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| Leadership 101 tackles
club member burnout, retention |
Grayson
Mendenhall
Chancellor | Student Development Beat |
“Organizational
Life 101,” part of the Leadership 101 series, is a lecture
geared toward discovering effective ways to recruit and maintain
members of campus organizations and clubs.
The Appalachian State University Center for Student Involvement
and Leadership (CSIL) continues the series Tuesday at 5:30 p.m.
in the Linville Falls Room of W.H. Plemmons Student Union.
CSIL Assistant Director Tracey L. Wright will host the lecture.
“It will be a session on strategies to help recruit new members,
and also I will provide tips on how to motivate and maintain current
membership,” Wright said Sunday.
Wright said the memberships of many campus organizations often suffer
from poor recruitment strategies.
“Just hanging a flier up and hoping that the masses at Appalachian
will see it is not effective anymore,” Wright said.
She said the diverse nature of Appalachian’s student body leads
to frustration by organization leaders looking for members.
“On our campus, because there are so many opportunities to
get involved, students are always shopping around to see what niche
they might fit in,” Wright said.
Wright said all organizational leaders should talk to their members
to find out about their level of commitment.
“They should engage in an open dialogue about things that attracted
them and things that keep them committed,” Wright said.
Associate Director of CSIL Jim Street said the structure and time
schedules of student organizations complicate their functioning.
“Student organizations are different from … a company
or community of people because students go through a certain cycle
of events each semester that affect their level of involvement,”
Street said Thursday.
The pressure of academics often causes members to pay more attention
to school than extracurricular organizations.
“There are times during the year when students can’t focus
on organizational goals. This leads to frustration among the group’s
officers,” Street said.
The frustration of organizational leaders can cause more harm than
good, he said.
“Organizational leaders will often get upset at students who
stop coming to meetings, then their own level of commitment begins
to wane,” Street said.
Knowing what is happening in their members’ lives helps ease
some of the stress of the leaders.
“Being aware of outside forces that will affect the organization
can help leaders deal with organizational problems,” Street
said. |
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