My career as a fraternity/sorority advisor (FSA) began at Otterbein University, an institution with primarily local fraternities and sororities: of 14 chapters, only two are inter/national. Because I completed my undergraduate degrees at Otterbein, I was already aware of the culture around local fraternity and sorority life (FSL) and became fluent as an advisor to these organizations. My membership with Phi Delta Theta provided a baseline understanding of inter/national organizations, but it wasn’t until I started my graduate assistantship at Bowling Green State University (BGSU) that I truly started learning how to round out my advising and synthesize both experiences.
Because of my unique path to becoming an FSA with both local and inter/national experience, I am well-positioned to share my knowledge with FSAs who may find themselves advising local organizations for the first time – a challenge that can be daunting! Local organizations have a soft spot in my heart, and I want to ensure FSAs are best prepared to support this niche of our FSL community. In this article, I identify three considerations for FSAs working with local organizations.
First and foremost, the FSA should prepare to be more hands-on with local organizations. They can be significantly less structured than an organization with an inter/national headquarters, inter/national operations, and dedicated staff support. The FSA should expect to fill the role of headquarters staff for their local organizations. This can be done directly with chapter leadership or by working with council leadership or alumni advisory boards. Especially after the COVID-19 pandemic, the organizations I worked with struggled to connect to their history and values. They were going through the motions, having lost all passion and understanding of what the fraternity/sorority experience is about. Naturally, this began to affect recruiting, which was already a process that needed refinement. To combat this, my team and I took three steps toward renovating the FSL experience for our students.
Reignite the Passion – Branding, Messaging, and Care
Local organizations may feel like they are on an island, often comparing their experiences to those of their peers at other campuses with inter/national FSL experiences. Therefore, what professional staff and student leaders say about the FSL experience on your campus is crucial to the program’s success. One of my main goals was to energize our FSL community with excitement, passion, and pride. My first step in doing this was to heal internal relationships between the FSL community and university staff. I was intentional about leading with care and focused on pouring love into my students. This style is sometimes critiqued, but I believe the world is tough enough. Our students have plenty of stress from their academics, work, and lives at home, so in my work, I choose to empower, support, and love them. All in all, it is important to me that my students learn, stay safe, have memorable college experiences, and grow and develop. It’s important to note that this does not mean accountability, challenge, and correction are completely absent from my advising style. These practices are necessary and crucial for student development, but prioritizing love and care makes room for these conversations after a relationship has been established.
Approaching my work in this way proved to be beneficial. First, it built trust between me and my students. They want to know that you will care for them and that you are a safe person who will look out for their best interests. Similarly, it creates a sense of relatability. By consistently talking about the pride I have in my students and boasting about their successes, laughing and sharing interests, the students are able to see past my “administrator’s hat,” break down their walls, and are more likely to be collaborative. Having an advisor who is publicly in the students’ corner makes all the difference.
Filling the Gaps – Creating Programs of Support
Kinney & Swick-Duttine (2020) point out that “the office staff should also provide a range of training and educational programs, and information about what a high-functioning chapter looks like” (p. 57). Without headquarters support, local organizations rely solely on the campus-based professional for educational content, leadership development, risk management, crisis intervention, and more, sometimes with direct support from alumni advisors. Broadly, I focused on anti-hazing education, academic support, and revising policies and procedures that may have been outdated and no longer served intended needs. Furthermore, I drilled down to specific topics I wanted to focus on, such as establishing a positive campus presence and working against stereotypes, council leadership skills specifically focused on the Standards of Excellence for our FSL community, recruitment workshops, and goal setting and executive board transitions.
The preexisting anti-hazing content was direct, as cut-and-dry as possible, and did not provide room for the students to wrestle with the concepts they were learning. My Otterbein colleague and I reimagined training to include YouTube videos, more direct examples of hazing incidents, and case studies that allowed time for peer-to-peer discussion, followed by a large group debrief. In addition to this in-person training, chapter leadership also completed an online anti-hazing module along with a short questionnaire to assess understanding. New members completed a similar online program and attended an in-person session.
Building the community’s academic support program was an exciting project that included opportunities to collaborate with FSAs at other institutions and with my colleague, who was overseeing retention programs and success coaching at Otterbein. The model was intended to encourage the chapter to rely on their own initiatives – pre-existing programs like study tables and discounts on membership dues – until the student reaches a certain percentage below the required GPA for FSL involvement. Then, the student would be referred to the FSL office and/or an Otterbein success coach. If the student continued to struggle, they would be placed on social probation and barred from leadership opportunities to focus on their academic performance. The intention behind this was to encourage academic persistence and to get students connected with campus resources. At Otterbein, academic performance is tied to the chapter’s success in the Standards of Excellence program. It is factored into eligibility for letter-recognized housing, so the students were invested in our exploration of this policy and its implications.
Being on a campus with both local and inter/national organizations, the discrepancies were clear. Local organizations need more hands-on support from their FSA, and the FSA should be creative and innovative in their programming and support models. On the other hand, focusing too much on the local organizations can cause the inter/national groups to feel excluded and uncared for, so balance is necessary. Because of this, conflicts among council leadership and between member chapters can occur due to varying skillsets, knowledge levels, and interests. The FSA should lead with care and build relationships with each type of organization to better understand their needs and tailor their practice.
The flexibility of program design and policy implementation is one of the greatest assets of a local organization. With fewer stakeholders, each community, council, and organization are able to focus on initiatives that are important to their specific culture. For example, a council made up of local organizations may choose to become gender-inclusive, opening opportunities for co-ed organizations, or nonbinary and transgender members to participate in a fraternity/sorority experience that feels authentic to them. Moreover, organizations can be creative in policies such as financial operations or academic support, to name a few, without the need to be in alignment with other chapters’ or headquarters’ expectations. This enables the organization to create an experience that responds directly to the needs of its members.
Establishing a Firm Foundation – Who’s in Their Village?Â
Another major asset of local organizations is their genuine connection to campus. Because these organizations are a product of the college or university, the values of the campus community are ingrained in the fraternity/sorority. The university cares for the development of its student organizations, and the student organizations push the university to do its best work. This direct connection creates increased opportunities for campus and community service, collaborations with campus partners (including academic affairs), and increased participation in alumni engagement opportunities. While the university community will look out for its fraternities/sororities, it is crucial for the FSA to provide intensive structure, development, challenge, and support for the students.
Without a headquarters, the campus-based FSA should step in to provide additional support and resources for individual chapters in addition to the FSL community as a whole. However, this can’t be done alone – the organization will need a network of support to thrive. At Otterbein, we focused on development for chapter/alumni advisors. As alumni, they benefit from the same assistance in becoming an advisor that they received during their time as students. Clearly explaining (with supporting documentation and policy if necessary) the responsibilities and expectations of chapter advisors is crucial. Hosting regular meetings – in-person, virtual, or hybrid – is a good way to open a line of communication, build trust, and support the development of the chapter advisor. Moreover, the alumni relations office is an excellent partner when working with alumni/chapter advisors, especially if the advisors choose to gather as a group. This model allows for idea-sharing, open conflict resolution, and it moves the community forward as each chapter operates with a similar community-focused mission. The FSA should attend these meetings to liaise between the students and advisors; however, a member of the alumni relations staff may choose to lead these meetings, or a chair should be elected by the group. Additionally, strengthening the FSL alumni network opens the door for increased financial support for local organizations. As these networks grow, more individuals will return to campus and engage with their organization, minimizing the financial struggles that small campuses and local organizations often face.
Finally, it is important for the FSA to help the community create good relationships with campus partners. This is important for any fraternity/sorority community, but as gaps in support for local organizations are noticed, the FSA may have to advocate more vocally on behalf of their students. For example, student conduct offices may have less tolerance for organization violations such as neighborhood noise complaints. From the FSA’s perspective, the unique advising structure and educational opportunities may explain the chapter’s poor behavior and will serve as an educational opportunity. Of course, the FSA should immediately work to fill gaps, educate the community, and hold chapters accountable, but it should be known that there are other explanations for misconduct other than being “bad.” As positive relationships are built with campus partners, the local organizations’ network of support will grow, and the chapters will frequently meet developmental goals.
These considerations serve as a starting point but are not an exhaustive list. Kinney & Swick-Duttine (2020) do an exceptional job of highlighting a more complete list of both advantages and disadvantages for local organizations. They point out that “though local chapters often lack exposure to industry trends, they remain fairly nimble and responsive to the need for progressive change” (p. 56). Moreover, they point out one of the most important advantages – operating finances: “The chapter only needs to collect what it deems necessary to meet operational expenses, and this often means there are no separate new member/candidate and initiate fees, no lifelong membership fee, and no alumni membership fees or dues” (p. 56).
Local organizations are not much different than inter/national organizations, but being aware of and appropriately responding to subtle differences can make a significant difference. The FSA can use these considerations to develop a baseline understanding of working with local organizations and can rely on observations and interactions to tailor their advising approach. Advising fraternities/sororities is one of the coolest jobs in the world, and advising local organizations offers an extra layer of excitement!
References
Kinney, W., & Swick-Duttine, A. (2020). Advising local fraternal organizations. In P. A. Sasso, J. P. Biddix, & M. L. Miranda (Eds.), Supporting fraternities and sororities in the contemporary era: Advancements in practice (pp. 53-62). Myers Education Press. https://librarysearch.bgsu.edu/permalink/01OHIOLINK_BGSU/i5ro6c/alma991028994252808512
About the Author
Alec R. Arnett (he/him) is a second-year master’s student studying College Student Personnel and a Graduate Assistant in the Office of Student Engagement & Residence Life at Bowling Green State University (BGSU). His research interests include college men’s health and wellness, concepts of masculinity, and men’s development within fraternities. Currently, his research explores the experiences of international student-athletes in the United States. Alec is completing his first year of involvement with the Association of Fraternity/Sorority Advisors and is a member of Phi Delta Theta fraternity.Â
