"The Advising and Helping competency area addresses the knowledge, skills, and attitudes related to providing counseling and advising support, direction, feedback, critique, referral, and guidance to individuals and groups" (ACPA & NASPA, 2010, p. 6).



Growth Within Competency

Fraternity and Sorority Life - Live-In Chapter Advisor

​After a full semester as a Greek house director, my direct supervisor informed me that I had been given a "perfect storm" of an assignment in serving as a live-in advisor for two fraternities.  Advising two chapters with very different issues taught me how important it was to be flexible and attentive to the needs of the group with whom I worked. 

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One fraternity experienced a history of risk management and hazing violations and was also the fraternity of my own affiliation.  This presented a unique challenge to me, as I being in the same fraternity in some ways made it more difficult to establish rapport with members of the chapter.  My skills as an advisor were challenged the most when that chapter was later put on suspension by its own national staff, who also communicated that a membership review (a holistic review of each member and a determination of their future within the chapter) would be conducted.  During this period of time, tensions with the chapter reached a peak and required me to implement a variety of interventions (ACPA & NASPA, 2010) in the form of 1:1 meetings and small/large group meetings to address inappropriate behaviors and attitudes.  Because several members were being verbally harassed and experienced vandalism of property, I was quick and attentive in identifying "when and with whom to implement appropriate crisis management and intervention responses" (ACPA & NASPA, 2010, p.6). 



The second chapter I advised, though it did not have issues with risk management, experienced issues with motivation among its members and had already been placed on a probationary status by its national staff for poor performance across multiple years.  Establishing rapport with this chapter occurred very quickly (2010), even to the point where members of the chapter would feel comfortable discussing the chapter's problematic behavior with me even though they knew I would be required to report it.  Because several chapter members had difficulty with motivation and accountability for their responsibilities, I adopted more of a hands-on style of advising and facilitated "individual decision making and goal setting" (p. 6), regularly checking on their progress and having supportive discussions to ascertain why certain tasks did not get accomplished.​

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Fraternity and Sorority Life - Standards of Excellence Reviewer

​In the fall semester of 2012, I was contacted by the Office of Fraternity and Sorority Life to serve as a reviewer for the pilot year of the Standards of Excellence process.  This review process, which had been developed by the Fraternity and Sorority Life community over the past year, was designed to assess chapters to determine if they were meeting minimum standards and identify chapters who were excelling in one or more of the following areas:  Academic Excellence, Civic Engagement, Leadership, and Positive Relationships.  

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Together with a team of reviewers from across the institution, I participated every Thursday evening in a full review of ten chapters over the course of three weeks (approximately one-fourth of the FSL community).  Prior to meeting with representatives from the chapter, I reviewed the packet submitted by the chapter written to illustrate how it was fulfilling the various components of the Standards of Excellence packet.  The interviews with each chapter lasted anywhere from 45 minutes to an hour and focused on the four areas of the Standards packet in sequential order, followed by questions focused on hearing about the personal experiences of chapter members.



Throughout this question and answer session, reviewers including myself asked pointed questions designed to address the heart of issues the chapter was experiencing and, in some cases, avoiding.  This was a great way for me to further develop my active listening skills and appropriately question and encourage students through conversation (ACPA & NASPA, 2010).  Following the interviews, reviewers completed two documents for each chapter.  The first was a two-part packet that first asked for qualitative thoughts and feedback for chapters addressing their strengths and areas of improvement.  The second part of the packet was a quantitative form for each of the four areas of the Standards of Excellence, asking the reviewer to rate the chapter's effectiveness on a variety of points that would determine a level of quality from Level 0 (little to no programming) to Level 3 (excellent).  The final document, separate from the packet, was a one-page summary of the packet indicating the overall level rating for each of the four areas as well as additional comments from the reviewer.  

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This in-depth qualitative and quantitative review of each chapter relates back to Advising and Helping regarding being able to "conduct...group assessment of organizational needs" (ACPA & NASPA, 2010, p. 6). In particular, this experience was a significant change from the traditional informal advising that I have been conducting throughout my time at BGSU.  Experiencing a form of advising with a quantitative component helped provide not only objectivity in the review process, but also a more explicit form of feedback that is easier for the organization to interpret and act upon.