Any Vice Presidents?

[BrianMUDU]

Hey all! I was just elected to be our Vice President tonight for the 2002 year. I'm wondering if any other chapters have a VP position and what their "position description" is. I could make it what I want, it is only the second year we've had the position, but I'd like to hear what worked for other chapters out there.

[Tom Earp]

Brian, while second hat is usally , It is what you make of it!

To my way of thinking, you are being groomed to take over the head chair, Pres. It depends on if your Pres. gives you some leeway and things to do! It Should be explained in your manual if you have one of what your duties should be! Good Luck in your position as any officers job is important! You learn as you go and is a training ground!!!!! for the betterment when you step up to the next position of responseability!

[BrianMUDU]

Tom and others,

Let me hit on this point again. The position was new last year, so we have no manual really for it. Our first VP really didn't do much to set a foundation, so I'm just wondering if anyone out there can send me any Vice President duties/goals, expectations, job description, etc. from their specific chapter to possibly give me something to work with or get ideas from.

[Peaches-n-Cream]

When I was V.P. of my sorority, I was in a similar predicament. I had no job description and had to create one for myself. In addition to assisting the President, I organized and oversaw the minor board which included publicity, social, sisterhood, fundraising, and any other position not on the Executive Board. We had weekly minor board meetings where I made sure these officers did their jobs and delegated like crazy. The president of my sorority told me that I did more work than she did!
Good Luck!!

[GmuTeke]

From our bylaws regarding VP...

Vice President. The duties of the VP are:

a. In the absence of the P , to perform all his duties, per Chapter IV, Section 4 of these bylaws.
b. To hold current copies of the Constitution and laws, and the bylaws of the chapter and Fraternity and be familiar with their contents, bringing copies of them to all meetings and being prepared to answer or secure answers for any questions or interpretation of them.
c. To conduct all correspondence with the International Headquarters regarding interpretation of Constitution and Laws and International Bylaws.
d. To monitor all committee chairs and ensure the completion of their duties.
e. To conduct the public relations of the chapter.

[Tom Earp]

Brian, sometimes the VP is the one in charge of setting up or appointing special committees for different functions.

While each officer has certain functions that they do, how about special committee heads?

Doesnt your National have guidelines for each office? Try to find out!

LXA has a manual for everything from the Pres. to the Advisor on what the functions are.

Try there first!

Best of Luck and keep us informed!

[BrianMUDU]

Okay, here is the part where I get really frustrated... I am very knowledgable about our fraternity and how it works, and our International Headquarters does not have any resources for Vice Presidents because the position doesn't really exist in many of our chapters. We just added it last year, which I've said many times I can't check any manual because there is no manual for the Vice President. I started within our fraternity and headquarters and didn't get much to follow, so now I'm moving into other chapters to see what they do which is the purpose of my post. I'm not yelling or anything, just airing my frustration with the redundant responses, sorry if I come of sounding ungrateful, I do appreciate those who have tried helping me out. What I'm really looking for though is something like what GmuTeke posted. Thanks G! If anyone has descriptions like what he posted that they could just copy/paste I would be interested in seeing them.

Oh, and Tom, one comment. Our VP position was originally thought to be a springboard to the presidency, but I think that idea has been scratched. It is my belief that the VP and Pres. should have equal experience and knowledge for their positions, almost like co-presidents. One idea that we already have is splitting the presidents responsibilities in half -- out of house stuff for the president, in house stuff for the VP. I see VP as in charge of exec and keeping tabs on them. When they have questions about their duties, etc. they could come to me instead of bothering the President about them.

[Tom Earp]

Brian, maybe you can come up with a whole new idea of what the VP should do and present it to your national!

You could be the one who gets your Fraternity to the moon and be the first one to step on it!

I know only what LXA has and what they do for our chapters and from what I have seen in knowing members of other Fraternitys, we do more for them than most!

Many have only volunteers working with the chapters while we have paid people!

In fact some in our International HQDS are from other Fraternitys and Soroitys. I did not agree at first but we have some very qualified people in positions of trust and am sure while they hold allegience to thier Org. they also hold some to LXA!

Give it your best shot as that is all you can do and the Very Best Of Luck to you!

[SilverTurtle]

Brian,

I was VP of my chapter. Our VP is sort of a 2-part position. The first is, as many people have mentioned, the "second-hand" to the President. This means you are able to take over in their absence, for example, run a chapter meeting. The position is part of the executive board, which means you are involved in those meetings and decisions (by-laws, any disciplinary decisions, etc.).

Our VP is also our New Member Educator (formerly known as the Pledge Trainer). Since we had rush & new member education both semesters, you are responsible for working with the Rush chair. Then your responsibilities include creating the schedule for new member ed. (pledging), working with the Greek Life office, working with the new members, etc.

It was a very busy position, but I loved it! For some reason, the VP was also responisble for our annual Fall Retreat, which usually took place right before Fall Rush.

I also know that in many chapters, and other organizations, the VP is sort of the overseeing person for committee chairmen. They work with different committees and make sure these committees are staying within their guidelines & accomplishing their goals.

Hope that gives you some ideas. The main reason I wanted to be VP was the New Member Ed., and I'm sure you have a separte position for that. So I tried to include other ideas.

Good Luck!!! And Congrats on your position

[CrucialCrimson]

In the absence of an official chapter manual, you should probably refer to the basic VP duties as described in Roberts Rules of Order - when I was an undergrad, we had two vice presidents, one was in charge of membership issues (she served as Dean of Pledges and dealt with sisterhood issues and problems during the year) and one was in charge of program issues - even if there was a specific program or committee chair, they still reported to the Programs VP. It wasn't formal, but the membership VP usually rose to President when the time came.

[SAEalumnus]

Brian,

In the absence of an already-established definition of a vice president in your chapter, you are in the unique position of setting that precedent! If you plan this out carefully enough, you can set the model that other vps after you will follow.

Some of the duties of the vp are obvious (aka sub for the pres whenever he/she isn't around, etc.). The other duties depend on the internal structure of your chapter. I'm not sure how exactly your chapter is organized as a whole, but I can tell you a little bit about my chapter and maybe you can get something out of that.

Generally speaking, the president of my chapter is responsible for communicating between the chapter and every body external to it from the local greek council to the national headquarters. The vice president is in charge of internal communication from the standpoint of making sure everyone is doing their jobs. He also chairs the exec board (the pres is the vice chair). Our vp is also responsible for making sure our bylaws get reviewed/updated annually. Additionally, the vp is an ex officio member of all committees and the default risk manager as well as being responsible for maintaining the chapter's library of officer notebooks. While the vp is certainly in a unique position to take over the presidency, more often than not each of our presidents have held other positions. In fact I don't believe any vp has ever been elected pres since I've been in the chapter. The two positions are recognized as essentially of equal responsibility, just different focus (although the pres obviously has ultimate authority). I hope that helps.

[MenaceKiller]

Oh, cripes, I'm a bit late responding to this thread.

I'm the VP of my chapter for this school year (2001-2002).

I have a lot of work to do this year, because work that was normally reserved for the VP has been taken over by the President due to weak VPs and micro-management-obsessed Presidents. *sigh*

What to do? Ok...

SAEactive and SilverTurtle have said a lot of what I would have gone over. The VP is more focused on INTERNAL parts of the organization, while the President is externally focused, say, on the fraternity's image or public relations or networking and the like. The Vice President is the end all be all point of contact for all committees, big and small, delegates duties, keeps tabs on people to make sure all tasks are completed in a timely manner, and to pick sides in a discussion where a President must remain neutral.

Other than that, make a manual for your year to pass on to the next Vice President! Even your scribbled notes during meetings will help -- especially if they're supposed to read the manual before their first meetings!

-MK

[Kevin]

Reading over these a lot of VP's do essentially the same thing -- they coordinate the internal activities of committees and such.

I served as Lt. Commander (same as your VP's) in my chapter last year. The only default role we really have is as the chairman of the Executive Council. You're the guy that the chairs report directly to.

Another major duty I had was to oversee the Master Calendar for our chapter -- make sure that chairs didn't schedule things on the same day or a date party over that of a sorority (small campus) or something to that effect.

Even within the national structure of Sigma Nu, the Lt Commander's role differs from chapter to chapter. Take SAEactive's advice. Set the precedant, maybe update your chapter's Constitution and bylaws to more accurately describe your duty. Try to develop an idea of what you want to do with your job and just run with it.

Visionary leadership is what being greek is all about! This can be your chance to really leave your mark on your chapter (hopefully a good one).


LHT,
Kevin

[KSigkid]

In our chapter, the vice president's main job is risk management and conduct control; a sort of chapter disciplinarian. He keeps tabs of people's conduct at chapter, and meets with the Greek advisor to find out grade information for the chapter. He helps keep order at chapter meetings, and is supposed to be the resident expert on the our by-laws (the rest of our executive committee also is expected to know these by-laws, but our VP more so than the others).

Collin

[erniegurl00]

My chapter has three VP's: Moral Advancement, Social Advancement, and Mental Advancement. This way everyone gets a job, and the leadership is spread around. I'm VP Social, but really my job is to be the pledge educator. I do some other things like take care of the composite ordering and stuff like that, but being pledge educator is my main duty. I'm sorry to hear that some of the VP's on this site aren't given any jobs to do. I suggest going to your President and asking to do more.