Advisory Board

[Kadpi]

I have a question about your advisory board. We are a chapter who has total set at 60. We are currently at 32 active members, and typically don't go over 58 in a school year. We now have 10 advisors for our chapter. They told us that this is standard. I'm wondering if it is, out of curiosity. I know at larger chapters you may need more, but what about small chapters.

[Kevin]

One of the best parts about going greek is that you have numerous networking opportunities with well-to-do alums. The more, the merrier.

As long as the alums know their place and do not become involved in chapter politics and drama, they'll do fine.

[AnchorAlumna]

Lucky you! I would say you are extremely fortunate to have so many alumnae willing to give their time. In 4 years as a regional officer, I found that the strongest chapters had strong advisory boards. Being an advisor is difficult and demanding. My biggest challenge was finding alums who were willing to give a huge chunk of their time to working with the chapter. Be grateful!

[Tom Earp]

Both posters above speak so true.

After being a Chapter for 40 years, we now have an Alumni Association and an Advisory Board.

We before had a core of Alums who did it all.

LXA has three distinct groupings:

1. Alum Advisory Board.
2. Alumni Association.
3. House Corp. that is if a house is envolved.

As was mentioned, the Alum Advisory Board is there to advise, not run the chapter.

The High Pi/Chapter Advisor has responibilty to advise and step in if neccessary if there are structural problems within the chapter.

If You have this many Alums who are willing to work with the chapter, feel lucky. It sounds like maybe the school is like mine and not that greatest of backing from said college.

[ADPi Conniebama]

I think 10 is standard, for an advisory BOARD - I am one of 10 - but to be real only 4 advisors are doing anything major at one time.

Like right now (1)recruitment advisor (me), (2)panhellenic advisor, (3)financial advisor and chapter advisor are BUSY!!!

In the middle of the semester the (4)Member education advisor and (5)social advisor are busy

and at the end the (6)standards advisor, (7)chapter advisor, and (8)scholarship advisor are busy.

(then there is (9)philanthropy advisor and (10)exec advisor)

I assume if a chapter didn't have a "full load" of advisors the chapter advisor would go crazy.

We as advisors try to stay out of "chapter drama" but we have to be there for anything and everything else.

[ADqtPiMel]

The most ACTIVE advisors my chapter ever had during my time as a collegian was 4. And I'm from a 150-member chapter. My school was in the middle of a cornfield, located about an hour away from any sort of city, which made it hard to get any sort of alumnae support.

[Zillini]

As a Chapter Advisor I would never complain we had too many advisors on board. I would thank my lucky stars there were so many alums that wanted to give their time and energy to make the Chapter successful. The beauty of having so many is they can share the workload and there's less of a likelihood any one will get burned out or overtaxed.

Now if Advisors are stepping on each others toes or going beyond their duties and inappropriately interferring with Chapter operations, then that's a personality issue and not a numbers problem. Just my humble opinion.

[ADPi Conniebama]

Oh I never see any advisor "step" on any other advisors toes. If anything we are all passing the buck until the "buck stops here." We are all into helping the chapter it is when we have to deal with panhellenic or another organization like step sing we, the advisors, have to deal with the united way. which is normally fine but you know how things can get.