Wow!  I almost can't imagine one person having repsonsibility for 220 sutdents in 7 ensembles, and I've never taught at your level, so all I can give are some random thoughts.

 

What do you mean by "a full-time assistant"?  A certified teacher?  Something else?  And does your assistant have responsibility for specific choirs, and if not, why not?!!  Or are you talking about a pianist?

 

And by "leadership" do you mean professional leadership or student leadership?  Big difference!

 

The tightest organization I've ever had was for my university show ensemble, and we had both elected and appointed leadership positions.  The elected leadership was a student honorary organization that I inherited from my predecesor and decided to keep.  It was not a popular election, but the election of new members by current members once they had proven their leadership abilities.  Their main job was to act as liaison between the students and me, spot problems and head them off, and help make the experience rewarding for everyone.

 

The appointed positions were what I would call skill positions, and I appointed most of them.  My "assistant" was a student Choral Assistant who helped people learn their music, did some warmups, worked with the sound techs in soundchecks, and brought replacement members up to speed and on stage as quickly as possible.  These were good musicians and good keyboard players.  Our "manager" was a student who chaired our business meetings, organized our touring committees, and represented us on campus in liu of a "president."  I also had a "showband manager" to coordinate with the band.  My choreographer appointed a "dance captain," who assisted her in our workshops, helped get replacements on stage as quickly as possible, and spoke for my choreographer when decisions had to be made in between workshops.  And each of our other staffs--technical and public relations--had its own internal leadership that suited its needs and was elected or appointed.

 

Some of these functions can obviously be delegated to your booster club, and while I did not have section leaders they can obviously do for you some of the things that my Choral Assistant did for me.  You will also want your booster club to handle chaperones and touring details, if you do touring at all.  But I guess my basic premise was that leadership and responsibility should be based on the functions that had to be handled to keep things going smoothly, and not on any Roberts Rule of Order idea of "officers."

 

All the best,

John