Brand New Advisor
 

I just became an advisor of a struggling chapter. I helped turn around my chapter as an undergrad so I have some experience with it. I just started going through all of the info from national and I was wondering if anyone with experience could share any advice.

My big concern is that the girls don't seem to have hit rock bottom yet. I don't think they realize that them being shut down is a real possibility despite my frank conversations with the exec board.

I just want to light a fire under their butts and get them to care more.

I'll tell you my chapter's story and some advice from our older guys.

2 years ago our chapter was almost shut down. (Edit: we were down to 12 brothers and national minimum is 25-40 depending on campus size.) Our VP of Programming was only a freshman but he came in and also took over President when the President was kicked out. He also worked as VP of Recruitment, not to mention the Chaplain's mother died and he basicaly left school. This same man was VP of Recruitment the next year and is currently President. He carried the chapter on his back and we are at 34 men currently because of him and the men he and a few brothers (literally 3 or 4 guys) recruited into the chapter. We're still rebuilding today.

You need to have at least a few girls who will work hard and try to get girls who will actually work on your exec board. Recruit leaders for tomorrow and never let yourself be satisfied. Best of luck to you.

The frank discussion is a step in the right direction. Since we are about a month into the fall semester I would ask the exec board to measure the progress they have made on their semester goals. No goals? Time to create some SMART goals (specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, timely) for each exec officer or for the areas of most critical need.

If the chapter is unsure of what these areas of critical need might be you can help guide them in the right direction without doing it for them. Or ask your regional volunteer or HQ team to suggest some benchmarks.

Thank you getting involved and for helping this chapter. All of our organizations need more dedicated volunteers who are willing to jump in and help out.

Best of luck! :D

When I started advising (and I was the only one), the Chapter was in dire straits with a lot of internal and external (campus and Inatl) problems. Two things I learned: 1 person can't "fix" everything and many things can't be "fixed" immediately.

I suggest you and the Exec officers do a thorough and honest self evaluation identifying exactly what the problems are. A Chapter survey can also be very helpful because sometimes advisors and Exec members aren't as in-tune with the members as they think they are. Remember though, it's entirely possible that problems have been identified by your I/natl and the members don't think they are a big deal (for example Standards issues).

Then prioritize the problems and develop a game plan. The key here is that everyone needs to actually see what the difficulties are and understand the real consequences if things don't change. The majority of the time the most pressing problems should go at the top of the list, but if there are some easily fixable ones put those up there too. This way you can show some positive results quickly. Plus, a small fix/change that doesn't cause any real pain can be used as a motivational tool when you tackle bigger, more drastic changes. "See, that change wasn't that bad was it? Now let's try this."

It's not easy to successfully turn around a Chapter that has problems on numerous fronts, but it is doable. It takes a lot of time (in my case years), hard work,
patience, and above all a long term commitment -- which is why it is critical to have an advisor leading the charge. Officer terms are only 1 year, but an advisor stays around.

If you want to talk tactics and/or hear some of the specific problems and solutions I dealt with, feel free to pm me.

Make sure to get alums (preferably a range or ages) of the chapter involved. Don't try to do it all yourself and don't feel threatened if the collegians listen to the alums more than you at first. You can work with them and be their best friend, or try to do things in spite of them and become their worst enemy.

Eliminate the phrase "in my chapter we did _________" from your vocabulary.

As KSUViolet said, get rid of the dead weight. If members don't show up for events or blow off other sisters - even if they may be members who bring a positive image on campus - GET RID OF THEM. You don't need people phoning it in.

Make an effort to work with the national HQ to set the girls toward REASONABLE goals. Not asking them to raise $5000 in 3 months (if they are a small chapter and that's what they would pay for a semester's tuition). Not asking them to triple their membership in a semester.

Thank you all for the advice.
I had individual meetings with each officer and it looks like the big internal problems are a lack of organization, no goals, no planning ahead, and general lax attitude about getting things done. They also held their big philanthropy activity for the semester, according to them it was successful, but they barely broke even on costs not much money to donate. A girl from another chapter struck up a conversation with me and the norm for the campus is that greeks participate in each others events, not a ton of outside interest.

I'm having them set some goals and make a list of all the things that they either need to get done (like have recruitment) and want to get done (like an end of semester party). They will collectively put everyone's events together and make up a calendar. They definitely try to take on too much for their size.

I'm not sure how big the issue of dead weight is since standards isn't keeping records of people showing up to things. Chapter meeting attendance is really good, even if the meetings aren't as organized as they could be.

I've met some of the alumnae in the area. I don't want to count on them for much, there's a small group of little old ladies who help out with recruitment and ritual. They younger ones are graduates from this chapter and are burnt out and don't want to do much to help out. They have pretty awful attitudes when they do show up for things.

And I absolutely don't want to recite how my chapter did things and impose it on them. It slipped out once on something trivial and one of the girls got more than a little defensive. Who knew window coverings were a emotional issue?

So it looks like there's a lot of work on goal setting and organization across the board.

It sounds like you have made a great start.

Finding a leader in the chapter should be a prime thing. They seem to want to do do the right thing as they show up for meetings. You seem to be advising in the right direction. We just lost our adviser and got a new one who will have to learn.

Advisers are supposed to advise, but it sounds like you need to run with a pretty strong hand for the time being? Find the leaders from the chapter and go from there. Are you getting help from your HQ? Alums can be a great help as thank goodness we have some who have been around for a long time and are willing to help not tell us how to run the chapter, others not so much who want to do nothing but complain. Ask them to leave well enough alone. When the chapter grows, they will be back with smiles. Hang in there as I know how much our adviser does and how hard he works.

You sure? I think that was too well-spelled. ;)

You're right. I went and looked at the past posts after I posted that, and it was quite Earpy.

Unfortunately I have very personal experience in this arena and can say that when it comes to lighting a fire under the chapter's butt... being in the position of adviser may actually hurt you in coming across effectively. You can try, but then the chapter may ignore you as in "what does she know" and you could possibly alienate them from trusting you with things in the future. The few successful "lighting a fire" moments I've experienced go a little something like this:

Example 1: After a couple of less-than-successful recruitment years when the last thing the girls wanted to do was COB: "Everyone stand up and look around. Look at your sisters whom you've pledged yourselves to. Remember your bid day, etc. [insert positive sappy stuff here to get things going on a positive note]. Now, could all the seniors sit down? Great, now this is what our chapter will look like next year coming into fall recruitment. Many of you are already leaders, but many others will really have to step up. You'll have lost some strong women in the last senior class and you need to pass on that legacy of leadership because soon you will leave, too. Now could the juniors sit down? [At this point the chapter really did see what we were trying to get across to them -- over 3/4 of the chapter were juniors and seniors and they needed to step up] To everyone standing up, imagine if we continue our current trend in recruitment. Imagine if we only added another couple of girls every semester and imagine how hard it would be to enter fall recruitment year after next. To the women sitting down, think of what that says about your sisterhood if you leave these women you've chosen and pledged yourselves to if you leave them in such a small chapter. Is that fair? Are you giving them the same wonderful experience someone else gave to you? This is why COB is important this year -- not next year. Next year it will be harder to catch up. The year after that -- even harder. And it isn't fair to the women standing up right now to do that to them. We all have to come together now and as much as we love each other -- we need to try to meet new people to bring them into our sorority."

Example 2: (not so much of a script as the last one) Step one: have them talk about their difficulties in getting things done, there aren't enough people to delegate things to, etc. Step two: have them imagine a chapter where not everyone had to be an officer and each of the big offices could have committees. How much more would we accomplish. Step three: think of all the fun things you could plan and do with that many more people. You could have a social every month. You could assign 5 people to help plan your philanthropy projects rather than having the philanthropy chair have to plan every last detail. You could [etc. etc. etc. The point being they need to start dreaming bigger than the status quo]

My most successful advice if the chapter is truly in trouble is this: if you can get a visitor from national/regional leadership to listen to you. Then either (1) visit and tell the chapter they need to improve in person, or (2) write a letter giving them the goals they want to see achieved and insist on seeing an action plan on how they will achieve it. Then you can be the local person who helps them achieve those goals once they face reality. It is SO much easier and (swallow any ego you have here) the chapter will listen to a new person saying the same thing with that much more attention than you (who they have week after week after week to help out and get advice from).

My two cents, at least.

I love that Step 1. What a concrete way to inspire them, while using sisterhood as the motivation. Excellent idea.

One thing I think is really important for small chapters is that they combine events. For example: Sisters want to have a pumpkin carving contest as a sisterhood event. If you invite alumnae to join in, it's now a sisterhood event AND an alumnae event. If you donate those pumpkins to a nursing home or a runaway shelter when you're done, you've turned it into a sisterhood, alumnae event AND a philanthropy event. Three birds with one stone and it's all fun. Invite some potential new members who are friends of existing members and you've just killed a fourth bird with that one stone. Small chapters tend to overprogram which leads them to burnout so fast. They then don't have the positive energy they need to attract new members to the group. They are simply too tired and too overwhelmed.

LOL!

Thank you all for the feedback
skylark: I did #1. Very effective.

Has anyone had any success with requiring sisters to be members of other groups? No other group on campus (from what I've heard) has any such requirement but it's done willingly.

Sorry for the late response! I have been inactive on here for the last couple of months...

So glad to hear it worked! It is definitely effective and I learned it from one of my advisers when I was an active. One thing to remember, though, is that (IMO) you can really only effectively pull it off every 3 to 4 years because you need the impact to feel fresh.

On requiring membership in other groups... I'm a big believer that a carrot is a lot more effective as a stick with things like this. Requiring membership could have a negative effect of a PR problem by putting a downer sister negatively presenting herself and she might even say to people "I'm only a member in [X] because Theta says I have to" or something similarly griping. If instead you as an adviser make a big deal over members taking leadership roles in other organizations and make an effort to talk to women about the other things that they do, members catch on naturally that being involved in other things is (1) valued, (2) encouraged, and (3) rewarded with praise and leadership roles within the sorority as well.

Like skylark said, make it a positive thing not a "I'm in this because I have to" thing. If sisters are in theater productions, make attending the production a sisterhood event. Ditto athletics. If a sister is in a group sponsoring the bloodmobile, at the next meeting give little prizes (like a notepad or something) to the sisters who show up to donate.

RE: blood donation, not everyone can donate, so encourage members to volunteer with the blood drive in other ways, and try and get credit for that. I can't donate for health reasons, and a personal reason I have chosen not to, so I have helped people make appointment or brought cups of juice in the past.

I'm talking about getting a credit if you show up, even if you know (i.e. you're under the weight limit) you can't donate. This is how it works when it's a competition on campus. If another group is running the bloodmobile, they will have the appointments, refreshments etc taken care of themselves. You want to show support but you don't want to step on toes.

If you have personal/religious reasons you can't donate, no biggie. Honestly bloodmobile was just the first thing I thought of.

I think we're on the same page. I just don't want there to be credit for only those who participate, and if for whatever reason you can't or don't want to, you're screwed. We have blood donation, I swear every week, so groups can sign up for their times to help run it which could be the time credit is given for helping or donating. I am hoping that members are involved in other activities so their sisters can support them (music, theatre, sports, what have you) so it can be a sisterhood as well as a cultural event or something. One way to cut down on over programming.

One comment that no one here has mentioned: look at the financial health of the chapter. (having done the finance end of advising for many years this is my personal hot button... ) Finance is the one area where there really isn't shades of gray. Either you've paid or you haven't.

Start at the beginning of a quarter/semester and lay down the law. Anyone who doesn't pay is out. Period. Obviously you say it in a nice way "Ladies, this semester we're going to be following through with our financial policies. Those members who don't pay will be subject to disciplinary action per the chapter bylaws. We're doing this as non-payment can significantly impact chapter operations. blah blah blah...If for some reason you are unable to pay, you must come and meet with the financial committee immediately. "

Then enforce your group's rules regarding non-payment, pursuit of debtors, late fees, bounced checks etc. In my experience, the non-paying deadbeats are also the troublemakers and non-participating members. If you get rid of them through the correct formal process, members may be upset at first, but you can point to the rules. And you can also say "I gave everyone fair warning and discussed the consequences. If you had a problem, you should have come to the finance committee and discussed your situation. This is the same thing your credit card company or your landlord would do if you missed a payment. We have bills to pay, and cannot honor the chapters debts if members don't pay."

Over the years, I've seen how a chapter's financial health is directly connected to the overall chapter strength. If a chapter fixes internal financial issues, many other disciplinary & membership issues come along for the ride and are resolved indirectly.

Good luck!

I don't know about other sororities, but this is especially important in AOII, because we pay International dues based on chapter role. It doesn't matter is Suzy hasn't paid, we still pay her dues to IHQ. Pretty soon, a list of delinquent sisters can really hurt a chapter when the bill to HQ comes due. It may not seem so important when you don't have their money to do things, but when you are paying out of pocket for the dead weight in your chapter, it becomes imperative to clean house.

When I was a Finance Advisor, I made a big chart on poster board showing fixed costs, variable costs (usually the SOCIAL budget!) and how it is affected when a member hasn't paid. The peer pressure when they realize that it's the social budget that gets cut, or that formal ends up costing $20 more per couple, etc. becomes quite effective in getting sisters to pay up!

Thanks for the input everyone.

The chapter has finances in order and they've made some good choices for new officers. The area I think they need to work on is building relationships with other groups, getting more involved on campus, getting a name for themselves and working on recruiting year round.

They ended up deciding on a reward system for sisters who joined other organizations and additional benefits for taking on leadership roles in other groups.