This month's guest blogger is Kathryn Hartmann, National Vice President-Collegians.
As the National Vice President-Collegians, I am charged with the task of finding the best ways to support our collegiate chapters. This not only encompasses chapter operations, training, and advisement, but also training the volunteers that work with our chapters, creating volunteer positions that are manageable, and finding new, innovative ways to support our individual chapters. These are no easy feats, with no single solution.
After many months of research, thought, and conversation, I, along with Jessica Knerr, National Vice President-Programming, developed a new chapter administration support structure that now integrates members from our volunteer programming team to support our dedicated volunteers on our chapter administration team, as follows:
- Chapters and Advisors will continue to be supported by their respective Conference Directors, who will continue to advise on chapter operations, policy interpretation, and support other chapter needs.
- Conference Directors are supported by Conference Administrators, volunteers with long-term experience in chapter administration, that can help troubleshoot when necessary. Conference Administrators are still responsbile for chapter advisor reccommendations and suspension appeal reccommendations. Conference Administrators report to the National Vice President-Collegians.
- New to the chapter administration team is the addition of National Assistant New Member Educators, National Assistant Academic Excellence Chairmen, and National Assistant Standards Board Chairmen. These national assistant chairmen have been assigned to the chapter administration team by advising on programming, reviewing and approving chapter programs, and offering ways to enhance the effectiveness of these programs within our chapters. They report to their respective National Chairmen in those areas, under the direction of the National Vice President—Programming.
By adding national assistant chairmen to focus on chapter programming, tasks that most recently were part of the Conference Director role, Conference Directors and Conference Administrators can focus more intently on other areas of chapter operations. Chapter officers and advisors may directly contact their assigned national assistant chairmen for questions or concerns regarding their respective programmatic areas.
We are thrilled to have appointed five alumnae as national assistant new member educators. It is our hope that these changes will lead to better support of chapters programming and overall chapter operations, as well as offering additional ways to more directly engage with collegiate women.
Interested in joining the team? We are currently seeking alumnae to fill five national academic excellence chairmen positions and five national standards board chairmen positions. If you are interested, please complete the National Officer Application online (member login required).