Best Practices

As an Adviser the following are some best practices when working with student leaders and student organizations:

  1. Ask open ended questions of your students: RESOURCE WEBSITE 
  2. Engage in active listening: RESOURCE WEBSITE
  3. Empower students in their development process: RESOURCE WEBSITE 
  4. Allow the RSO to succeed and allow the RSO to fail. As the adviser, we trust you know when to allow your respective student organization to “fail” and when you need to step in. If you are not sure as situations arise, please feel free to reach out to the Assistant Director for RSOs for guidance.
  5. Let the students make the decisions. As an adviser, guide them through the decision-making process but allow them to come to their own decisions.
  6. Consider holding regular one on one meetings with the organization officer(s) or joining in executive officer/leadership board meetings periodically.
  7. Discuss concerns about officers with them in private.
  8. Praise officers and student organization members in public.
  9. Set specific deadlines to help student leaders and members meet them and it allows for intentional rescheduling of them if the need arises.
  10. Encourage the student leaders to be transparent in operations such as disseminating reports (financial, operational, position) to the general membership on a regular basis. 
  11. Encourage leaders to understand and apply democratic principles, including recognition of minority opinions,rights and due process.
  12. Introduce new program ideas with an educational lens

RSOAH