Handbook: Overview of Advising an ALD Chapter

Welcome to advising an Alpha Lambda Delta chapter! Whether you are new or have been doing this a long time, we hope you’ll find the resources here helpful. You are a very important person to us - your work with the students on your campus will help us in our mission of encouraging superior academic achievement among students in their first year of college and beyond. The encouragement and advice of advisors to Alpha Lambda Delta members provide these students with the direction they need to develop important leadership skills, the skills that they will use throughout their collegiate and professional lives.

Role of the Chapter Advisor

Your primary responsibility is to help students understand the purpose of an academic honor society and to facilitate the success of the chapter on your campus.

• Be informed of the policies and procedures related to maintaining student organization recognition status on your campus. This usually involves paperwork filed each year with a student activities office.

• Update chapter contact information. Do you have new officers for the year? Let us know who they are! Use this form to submit information. Also be sure to update advisor contact information in MHS, or email changes to us.

• Inviting and inducting new members occurs annually (at minimum; some chapters choose to invite eligible students each term). The Membership Management Guide is an overview of obtaining eligibility lists, sending invitations, planning an induction ceremony, and managing chapter activities.

• Student officers and the advisor should work closely to ensure that sending invitations and information materials to eligible students is accomplished accurately and efficiently. This includes familiarizing yourself and your chapter with the MyHonorSociety (MHS) online registration system, if your chapter uses it.

• Once a plan is in place for inviting new members, it’s time to think about electing officers and appointing committees as deemed necessary in furthering the business of the chapter and delegate responsibilities as appropriate. Arrange an orientation meeting between current officers and newly-installed officers immediately following elections to ensure a smooth transfer of duties. See Officer Transition Plan for information such as officer position descriptions, a sample application, plus tips and strategies for successful ALD chapter officer transitions.

• Meet with the officers to plan the year’s programs. This includes planning a proposed budget for local dues (if applicable) and establishing financial procedures. See Financial Matters for how to handle ALD membership dues, and Chapter Activities for ideas on how to keep members active throughout the year.

• Coordinate the collection, selection, and submission of local Trow and Stemler scholarship applications.

• See that the chapter annual reports are properly completed and submitted to ALD Headquarters on or before June 1. The report is to give the status of the chapter’s fiscal activities as of April 15 for the group tax return prepared by ALD Headquarters for the Internal Revenue Service.

There are other handbook guides you will find useful – take some time to look through them, and please contact us if we can provide assistance in any way.