Assaf, and I have been lurking on APO-L for
a week and a half, getting the feel of this list (and APOSOC-L, which
I no longer read! Too many *HUGS* Ick.). Before I reply to a post,
I'd like to just let my presence be known with a brief background.
I am a senior at Birmingham-Southern College, and past president
of the Nu Xi chapter of Alpha Phi Omega here at B-SC. We've travelled
murky waters with poor leadership during the 1993-1994 year, and after
all the officers either quit (half-way through their terms) or quit school!
In May 1994, the 6 of us who came back in the Fall picked up the pieces
and went for broke! All or nothing! This is it! Well, I assumed the
role of the president and we split up the offices, and after sorting and
pitching and organizing and recruiting, we pledged 13 members into
Nu Xi in the Fall--the biggest pledge class I can remember in all the
years I'd been at B-SC! (They'd steadily declined from about 8 in my
year to 1 in 93-94!) We elected in December and I was VERY proud to have
not only interest in leadership show up on the ballot, but good
people running, and I handed over the chair to a great bunch of officers,
who are pledging 14 people this Spring! Needless to say, Nu Xi has seen
it's lowest membership and highest membership in quite some time,
all in the '94-'95 school year!
However, getting to the reply, we couldn't have done it without
our advisor, which we picked up (after years of not having one) in 1994.
On Wed, 19 Apr 1995 17:15:24 -0400, Lloyd Dodd wrote:
I have a question about advisors in ya'lls chapters. What are
their roles, what level of behavior is expected, do they have a voice in
meetings, stuff like that.
My reply: I think the main role of the advisor(s) to a chapter
of Alpha Phi Omega is permanence. Officers come and go and after four
years, even the membership is totally cycled to new faces. The advisor
provides a position of consistancy and focus of long-term direction for
the chapter. Our advisor has helped us to plan long term, for she
knows that eventually we'll graduate and not be here to lead or at
least support the current officer core.
Our advisor, Tonya Smothers, a staff member who heads the
'Southern Volunteer Services program at 'Southern, attends all the meetings
as well as the officer meetings. We expect her to give us a faculty/
staff perspective and offer her opinion freely about anything we get
ourselves into or anything we ought to get into. As someone with
more years of life's experience under her belt than us undergrads, she
also provides a "real world" view of our community, in terms of projects
we should or shouldn't attempt (due to size, funding, ...) as well
as a knowledge base of what works and what doesn't based on "what
happened last year," etc.
We initiated her as an Advisory Member in the Fall (officially)
and hence she is a full member in our eyes. She also brings goodies
to meetings--not something we expect of course, but most welcome! :)
I think an advisor position is vital to the success of an Alpha
Phi Omega chapter. I can see the years of Nu Xi's decrease in membership
and success, and also see the lack of an advisor. If there was one
thing good that came out of the batch of officers which failed to uphold
the three principles of Alpha Phi Omega, it was that they found us an
advisor. If any chapter doesn't have one--you ought to find one, or more.
Hope this perspective helps! (By the way, for small chapters, check
out the _Survival Guide for Small Chapters_. It proved an invaluable
resource for us.)
Oh, and as far as abbreviating Alpha Phi Omega: I try not to.
Why lessen the impact of verbalizing the name of the greatest fraternity
in the world, eh? Here's to Alpha Phi Omega! (By the way, this Fall
we had just as many pledges as most of the social fraternities and
sororities. And we get to top them in the Spring! There's something
for Alpha Phi Omega, eh? Or maybe it was just that honest hardworking
leadership, heh heh... <smirk>)
Ben Assaf
Past President, Nu Xi
--
Ben Assaf = bassaf@bsc835.bsc.edu = Birmingham-Southern College math & cs guy
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