Greek Advisor....hmmmmmm

[josh8o]

Does your school have a Greek advisor who seems to hurt the GLO's more than help them?

Well, at SDSU we do (and I'm sure deltasigstan will agree).
I have been waiting to post this because it is a tricky subject, and I didn't know how I should go about it...anyway, here it goes:

i attended the nor-cal freshman/transfer orientation a few weeks ago. at the orientation there was a 2 hour period where the new students could walk around to the various tabled set up for clubs and housing at SDSU. i represented the IFC at the fraternity and sorority life table. when I got there I looked at the info papers that I would be handing out. On the paper that had everything you could ask about Greek life there was a section listing every GLO in their category (IFC, Panhellenic, USFC, etc.). Next to my fraternities name there were 2 asterisks (**). if you looked at the bottom of the page it said "** denotes suspended university privdleges." basically it was telling any PNM's that that house is in trouble, and has limited privileges. My house was the only one to have the asterisks next to its letters.
Now this would not be a big deal, but off the top of my head I can think of 2 other IFC fraternities that have been in trouble with the school, and will be on probation in the fall. One for a cocaine bust last summer by San Diego Police Department. The other thing that makes this unfair is that I have a copy of a letter from the vice president of student affairs for the university (and it was send to every Greek life advisor, and assistant advisors) saying that our "sanctions" will be reviewed with our nationals by the start of the year. What does this mean? well we could have every university privilege back by the start of fall. I will be personally meeting with our nationals in 10 days at our GAC to discuss our standing (and it is good, very good, right now). The last I heard from our President was that our Alumni were planning on meeting with the Greek Advisor to talk about this.
Back to the point of my thread....
Is this discrimination? What are our rights?
have you had a Greek advisor that does more harm than good? What did you do about it? any advice for me?

[pollywogg23]

You are so not alone. Our Greek advisor is just awful. She's no help at all, for anything. She favors one group, and the rest of us are pretty much out of luck. She hasn't done anything quite as nasty as what yours did, but she definetly does not enhance the greek system on our campus.
The thing is I know that there are some awesome greek advisors out there. I met quite a few at My Sororities Leadership conference this summer. I think that there all just hiding on the east coast! Us out here in Cali have to put up with the yucky advisors!

[Eirene_DGP]

We had a really bad advisor last year. She had no idea what Greek Life was about and she basically made our org. look bad and that was something we didn't need, especially being a new org. on-campus. For example, at our school we have to turn in a list of all of our pledges to school administration as well as to the advisor. One of our pledges was in her class and our advisor was like, "I don't know why they (Greek Orgs) make you pay for membership....Those girls should be buying you all gifts everyday if they want you in their org..." Obviously we let her go.

[shadokat]

You are not alone Josh. The problem is that they pay Greek Advisors peanuts, and basically provide them with an agenda. A lot of times we think it's their faults for our problems, but I think they just are following the plans of the administration. It's sad, but often times true.

[33girl]

Well, we did, but they finally got rid of her, thank God (8 dissolved chapters later).

[aprilxo]

OH.
MY.
GOSH.

Do not even get me started on how much I hate the nazi bitch.

There was an incident where XYZ said we were violating some party rules, when it was just that THEIR particular rules were more strict than ours. After figuring that out, the other sorority dropped their charges. But the greek advisor bitch called BOTH our nationals and told them we were both violating national rules, which we weren't because we are really careful about that!!

There is more to that story, but I don't feel like going into it now... kind of complicated and annoying.

I hope other people with hellish greek life advisors find ways to cope!

greek love,
april

[DWAlphaGam]

There is a new greek advisor at my school this year, thank goodness. Our old one was HORRIBLE. She always managed to not be there during formal recruitment (hello, that's one of your only f***ing jobs!) because she had "family events" to attend. I can see this happening occasionally, but it happened just about every year! There was also an incident where my chapter gave a girl a bid through formal recruitment, and the girl turned down the bid, thus making her inelligible to pledge another sorority for a full year (she had signed her preference card, and it is clearly stated on there that if you sign it, you will accept any bid that you recieve). Well, as it turned out, one of the largest sororities on campus, XYZ, was eligbile for COBing a couple of girls that year, and since they were "unfamiliar with the COB process," they gave this girl a COB. They claimed that the COB section was missing from their copy of the NPC manual, and they thought it would be ok. So, rather than punishing XYZ for breaking the rules by revoking this girl's bid, the greek advisor said that she would let it go because she said it would punish the girl more than it would punish XYZ (which I can see, but the rules are clearly explained on preference night, so if she wasn't going to accept a bid from her second choice anyway, she should have suicided.) This greek advisor was also known for letting the larger houses take "quota plus plus plus" because she didn't want any of the pmn's to be unhappy if they didn't get their first choice, but she didn't realize that she was basically killing the smaller houses by doing that. She also basically let all of the larger houses commit rush infractions because she never punished any of them. Sorry this is so long, but her stupidity still makes me so angry! But, I've heard that the new greek advisor is very nice and he wants to help get greek life back on track. I'm keeping my fingers crossed...

[Dianne]

Well, Josh, in response to your original post, I suggest this: Try to talk to your Greek advisor first. Probably take some of your brothers along - makes you look more like a unified front. Tell her/him that if PNM's are going to know this about your chapter, they also need to know it about the other chapters that are in trouble. Also tell her/him that the situation is turning around and you don't feel that PNM's should really know about chapter problems that are in the process of being solved. (Quite frankly, I don't think that type of info should be on an info sheet at orientation, but that's just my humble opinion.) If talking to your advisor doesn't help, try having one of your national officers talk to her/him (like the ones you'll soon be meeting with). Sometimes advisors are a little more willing to listen to a national authority than snot-nosed "frat" boys. And if that doesn't work, file a formal complaint with her/his boss. Somewhere at your school, your advisor has someone she/he has to answer to. I say go up the chain of command until something works.

That really sucks that this happened, and having a crappy advisor hurts the entire greek system at your school. Good luck and keep us updated.

[FuzzieAlum]

Actually, I don't have a problem with Greek life letting students know who is on probation, but I do have a problem with it being applied unfairly. Assuming you all are under similar sanctions, it was definitely inappropriate to single you out.

Bad Greek life advisors ... gosh, yes, I've seen them, but don't get me started!

[DeltAlum]

Originally posted by aprilxo
OH.
MY.
GOSH.

Do not even get me started on how much I hate the nazi bitch.

Sublelty is a virtue! I actually did laugh out loud when I read that!

But, Greek advisors can be really bad news. Those of you who have been around for a while might remember the sexist comments in the newspaper from the advisor at the University of Colorado after an alleged sorority hazing incident.

In another situation at one of the chapters I advise, the president of the university offered our chapter a couple of prime located lots on which to build a house at $1 per year for 99 years. The Greek Advisor went ballistic and tried to block the deal by any way he could, including saying he was going to open the opportunity up to all of the other GLO's on campus. (I should point out that most, if not all, of the others owned houses -- ours was small and rented at the time) He also had a personal agenda in that he wanted to build a "Greek Life Center" on the lots.

I finally had to point out to him that HIS BOSS had offered the deal, and if he really liked his job, maybe he should back off a little. He was gone by the next year, I think.

Now, to be honest and fair in terms of full disclosure, I should point out that the President is a Delt alum (no relation to me -- that's a joke) and the brother he made the offer to was the student member of the University Board of Trustees. The deal was not done in the end because the chapter is new and doesn't have the means to raise the down payment, etc.

[DRau]

EEEKK!! I am almost afraid to post here but here it goes....

I am a Greek administrator and l've got a few comments about this thread.

Let me start by saying that yes, horrible advisors DO exist and some hurt more than help their respective systems. However, many times as members of the Greek community, it is hard to see things from the University perspective and many times, the Greek Advisor has to be bearer of bad news from the Administration. The position is basically a liason between Administrators and students. When the Student Affairs department says 'look, if a fraternity is on probation we have to designate it in the rush pamphlet', it is the Greek Advisor who has to carry this out, often at the expense of his/her popularity with the Greek community. If an advisor believes the University is making a poor decision, it can only be fought to a point - I mean, you DO want to have a job the next morning. Greek Advisors have supervisors too, and they can't just go around defying them. Greek organizations are ultimately under the jurisdiction of the University, and I think at times this can be forgotten. It sucks being the one who has to regulate the policy - but you do it because sometimes that's just the rules and you have to.

Another problem with Greek Advisors is many times they are Non-Greeks who are put in this role either because of lack of funding or lack of on-campus administrators. This is unfortunate because I believe you need to have been Greek to understand Greeks and their needs as organizations. I love what I do, and even though your actions may be misunderstood, if a member of the community takes the time to try and understand the action, the entire relationship is much better.

Believe me, many times, you DON'T want the Big-Wigs at University's having their way with the Greeks - some would deal with problems by banishing Greeks altogether (and I know we have all seen this happen to some campuses).

Again, I am not denying that there are people out there who suck at their job - but try and understand that not all advisors are the devil's spawn I was chapter President and until I began working for the Greek advisor my senior year, I had a hard time understanding what the hell Student Affairs was doing.

[DeltAlum]

An addendum:

I forgot to say on the post above, that the replacement Greek Advisor seems like a really good person.

When some members of our chapter were involved in an accident on the way to a division conference, she and other members of the administration were impressive in thier response and support.

As in any other position, there are good ones and bad ones.

[Pi Kapp 142]

At least you guys have Greek advisors......

[DRau]

SF State doesn't have a Greek Advisor?

[alsparky]

We had a greek advisor who NEVER (in the 8 years she was greek advisor, still is, actually) pronounced our sorority's name correctly!! No matter How many times people corrected her.

There's a sign that you care about the job.....

My favorite is that she was never greek, which seems to occur more frequently than I would have thought....