Advising Student Organizations

What is an Advisor?
An advisor works with a student organization taking on roles and responsibilities including, role model, guide, resource, counselor, and more. Each advisor has his or her own style of advising. Styles develop through relationships built as advisors work with students individually, as executive boards, and as a group. The advisor role helps with the growth and development of students as they work through organizational purpose, structure, and programming. In this process advisors share insight, provide ideas, offer an objective perspective, and counsel students. They also are knowledgeable of the institutions policies and procedures, looking out for how they may impact the organization. As students graduate, advisors provide continuity as they are able to provide organization history, legacy, and goals to newer and future members.

Why Organizations need an Advisor:
Advisors help provide guidance, insight, and perspective to students as they develop and see through projects. While advisors should not be doing the work for their students, they should facilitate learning through student engagement.

Benefits of Advising
There are many benefits associated with advising a student organization. Some include:

• Satisfaction of seeing and helping students learn and develop new skills
• Watching a group come together to share common interests, work toward common goals, and develop an understanding of differences
• Developing a personal relationship with students
• Becoming more aware of the services that BGSU provides students and organizations
• Furthering personal goals or interests by working with an organization that reflects or shares your personal interests
• Sharing one’s knowledge with others

BGSU Student Handbook Policies and Procedures

• All student organizations are required to have an advisor who is a full-time staff or faculty member at BGSU.
• Within the context of the broader mission and policies of the University, advisors shall share insights and directions that allow student organizations to further their objectives and enhance the meaningfulness of organization membership.
• Specific responsibilities of the advisor shall be to: regularly attend general and executive board meetings; provide guidance to the officers; receive all financial statements and oversee all financial transactions of the organization; ensure that officers meet the minimum requirements for holding office as established by the University and the organization’s constitution and by-laws; provide consultation concerning membership selection procedures, and responsibilities; review and sign the organizations registration packet.

The impact of an advisor “may be the single most underestimated characteristic of a successful college experience” (Light, 2001, p. 81).

Information for the Office of Campus Activities Advisor Resources web pages has been adapted from:
The ACPA Committee for Student Involvement’s Advisor Manual
Campus Activities Programming November/December 2006 www.naca.org
Bowling Green State University Student Handbook

Advising Student Organizations   

Archived Student Organization Advisor Resources Newsletters
                November 2010
                December 2010
                March/April 2011