For this week's entry, I took upon an idea to gather some thoughts about the functions of a Student Government Advisor. Thoughts of different people, as you might notice. They all separately answered the question, "What good is an SG Advisor?" and their responses are quoted below. I would like to thank everyone who responded to my facebook messages and emails, and to apologize to any reader who might find the entry too long to read; I tried not to edit the texts I received.

Here they follow, in the order they were received:

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I. Advisor of the Student Government

i.     The Advisor of the Student Government aids the Student Government in its activity

ii.   The Advisor counsels the Student Government on issues pertaining to Student Government policies and University policies, rules and procedures.

iii. The Advisor is an ex-officio member of the Student Senate.

SG Constitution

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The advisor often has knowledge of the university (i.e. what offices do what; what is the typical procedure in situation X). This makes it much easier for SG to find info or better understand a situation that it is trying to address. For example, [the advisor would share information about] how the hiring process works[,] how the faculty evaluation process works[,] how student evaluations [are] treated within the evaluation process.

If an advisor who has worked with a number of senates, he/she can also help them see that their concerns are/are not unusual. In other words, the advisor may carry around institutional memory that the individual senators could never be expected to know.

It can also be good to have someone to bounce ideas off who is not directly affected...to use his/her good offices.

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I see the SG advisor as a consultant (always only advisory) to the group who can help with:
1. the understanding and application of the formal decision-making process;
2. the development of decision-making and process skills for the particular  team;
3. the formation of the SG into an effective and productive team; and,
4. the navigation of organizational boundaries, policies and procedure

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The SG advisor is a great asset to the organization. To me the advisor serves two main roles:

1) Provide guidance and institutional knowledge. Help with administrative processes and navigation of the university's political landscape. In other words prevent us from making procedural blunders and stepping on people's toes without extending them their due courtesy :) ([...] we did step on people toes but at least we tried to be nice about it and do it with a smile)

2) Work with the SG officers in developing their personal and professional leadership skills. When Bobby talked to us about ways to handle various situation, whether at SG or individual meetings, he helped us all get better not only in our roles as SG officers but also as students and later on as professionals [...]

[...] I think the SG advisor is an invaluable person to have. I'll throw in a little disclaimer though. Since graduating from AUBG, I've actually had the opportunity to work as an SG advisor (in addition to my other job responsibilities), so I'll admit that I'm little biased in favor of the advisor.

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An SG advisor is good for the following:
- to help the SG to better organize and conduct the weekly meetings
- to motivate the so called "CV senators" - if that is ever possible
- to help the SG to better understand the rules and procedures of the meeting
- to serve as personal advisor to the ones who needed (most of the professors can do that but the SG advisor is up-to-date with the issues in hand)
- to serve as a mediator between the SG and the administration/faculty and to better understand/convey students' problems

The issues to be addressed and the way to address them should be selected by the students.

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A committed SG adviser [...] can bring in experience from previous SGs: interpret by-laws and other SG rules and guidelines when there are contagious issues, and give advice on how critical situations should be handled procedure-wise.

- [...] the Advisor can comment on past initiatives and share observations about best practices - how to do even better things that have been successfully done in the past, and how to not do things (i.e. because poor handling of various aspects had lead to so-and-so consequences last time an initiative was attempted).

- The SG Advisor may notice harbingers of conflict much earlier than the senators themselves become aware, and give precious advise to the executive body how to handle tense situations.

- The SG Advisor can inspire the Senate to push harder by referring to past successful initiatives. [...] he can often function as institutional memory and supply the Senate with a clearer context of some issue that the current senators are beginning to address. For example, the Senate might be working on an initiative that has been started and abandoned 4 or 5 years ago. Or they might be pushing to a change to a status-quo they believe will be new, but which actually was the old status quo, before the last change was implemented.

- The Advisor can be extremely helpful regarding [...] how an issue should be best presented to the Administration: pinpoint the critical actors, whose support is needed for an initiative to be successful; suggest an order, in which those actors should be approached and means for achieving [the goal].

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[...] an advisory role of a former SG member is necessary especially in the beginning of the year when a new SG is formed. Although the SG usually has a couple of experienced senators it also has new people. Since it is a new group of people every year it is important to have an adviser.

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[...] the current SG advisers, namely Bobby and Lydia, are fairly helpful when it comes to operational/functional matters, in the sense that the senators seems to rely on their advice, suggestions and guidance regarding major/serious issues. However, sometimes, as everywhere else, there are misunderstandings and miscommunication, which I cannot blame on anyone specifically.

As for having "alumni advisers" - [...] that's a great idea, as the SG members, especially the Presidential team, seem to need strong advice in terms of specific matters when dealing with their stuff, and who can better answer their questions, if not the people who have done the exact same thing before?

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The role of the SG advisor should not be underestimated.

In many aspects the advisor is the only outside SG entity that actually has an opinion, influence, or an impact to the everyday work of the SG.

Unfortunately, not many senators understand the importance of communication with students in the decision-making process. The SG should represent the students and not the interests or preferences of individual senators or groups of students.

What the SG advisor could do is monitor and give adequate critiques. Often the SG is very insensitive to critiques and this inevitably results in an inefficiency. Thus, the Advisor's role is very important for the senators to understand if the SG goes in the right direction or not.

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The primordial role of the advisor it to consult on SG and university polices and regulations. During the meetings an advisor acts a lot like an independent observer. Thus interferes when relevant SG polices are not considered during the meeting, or any additional advise is needed regrading university polices. This aspect alone makes the an advisor a crucial person for a sustainable and smooth-running SG. It is very complicated and troublesome maintaining high standards in SG without an advisor. Having such standards is vital to the SG, given that one of its main purpose is to lobby for high-standarts and compliancy to polices and regulations within the entire university. One cannot expect university administration to adhere to organizational polices and regulations if they fail to do so. In other words SG cannot afford double standards being what it is.

Faculty advisors are part of AUBG environment, have been around for a while, and oftentimes have been involved with SG to a different degree. Metaphorically speaking they are bridges between different generations of students involved in with the SG. When necessary they would bring to the table relevant cases from six or eight years ago. Furthermore, their in-deapth understanding of the SG dealings and strong know-how on policy implementation materialize in a strong tutoring capacity. With their substantial help SG organizes training for its members at the beginning of the term. In the end faculty advisors contribute tremendously not only by advising in the framework of high standards, but also by helping SG members getting a better grasp on the concept of shared governance and its practical side.

Advisors do not tend to interfere in process of decision making as long as there are no relevant important aspects (often related to polices, regulation or past precedents) to be considered, but were missed by SG members.