In one of Student Council's major undertakings this year, the administration of President John Nelson overhauled the consultant program for contracted independent organizations. The changes have a dual purpose: to assist CIOs with their various functions and to improve outreach to both students and student groups.
Keeping afloat
Many student groups noted that the most pressing challenges with running a CIO are funding and traversing the often confusing appropriations process.
"The appropriations process was difficult for me," said Jonathan Ohmart, the business manager for the Academical Village People. "The process of having all of the treasurers come together is a great one to ensure that everyone understands what's going on, but it was very much a crash course that assumed that the attendees had some prior knowledge of the process. I, as a brand-new business manager, had none."
Some CIOs also may have trouble forecasting a concrete budget.
"I think it's hard to determine how much you need and try to get everything funded," said Sean Li, the Men's Club Tennis treasurer. "Last year, we definitely had problems getting enough money for plane tickets to go to Nationals ... So we ended up not going."
Apart from monetary-related issues, CIOs may find that maintaining interest among current and prospective members is also difficult, said Jason Shore, Jefferson Literary and Debating Society treasurer.
"When [debate societies] were first formed, there wasn't much competition [to attract new members], whereas now you're competing with fraternities and other organizations," he said.\nA lack of experienced leadership may contribute further to these challenges, as it is difficult to plan conferences and events, said Trina Tran, founder and president of the PURSUIT Conference - a new CIO at the University.
"We know how to book rooms, but it's just, 'What can you do with those rooms?'" Tran said. "When do you have to use U.Va catering? Those are things we'd look into CIO consultants or [University Programs Council] for."
Tran also noted that resources that CIO consultants offer may be available elsewhere.
"We have been contacted by a CIO consultant, but as a new CIO, we try to get our own resources as often as possible," Tran said. "The vice president [of organizations] has encouraged us to come to [the Student Activities Center] to talk to them, but we either haven't been able to find the time to do that or we've found other resources."
Assisting CIOs
CIO consultants hold office hours in the Student Activities Center 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Monday through Friday. Their primary duties may largely address fundraising, recruitment efforts and programming, but the students also serve as a direct liaison to Student Council and organize activities fairs and CIO recognition programs, such as the CIO of the Month award.
"The CIO consultants have a lot of information that a student who's running a CIO might not have," Nelson said. "We have the CIO orientations and CIO office hours so that the CIO consultants can provide that information and provide that experience to students who are involved in CIOs."
To assign CIOs to consultants, all of the more than 600 CIOs on Grounds were categorized according to their interests, CIO Consultant Co-Chair Erin Garratt said.
"Each CIO has a point person," Garratt said. "We went through the list of all the CIOs at U.Va - all 600+ of them - and had them categorized into a cappella groups, publications, etc. Each consultant had a list of 25 to 50 different CIOs. For example, I have a bunch of the a capella groups."
CIO consultants also assist CIOs in navigating the @UVA system, which is the Web site through which student organizations interact and submit their budget proposals to the Appropriations Committee.
"Very few people have a thorough understanding of how to use it," CIO Consultant Co-Chair Greg Corkran said. "We've seen a pretty good number of students ask questions about it and we're able to now walk them through the features."
Often CIO members feel self-sufficient enough to do without the aid of CIO consultants, however.
"I've never really had an occasion to need it and I think a lot of our needs are pretty specific, so I don't know how useful it'd be to our club," Sailing Association Treasurer Andrew Walden said. "I was aware of the consultant program but felt confident that I could manage without that. We've got a pretty tight group of officers, and knowledge has been passed down well."
Outreach though a different avenue
"I really wanted the program to help me with outreach to students and student organizations," Council Vice President for Organizations Colin Hood said. "I knew as VPO, it would be challenging to manage my responsibilities and have the ability to build personal relationships with student leaders without a team. I knew that the CIO consultant team would be able to expand the resources and services we provide to CIOs."
There are many ways CIOs can contact their consultants, whether it entails a visit to the Student Activities Center during office hours, sending an e-mail or just sending a message to the consultants via Google chat.
"We've really gotten a lot of requests from students, especially [when] students after they've created CIOs have reached out to the CIO consultants," Nelson said. "Even students who haven't come in have e-mailed questions, and CIO consultants have fielded tons of questions just via e-mail."
Garratt and Corkran said they pushed outreach efforts in an attempt to redress issues that had hindered Council's previous program.
"The program was started last year but it wasn't very successful, so Greg and I tried to get the word out and get a panel of CIO consultants and start from the ground up," Garratt said. "We've been pretty successful so far in getting the word out there."
Consultants were initially concerned about how to encourage CIO representatives to use their resources, but so far, participation has been strong, Garratt said.
Branching out
Council plans to add to the current CIO consultant program by establishing teams of consultants that deal exclusively with specific issues, such as sustainability and diversity.\n"We're thinking about ways we might be able to build upon [the program], so green consultants is one avenue where it's a similar idea, but focuses on how we can assist groups with sustainability," Nelson said. "That really stemmed from interest from CIOs."
Hood said Council is collaborating with the Unity Project to introduce the green CIO consultant team.
"It was a great example of collaboration and co-sponsorship," Hood said. "We worked together to recruit the team and help [them] draft their goals for the year."
Council has created incentives for CIOs to make use of the green consultant team. For example, CIOs that request a green audit by 5 p.m. Feb. 1. are entered into a drawing for two $50 gift cards.\nDespite the green consultant team's possible benefits, Li said he doesn't think the team will be relevant to all groups.
"I think that's a good idea to try and promote good environmental practices, but I don't think there are any ways to improve how sustainable [Men's Club Tennis is]; all we do is hit tennis balls," he said.
Learning from past mistakes
The first CIO consultant program began with Kayla Wherry, 2008-09 Council vice president for organizations, but was very unorganized and never quite got off the ground, said Katie Lee, 2008-09 chairman of Council's representative body for the University's schools.
"When the CIO consultant program started, there was no clear definition or direction that it was suppose to follow and thus the leadership of it was not carried out in a proper manner to be a success," Lee said, adding that Council did not cater appropriately to the needs of the student body.
Former Appropriations Co-Chair Brendan Whittington said poor leadership from the person overseeing the original CIO consultant program contributed greatly to the demise of the program.\n\nDefinitive lines of advice
Though CIO consultants can provide advice about the basic functions of a CIO, they normally do not answer questions relating directly to the appropriations process.
"We help them find alternate sources of funding either outside of appropriations or through fundraising, and [give advice on] how to change their name, retain members, help with continuity between different leadership roles, and how to preserve the strength of the organization through those changes," Garratt said. "[But] the biggest thing we've gotten questions about is ... appropriations."
Corkran noted, however, that though they can help a student leader submit a budget online to the Appropriations Committee, they do not deal directly with the appropriations process.
"We do not ourselves take care of appropriations questions," Corkran said. "If it's any question about appropriations other than, 'How do I go on @UVA?', we forward them to the Appropriations Committee just to make sure the people who have an in-depth understanding of the rules and contact someone who can give more accurate advice."
Overall, CIO representatives said they have had positive experiences with the consultants.
"When I did contact a CIO consultant, I was met with very many e-mails from a variety of different sources offering help to us so that we could better understand the appropriations process," Ohmart said. "I appreciate that they took one e-mail... so seriously to go to those lengths to make us comfortable with the appropriations process and to answer any questions that we had"
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