David Kaib has been the advisor for the Young Democratic Socialists of America at AU since students revived the club in 2021. While he knows most advisors don’t take the time to read the Recognized Student Organizations manual every year, he always does.
He was shocked to find this year’s manual is 93 pages long — more than twice as long as the previous version. Updated requirements from the Center for Student Involvement, emailed to advisors on Aug. 8, worry student club leaders and their advisors.
“There are going to be advisors who say, ‘I can't do this,’” said Kaib, who also serves as assistant director of institutional research and assessment. “Some clubs are gonna lose their advisors — might be long-term advisors.”
The changes include new training requirements, updated language in the RSO manual and an advisor agreement form.
Changes are meant to provide clarity to advisors on their responsibilities and further support to student organizations, according to Vice President and Chief Communications Officer Matt Bennett.
“Our starting premise for the update was based on feedback from advisors seeking additional guidance and clarity on the role,” Bennett wrote in a statement to The Eagle. “And an opportunity to provide further information about how to best support RSOs, ensure compliance with university policies, and bolster the overall experience.”
Kaib and other club advisors have raised concerns about the language in the advisor agreement and updated manual. They said it tasks volunteer advisors with assuming responsibility for student actions.
The Center for Student involvement revised the agreement’s language on Aug. 18 after receiving pushback in the first of three required trainings, in particular around the following lines: “Advisors as employees and representatives of the university bear liability for their actions or inactions in their role.”
A second email from CSI notified advisors of the revised language and restated that the agreement must be signed by Oct. 15. The agreement, which was reviewed by The Eagle, now reads: “Advisors are responsible for taking appropriate action when they are made aware of information that may be cause for concern for student safety and/or well-being.”
Both versions require advisors “to report potential violations of university policy and crimes.”
Despite these changes, Kaib said advisors’ concerns were not assuaged. Kaib and a group of similarly apprehensive faculty and staff circulated a letter over email on Aug. 29 to club advisors, urging them not to sign the agreement until it is further revised.
The letter outlined several implications of the agreement which the authors objected to: placing responsibility on faculty and staff for student actions, shifting an informal mentorship role to one of “regulatory supervision” and the potential for these changes to make vulnerable student groups open to heightened administrative scrutiny.
Dayne Hutchinson, Assistant Vice President for Student Engagement and Success, sent an email to advisors on Sept. 29 addressing several of the concerns outlined in the faculty and staff letter.
“My goal in reaching out is not to influence any individual’s decision to continue in the voluntary Faculty/Staff Advisor role, as that decision is yours alone,” Hutchinson wrote. “Rather, I write in the spirit of clarity and collegiality, to address some misunderstandings, answer questions that have been raised, and provide additional context.”
Counselling caution
Kaib said that the newly outlined responsibilities change the relationship between students and their advisors — potentially hindering the mentoring role that club advisors signed up for.
“A lot of us feel this is just fundamentally changing the advisor role from the one we agreed to,” he said. “I talk with the students, I advise and might give them advice and help them figure out things and support them. I'm not supposed to be a compliance officer.”
The agreement says advisors should caution student groups against actions that may violate University policy, the law or broadly pose “risk.” Professor of film and media arts, Larry Engel, who is the Outdoors Club’s advisor, said he would feel pressure to counsel against most of his club’s activities if he signed.
“It means that we're monitors, not mentors. If I'm suddenly liable for activities, I will say, ‘No, you can’t,’” Engel said. “You shouldn't go kayaking, canoeing — shouldn’t rock climb, shouldn’t do any of it. Because if I’m responsible for it, I don’t want to take that risk.”
Megan Williams, the president of the Outdoors Club and a senior in the College of Arts and Sciences, said the level of responsibility described in the agreement feels out of step with the volunteer aspect of the advisor role.
“That should be a paid position and something that has more regulations and oversight that doesn't put the students and the [advisors] at legal risk honestly,” Williams said.
The letter urging advisors not to sign the agreement acknowledged the need for the University to protect itself from liability, particularly while universities are under scrutiny in the current political landscape. However, it continued, that protection “appears to be accomplished in part by transferring risk onto faculty and staff.”
Hutchinson’s email to advisors acknowledged concerns around personal risk and liability for advisors.
“It is important to clarify that advisors do not assume or otherwise agree to accept personal liability for student organizations’ conduct by fulfilling the role and responsibilities of faculty or staff advisor,” the email wrote. “Rather advisors are expected to carry out their responsibilities in a manner that is consistent with their role and obligations as a university employee.”
Hutchinson’s email pointed to the university's indemnification policy, which outlines when AU will provide legal defense and protection for employees acting in their role on behalf of the university. The policy outlines exceptions for negligence, willful misconduct and violations of university policies.
The advisor agreement was modeled on forms used by other “peer institutions,” according to Bennett and Hutchinson. When making changes to language, CSI also looked into similar protocols at universities like Vanderbilt, Emory, Northeastern, Miami University and the University of Maryland.
“Advisor agreements and training are common across higher education,” Bennett wrote. “As part of our benchmarking, we explored best practices, including leading examples from Washington University–St. Louis’ advisor agreement and Tulane University’s Advisor Roles and Responsibilities Form.”
Surveiling students
Among the concerns outlined in the advisor letter is the potential for limitations to student expression.
Kaib pointed particularly to a non-policy category called a climate concern, which is outlined in the updated RSO manual as a “negative impact on the University campus community … conduct that is negative and based on protected status ... subjectively and objectively offensive…”
Clubs may not be renewed if their actions contribute to climate concerns, according to the updated RSO manual. Kaib said the subjectiveness of this category opens student organizations to administrative overreach and speech regulation.
“For many of us, we sort of see this as part of a piece of the series of policy changes that have happened over the last few years that have targeted clubs and/or protests,” Kaib said.
Hutchinson’s email addressed concerns about both academic freedom and club autonomy.
“CSI does not freeze or dissolve organizations arbitrarily,” he wrote. “For example, as outlined in the manual, RSOs are frozen when they fail to complete the annual renewal process or when they do not comply with CSI policies and directives, and there are processes in place to support reactivation for frozen groups.”
Updates to the RSO manual follow policies, like the indoor protest ban, postering and social media policy, that are meant to selectively suppress student speech, according to Gabriel Savir, co-chair of Young Democratic Socialists of America at AU.
“This is the latest in a long line of policies, put out by the school, that’s ultimately going to be enforced selectively and be essentially targeted at a few groups,” said Savir, a junior in CAS. “Including activist groups and people of color — voices that [university administrators] don’t want to hear from.”
Ideal changes
For student leaders, the intent of some faculty and staff not to sign the agreement means the possibility of having to find a new advisor well into the start of the school year.
“We have wondered, if our advisor doesn’t sign or if these club advisors never sign by Oct. 15, does that mean that our club gets shut down?” Savir said. “Does that mean that we need to get a new advisor who is potentially going to be agreeable to essentially surveilling us?”
Savir added that he hopes advisors are able to push for their desired changes to the agreement and minimize interference with club operations. Williams, the Outdoors Club president, agreed, adding that student organizations are a vital part of the campus community and anything hindering their function threatens school spirit.
“I found a lot of my social life through clubs so that would be really devastating and really devastating for a lot of people’s social lives because like Greek life isn’t that big on this campus,” Williams said.
Through the three years she served on her club’s executive board, Williams said she had no issue with the advisor relationship and is an advocate for the status quo. Neither did Engel, who said he wants revisions to the advisor agreement that reflect the ethos of learning at universities.
“Being at university — being a student, being a faculty member — means that you are essentially a risk taker because you’re learning,” Engel said. “And in learning there is failure, and sometimes accidents happen or issues arise. But this document essentially is asking us to become risk averse, and I don't want to do that. It's not who I am.”
This article was edited by Cara Halford, Owen Auston-Babcock and Abigail Hatting. Copy editing done by Sabine Kanter-Huchting.
