On December 2 our chapter held its winter induction ceremony for five new active members and five new honorary members. Although this may seem like a regular occurrence with most chapters, this induction ceremony held a special significance for our chapter as we were inducting the president of the university. As president of our chapter, I was beyond stressed out with the idea of the president of the university being there and wanted everything to go perfectly, and it was at this point that Jimmy did that thing that amazing advisors do and saw that I was stressed and sat me down and asked what the problem was. He made me confront my fear and anticipation, and because of what he did, we were able to have a tremendous winter induction ceremony, and I was able to actually breathe and relax during the ceremony.

But this was not the only time in December Jimmy stood out as one of those truly amazing advisors everyone wishes they had. Our chapter is attempting to bid for an award at No Frills for the first time since our chapter was started four years ago. Jimmy was with us for every step, and in December the pressure really began to mount. With our goal of having the bid done by the end of the semester quickly approaching, Jimmy came to every meeting of the bid writing committee and sat down to work with each and every one of us on how to make this bid a true example of the work we have done. It would have been easy for Jimmy to just have sat down and told us what has worked for him in the past and what to do as many others would have, but he again challenged us to make the bid our own as he felt that if we were going to create a tremendous bid it would be of our own accord, a testament of our own actions and ideas. Easy to say that we probably would have been much more appreciative of him just telling us what to do, but again Jimmy was everything an advisor could be and challenged us to make this project, this bid, our own; not his, not a work that may have the correct formula to win, but something that at the end of the day would be something that our chapter would be able to look at and see the tremendous accomplishments we have made.

Often people argue that the role of an advisor is to be someone who can give the answers to the questions and help to solve the problems we do not know. But I argue that a truly great advisor is someone who pushes their organization to solve those problems themselves, develop answers to the questions that have eluded them, and be there as a symbol of reassurance that although times may be difficult now, that we all have the ability to make it through our worst fears and problems.

Jimmy is that truly great advisor, and in the month of December I finally came to the realization why.

Word Count: 594