Social Disaster
 

My name is Alli. I'm the president of my sorority and I'm trying to deal with our social chair who doesn't seem to want to do her whole job. She loves planning fun events because it makes the chapter like her, which is great, but when it comes to enforcing the rules at these events, she doesn't care at all. We recently had an event with very blatant underage drinking, with which I and our Risk Manager tried to deal with. However, it is hard to enforce our rules at an event put on by an executive board member who only cares about being liked and won't do/say anything that might make members a little upset with her. I guess my question is how can I get her to do this part of her job? Her actions, or lack thereof, are putting the entire chapter at risk; how can I make her see that, and want to reduce our risk?
I'd love to hear what you all have to say about this! Thanks!

Is your Risk Manager an advisor, or is that a position held by a collegiate? Are advisors involved?

Risk Manager is an executive board position, so it is held by a collegiate. Our faculty advisor and national advisor have been informed. Our faculty advisor has given us some help, but we have yet to hear back from our national advisor. Do you think they should be more involved?

Why is it only her responsibility to enforce rules? Why isn't it a team effort amongst the e-board?

Do you not have a local alumna advisory board? This is the kind of issue they are there to help you.

Yes, if you are NPC, you should have more than one advisor for your individual group.

I think the OP is saying that the other members of the officer team are trying to enforce the rules but in an effort to be popular their social director is not.

My advice would be to call her in to your standards board and read her the job description of her office. Then explain to her the risk management issues of her allowing underage drinking. If one of those girls just trips on her way back to her dorm, she could be charged with allowing or encouraging the minor in possession.

If one of those girls is in a serious accident - it could have dire consequences for the chapter. All of the members who are supposed to monitor social functions can also be brought up on charges.

Then ask her if she is willing to uphold ALL of the duties of her office. If not, then ask her to help you find someone else who is.

If there is blatant underage drinking occurring at social events amongst a large group of sisters, and if the chapter, in a way, is "out of control" in terms of risk management issues, it seems to me that there's a larger problem here than the behavior of the social chair. It sounds to me like the chapter as a whole needs a good talking to.

Small risk management issues shouldn't, in most cases, require the focus and effort of more than two sisters at an event. But if you, the President, and the Risk Manager cannot control the chapter, it would seem that you definitely need to call on the advisors for some advice/help.

As you said, the health - and possibly, the existence - of the chapter depends on it.

One rogue officer shouldn't make it that difficult to enforce the rules for everyone. Yes, standards needs to get involved, but so does the local advisory board. This is the kind of stuff that can get out of hand, and it's the type of thing that I personally hate to be surprised by as an adviser when it does.

As president, unfortunately you get to be the bad guy. It seems to me a president (or house manager for those with houses) who finishes her term without having really pissed some people off probably hasn't done her job very effectively. Yes, I would get the social chair on board, but if something serious happens, it could literally be your arse in jail. And it could be the loss of your charter and thousands of dollars to your chapter and/or headquarters. Need some fuel for that? Do a little research on lawsuits against sororities and fraternities. This isn't a theoretical. Here's a site I found in about 2 seconds. http://www.campussafetymagazine.com/...es/Page/1.aspx
Admittedly most of these are fraternities, but girls aren't immune to the same stupid mistakes. Your headquarters might be willing to share how many charters they've pulled because of underage drinking or stupid crap girls have done while drunk, and I'll bet you a dollar it's not zero.

This is a small swerve for me, but it seems like either you have a real internal culture problem with women not being accountable, knowing or following the rules, which can be a big problem and can take time to fix, or you just need to, as President, whip your executive board into shape.

This is why you have standards and ultimately, if an officer is performing in a way which endangers the chapter, you get to make a mistake once--the next time, we'll find a new social chair who can plan fun events and not endanger anyone's safety and well being in the process.

You should at least attempt to work with your sister to help her understand WHY this is bad and why it matters that we follow these rules and how it's her responsibility. Make sure she understands what her function is. Make sure your Risk Management person feels empowered to do what she needs to do--make her know you and the rest of exec have her back. Finally, involve your alumnae advisers in this, it's what they're there for.

I know many chapters where the executive officers are divided into two groups, and one group serves as bouncers, for lack of a better term, the first half of the party, and the 2nd group serves for the last half of the party. If it is obvious that someone has been drinking, the member and her guest are not allowed to enter the event, and are sent home in a taxi cab(the cost of which will be assessed on the member's next billing statement). If a member or guest have been drinking and are underage, they are sent home in similar fashion. Same for someone who has had too much to drink. Similarly, I have heard of execs. who are divided into two groups, and group one serves chaperones/bouncers for the first party and group 2 serves during the 2nd party, and they rotate obligations back and forth. Many chapters hire bouncers to be the enforcers to remove the unruly person from the event, although the exec. makes the decision that it needs to be done. This is usually followed up with a trip to the standards review board, as needs be.