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Alumni Advising Tips and Tricks

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Alumni Advising Tips and Tricks

As a fraternity, Lambda Chi Alpha thrives on connection, education, and brotherhood. In order to achieve this success, we value the incredible impact that our alumni advisors have on undergraduates’ lives.

Alumni are able to offer guidance and direction through their experiences in life and with the fraternity, which the undergrads do not possess yet.

Nick Zuniga

“You don’t get anywhere in life without somebody opening a door, without somebody who’s gotten to the top of the ladder and sends it back down for you,” discusses Nick Zuniga, Director of Chapter Services. “That’s no more true than within a fraternity.”

The opportunity for networking is a big part of fraternity. As new members grow in their college experiences, it is vital for them to have someone with the knowledge and experience to help guide them in the right direction.

The first step to becoming an advisor is figuring out what chapter you would like to help and how your skills and resources could benefit that chapter.

Chris Buck, Associate Director of Expansion, suggests, “I would start by emailing volunteering.lambdachi.org and say ‘This is what I want to do’. You can also go onto our website and see where we are actively seeking alumni volunteers.”

Chris Buck

Headquarters offers many different options for alumni to start training to become an advisor.

“We provide a lot of different opportunities to train alumni on sight with Alumni Advisory Board (AAB) training,” said Zuniga.  “Hopefully, at the end of this summer we’ll be launching the Alumni Advisor Academy, which is an online training similar to what the officers are doing…

“We also provide the Neville Advisors College in February which is a chance to come on site. We also provide  people here on staff able to assist alumni, being able to process their registrations, being able to have a contact person that they can call on for issues, questions, reports, data information…”

It is important to note that becoming an advisor is not specific to one’s chapter. Of course, it would be great to give back to one’s own chapter, but sometimes circumstances make hands-on involvement difficult.

“That’s the beauty, is that our oaths and our obligations tell us to give back, but it doesn’t say to give back to our own chapter,” exclaimed Zuniga.  “If you’re lucky enough to be close to your chapter or be involved from a distance, that’s great, but we are all from the same ritual, we’re all from the same fraternity.”

Especially with new technology, getting involved is accessible from anywhere ,with things like Facetime, Skype, etc.

Headquarters plans to begin promoting and taking advantage of progressing technology by using it to help connect brothers, no matter where they are in the world.

The importance of alumni and advising is essential to the growth and productivity of the fraternity as a whole.

“When I was an undergrad I definitely had a fixed mindset of what was going on and so this was comfortable, but I think one of the best things was having a really solid advisor who is willing to challenge and push us and help us see things a little differently,” exclaims Buck.

Advising doesn’t just benefit undergrads; it allows alumni opportunities to learn and grow through their experiences with the men they are guiding, by putting their beliefs, principles, and oaths into action.

“If you have been disengaged for a long time, this is a really great opportunity for you to get reengaged with Lambda Chi,” Buck explains. “When you took those oaths at initiation and got involved, it wasn’t just for four years, it was for the rest of your life. I would encourage our members to think that way and to really look at this as an opportunity to get reengaged with the fraternity.”

In order for young men to grow, they must have a solid foundation of support. As a fraternity, it is Lambda Chi’s mission to provide each member with the guidance they need to help create a “better society of men”.

Through the involvement of advisors, we are better able to achieve that goal by allowing developing individuals to learn from men who have been in their shoes and know what it takes to live successfully.

For more information on how you can get involved, email Jayme Little, jlittle@lambdachi.org

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