ASEE Southeast Section Conference 1 Case Studies in Management Style and Leadership Roles of Faculty Advisors to Student Organizations

Most student organizations are required to have a faculty advisor. However, unlike established organizational offices such as President and Secretary, the duties of the faculty advisor are not well defined and often fluctuate based on the personality of the officers for the academic year. This can be frustrating for faculty advisors, be they new or experienced faculty members, as the role they must play changes from year to year. The situation is complicated further when the most appropriate role conflicts with the leadership style of the faculty advisor. In the Fall of 2001, there was a faculty advisor change for the Mercer University chapter of the Society of Women Engineers (SWE). The outgoing faculty advisor had filled this role since the chapter received its charter in October 1992 and had been on faculty at Mercer for 10 years. The incoming faculty advisor was starting her second year at Mercer and felt that getting involved with SWE would be a good way to get to know the students and see how organizations at Mercer worked. This paper serves as a case study of management styles and leadership roles in a voluntary organization and explores reasons for some of our successes and failures