So naturally I find myself being really big on reflecting and as I walk around the Marrriott Hartford Hotel in Connecticut at 12:24 a.m. I p begin to think of how far I have come in one year. A year ago I came to the NGLA 2011 Conference as a first time delegate whom represented Bridgewater State University's newest fraternity on campus, Phi Kappa Theta.
As the Founding President of the newest Phi Kappa Theta colony at BSU, I immersed myself in the experience of what is The Northeast Greek Leadership Association! The sessions were informative, the networking was incredibly important and resourceful, and yet by the end of the experience I thrived for more! But above all, it was the relationships I formed that really made me feel like I was really part of something special. I went to one of my first sessions and I met two amazing presenters that were so knowledgable and kind I thought I could literally sit and listen to them all day. Courtney McKenna and Travis Apgar solidified my passion and love for Greek Life and all the opportunities it has to offer! I'm so glad to have met them and even more glad that I am reunited with them again and being able to see how much has happened in a year! I always believe that there are people who are placed on this earth to make an impact on others and along their journey to greatness they help and support someone who wants it the most and these two Student Affair professionals have helped me and inspired me more than they know. I think people never realize how much they can have a positive impact on someone... Even from a three day interaction but I can positively say it does!
Time passed by and I, with the amazing dedication of my brothers chartered and we initiated in the Fall of 2011. All of my hard work, sweat, tears, frustrations, and passion for success finally paid off and I will proudly say... It was SO worth it! I thank NGLA for allowing me to positively network and to also gain important resources that my chapter continues to use every day! Once my presidency was over in December, I began to think what was next for me in my Greek experience. I mean, I felt like I was a "late bloomer" and needed and desired for more! So when I received an email from the NGLA Board saying they were looking to have Student Conference Staff members to prepare and run the annual conference, I jumped...... Ok, who am I kidding?! I leaped at full speed at the opportunity to give back to an organization that did so much for me but to also take back a new kind of leadership opportunity.
After the applications, references, and interview I anticipated the arrival of my decision to be on the Conference Staff position. I had finally received the amazing news that I had been accepted for the student Conference Staff position!!!! For me, this was a new chapter in my life that would portray a "new" me, in a new leadership role. And now, in what seems a blink of an eye, I am here as Conference Staff and sharing this experience with other undergraduates, graduate students, and the NGLA Board who are comprised of notable and passionate Greek/Student Affairs professionals!
I arrived with the rest of the staff on Wednesday at 3:00 p.m. and desperately waited for the entire groups first meeting at 4:00 p.m. on the dot. We met and it was love at first sight... Hahaha but in all seriousness we began working on preparing for the conference and it all began with making sure every delegate had a proper packet with important conference information, schedule booklet, boutique information, lunch slips, and so much more! :) I found myself really being able to relate with every staff member and also surprisingly instantly clicking and understanding what we each looked to get out of this experience. Each staff member is so special and absolutely hysterical and I am so glad to have served with them this weekend!
To end this post I just wanted to say that I am truly blessed to have had this experience and have gotten so much out of it that it will hopefully help me in my future endeavors as a professional... I mean who can say that have presented speeches in front of 900 plus people at an annual conference?! :) Truly blessed and thankful. Proud to be a bear.
But wait... I forgot to take a minute and thank my dear advisor, my go to hype woman, role model, and mentor, Mrs. Maribeth Johnson-Flakes. MB if you are reading this, know that this opportunity was made possible because of you and your support throughout my journey as a Greek gentleman and other various student leader positions on our campus. You have touched my heart and have instilled energy and passion in me through the things YOU do every day to make everyone's day special and also make change happen wherever you go. I sat with other notable and highly important Student Affairs professionals this weekend and every time I had told them my institution name, you were the first person that they spoke about. But it wasn't the fact that they remembered you, but instead how they remembered you! You are so special to me and I hope that we will continue to have a strong relationship.
Well.... That got real! But it came from the heart and I hope you all enjoyed this post! :)
YITB,
John Rodriguez
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Wednesday, February 29, 2012
Monday, February 27, 2012
From the first time you put on your letters, they never come off
Hi Bears!
So after an eventful Monday back at school, I finally have time to sit down and reflect on everything I have learned during my time at NGLA. First, I need to say how grateful I am for having this amazing experience, especially as a sophomore. I'm going to be on this campus for a few more years, and after attending NGLA, I feel confident in my abilities on how to help my chapter and the Greek community grow into an even better version of the one we have now. I was so excited to come to Chapter tonight and share what I learned with my sisters, but it was cancelled due to a nasty stomach bug going around. (Feel better girls!) So, I am happy to reflect here and put down all my thoughts and feelings.
I am the type of person who seizes every opportunity to grow as a person and really strive to be the best version of myself that I can be. NGLA really opened my eyes to what a huge responsibility I have as a sorority women to really make a difference in others' lives, even if it a small impact. A quote that stuck out to me was "What if you are the only Greek member a person meets in their life? What type of impression will you leave?" Your actions not only reflect yourself, or your individual chapter, it reflects ALL Greek organizations, since the public lumps us all together. It is a big responsibility, but if we are living up to our values, truly believe in what our founders fought to create and leave behind for us, then it really isn't hard at all to accomplish. And I believe us at BSU we really do try to have a positive community, which makes me so proud to be apart of it. Sometimes, it is so easy to get caught up in the small mistakes, it seems as if we are doing everything wrong. But we really aren't. And going to NGLA helped me see what a great group of people belong in our brotherhoods and sisterhoods, not that I didn't know that before, it just seemed even more clear after it. I learned so many great tips on how to better ourseleves as men and women and as chapters and I cannot wait to share it with everyone. I hope everyone takes the opportunity to go to NGLA too if they receive it, because it does make you grow as person and become even more proud of our community. Thank you again MB for giving me the chance to come, you are awesome!
And thanks to everyone who has been reading, I hope you all were inspired to better your organizations too!
Greek Pride and Love,
Kristen
So after an eventful Monday back at school, I finally have time to sit down and reflect on everything I have learned during my time at NGLA. First, I need to say how grateful I am for having this amazing experience, especially as a sophomore. I'm going to be on this campus for a few more years, and after attending NGLA, I feel confident in my abilities on how to help my chapter and the Greek community grow into an even better version of the one we have now. I was so excited to come to Chapter tonight and share what I learned with my sisters, but it was cancelled due to a nasty stomach bug going around. (Feel better girls!) So, I am happy to reflect here and put down all my thoughts and feelings.
I am the type of person who seizes every opportunity to grow as a person and really strive to be the best version of myself that I can be. NGLA really opened my eyes to what a huge responsibility I have as a sorority women to really make a difference in others' lives, even if it a small impact. A quote that stuck out to me was "What if you are the only Greek member a person meets in their life? What type of impression will you leave?" Your actions not only reflect yourself, or your individual chapter, it reflects ALL Greek organizations, since the public lumps us all together. It is a big responsibility, but if we are living up to our values, truly believe in what our founders fought to create and leave behind for us, then it really isn't hard at all to accomplish. And I believe us at BSU we really do try to have a positive community, which makes me so proud to be apart of it. Sometimes, it is so easy to get caught up in the small mistakes, it seems as if we are doing everything wrong. But we really aren't. And going to NGLA helped me see what a great group of people belong in our brotherhoods and sisterhoods, not that I didn't know that before, it just seemed even more clear after it. I learned so many great tips on how to better ourseleves as men and women and as chapters and I cannot wait to share it with everyone. I hope everyone takes the opportunity to go to NGLA too if they receive it, because it does make you grow as person and become even more proud of our community. Thank you again MB for giving me the chance to come, you are awesome!
And thanks to everyone who has been reading, I hope you all were inspired to better your organizations too!
Greek Pride and Love,
Kristen
Back To The Old Grind
Sleeping in until 10am this morning felt incredible after the information packed weekend I had. I was very nervous going into this weekend. I did not know many of the people that I would be going with, and I would have the responsibility of bringing back all of the information I learned to my chapter. I can safely say that all of my worries were gone as soon as I arrived. Kara had told me that I just needed to be pushed out of my comfort zone and I think that she was completely right. This experience was so rewarding for me and I am so glad that one of my sisters pushed me to apply. I learned so much information this weekend and I cannot wait to bring it back to my chapter. I think this information will be so useful to make our already great greek life even better! I am also so excited that I got the chance to know all of the other BSU students that went with me. I don't think I would have gotten the chance to get to know some of these wonderful people if it weren't for NGLA. I am also so happy that I got to get close to my roommates Kara and Erin. These are two women that I would love to keep in touch with. Overall, NGLA exceeded my wildest expectations and if I had the opportunity I would attend every year. Thank you BSU greek life for the amazing opportunity!
Nichole
Sunday, February 26, 2012
"Empty Words are What Stand Behind Empty Letters"
A 7am alarm did not come any easier on Saturday morning than it did Friday. The thought of coffee got me out of my bed pretty quickly. Kara and I were determined to not wait for 25 minutes in line like we did the morning before. We successfully got to Starbucks and back by 7:30. You would think three girls using one bathroom to get ready each morning would be extremely difficult, but I think that Erin, Kara, and I pulled it off quite flawlessly. We met up with our fellow Bears and made it to the convention center about ten minutes early to grab good seats for our key note speaker Ginny Carol.
Ginny centered her presentation around the business aspect of sororities and fraternities. She basically told us that businesses are looking for the leadership qualities that greek life is providing each of us. She was also telling us that being an alumni of a greek organization shows a lot dedication. It shows that members have a loyalty to their organizations because they have stuck it out through the good and bad. One thing that Ginny presented to us that I found interesting was that when two equally qualified candidates apply for a job the company looks at whether the person has held a leadership position before looking at each candidate's GPA. This shows how beneficial greek, not just during college but for the rest of your life.
After listening to Ginny's presentation it was time for the second day of our individual sessions. The first session I attended was Inspiring Creativity for Greek Leaders by Hajii Otto. Hajii's presentation was very high energy and got us all moving, and having a good time really quickly. He showed us different creative approaches to trying to get ideas out of your members. This information will be very useful for planning events like ball and homecoming themes.
The next session I attended was The Blame Game presented by Kyle Pendleton. This was more of a training session on how to effectively present this back on our own campuses. This session showed each of us that there are multiple people that can be held responsible for one situation.
After the second session I got the chance to have lunch with my fellow Phi Sigs (who had one of the largest representations at the conference woop!). It was amazing getting to sit down and talk about how different chapters operate the same organization. I was also super excited to get the chance to meet one of Phi Sig's former Grand Archons Josette Kauffman.
After the luncheon we all split up to watch three different showcase speakers. A large group of Bears all chose to attend Dr. Mari Ann Callais' presentation called From Ritual To Reality. This was my favorite speaker for the day. She immediately lightened up the mood by starting a sing a long with guitar. She then started to talk about this generation is so scared of talking about things like rituals, they they just completely avoid the subject and organizations often forget what they stand for. For the rest of the session we heard from different fraternity and sorority members (including two of Bridgewater's own!) about their organizations founders, and how different members of their organizations lived their values. The stories that I heard were so moving and inspirational. If would spend hours listening to those stories if I could.
My last session was centered around hazing. I got to hear first hand stories from three women about what they, as well as their chapters had to go through when they were accused of hazing their new members. This session did not apply to my specific chapter as much as it may have for other chapters but it was very interesting to listen to the different perspectives nonetheless.
After my last session my small group met up one last time to discuss the conference. During my small group one woman made the statement that "empty words are what stand behind empty letters." I realized that this quote was a good summary of one of the main themes of the entire conference. This quote means that if we do use the information we learned this past weekend to try to make the necessary changes in our chapter, this whole weekend was a waste of time. If no changes are made we will continue to have those members of our organization who don't contribute much and may just be in it for the letters. The message my small group tried to get across was that even though it may be hard to have some of these conversations these changes will be for the better of the chapter.
After small group sessions I took the short break before the award banquet to get a little relaxation time in. Kara, Erin, and I then each took turns getting all dolled up to spend the final night of NGLA rooting for BSU to bring home some awards. Even though we did not win any awards this year it was very motivating seeing all the potential awards we could be trying to obtain throughout the year.
After the banquet, the roomies and I all crawled into bed after an extremely long, and information filled day. We all spent the next couple of hours talking about our experience this past weekend and having a little roomie bonding sesh. I am so incredibly glad that I was given the opportunity to get to know Kara and Erin so much better.
Ginny centered her presentation around the business aspect of sororities and fraternities. She basically told us that businesses are looking for the leadership qualities that greek life is providing each of us. She was also telling us that being an alumni of a greek organization shows a lot dedication. It shows that members have a loyalty to their organizations because they have stuck it out through the good and bad. One thing that Ginny presented to us that I found interesting was that when two equally qualified candidates apply for a job the company looks at whether the person has held a leadership position before looking at each candidate's GPA. This shows how beneficial greek, not just during college but for the rest of your life.
After listening to Ginny's presentation it was time for the second day of our individual sessions. The first session I attended was Inspiring Creativity for Greek Leaders by Hajii Otto. Hajii's presentation was very high energy and got us all moving, and having a good time really quickly. He showed us different creative approaches to trying to get ideas out of your members. This information will be very useful for planning events like ball and homecoming themes.
The next session I attended was The Blame Game presented by Kyle Pendleton. This was more of a training session on how to effectively present this back on our own campuses. This session showed each of us that there are multiple people that can be held responsible for one situation.
After the second session I got the chance to have lunch with my fellow Phi Sigs (who had one of the largest representations at the conference woop!). It was amazing getting to sit down and talk about how different chapters operate the same organization. I was also super excited to get the chance to meet one of Phi Sig's former Grand Archons Josette Kauffman.
After the luncheon we all split up to watch three different showcase speakers. A large group of Bears all chose to attend Dr. Mari Ann Callais' presentation called From Ritual To Reality. This was my favorite speaker for the day. She immediately lightened up the mood by starting a sing a long with guitar. She then started to talk about this generation is so scared of talking about things like rituals, they they just completely avoid the subject and organizations often forget what they stand for. For the rest of the session we heard from different fraternity and sorority members (including two of Bridgewater's own!) about their organizations founders, and how different members of their organizations lived their values. The stories that I heard were so moving and inspirational. If would spend hours listening to those stories if I could.
My last session was centered around hazing. I got to hear first hand stories from three women about what they, as well as their chapters had to go through when they were accused of hazing their new members. This session did not apply to my specific chapter as much as it may have for other chapters but it was very interesting to listen to the different perspectives nonetheless.
After my last session my small group met up one last time to discuss the conference. During my small group one woman made the statement that "empty words are what stand behind empty letters." I realized that this quote was a good summary of one of the main themes of the entire conference. This quote means that if we do use the information we learned this past weekend to try to make the necessary changes in our chapter, this whole weekend was a waste of time. If no changes are made we will continue to have those members of our organization who don't contribute much and may just be in it for the letters. The message my small group tried to get across was that even though it may be hard to have some of these conversations these changes will be for the better of the chapter.
After small group sessions I took the short break before the award banquet to get a little relaxation time in. Kara, Erin, and I then each took turns getting all dolled up to spend the final night of NGLA rooting for BSU to bring home some awards. Even though we did not win any awards this year it was very motivating seeing all the potential awards we could be trying to obtain throughout the year.
After the banquet, the roomies and I all crawled into bed after an extremely long, and information filled day. We all spent the next couple of hours talking about our experience this past weekend and having a little roomie bonding sesh. I am so incredibly glad that I was given the opportunity to get to know Kara and Erin so much better.
Looking back...
Looking back and reflecting on my weekend at NGLA I feel an overwhelming sense that the next few weeks will be filled with many great moments of better my organization. I learned a lot this weekend about what it means to be a Fraternity man and the pride I have in being one. I am looking forward to better my organization and working towards creating better stereotypes for Greek life. I can acknowledge that there are definite issues out there that need to be addressed and changed. This was a great experience and it is safe to say I have learned and grown a lot from it.
Would your founders be proud of you and your chapter?
Hi friends!
So after a 4 hour nap today, I am finally awake enough to really put yesterday into perspective and tell you all about the great things I learned on the third day of NGLA.
Yesterday morning started off with our keynote speaker, Ginny Carrol, telling us what "The Gift of Greek" is. Is the gift of being Greek the parties, the hazing or poor stereotypes about our organizations. Or is it our brotherhood/sisterhoods, our intellectual growth, our service to our communities, our personal development and the network of people we are connected to. Well, the answer clearly is the second option. She told us about her charity that she founded with women from other sororities called the Circle of Sisterhood. But I'll talk more about this later since I went to a session about it later in the day. One of my favorite quotes that put everything into a a bigger picture for me was "If your founders were sitting around a table with your chapter, would they be proud of you? Do you uphold what they fought for?"
"Start with Why" was the first session I went to. It was all about how organizations typically focus on WHAT they are doing, not WHY they are doing it. Knowing the "why" means understanding your purpose as an organization. Organizations that understand their purpose will think, act and communicate from the inside out and live their purposes everyday. Alex who was leading us asked a great question to ask our brothers and sisters about the events we put on. He said "If it is not going to make our members a better person, why are we doing it?" He also said in regards to recruitment that you can be the most energetic group but it can seem fake, but if you genuinely care about what the PNMs are saying, they will want to join you. A quote I took away from this session was "People don't buy what you do, they buy why you do it!"
The next session I attended was called "The Monster in the Basement" which was all about unrecognized sororities and fraternities and how to handle them. The main point I took away from this was that their mere existence is bad for our organizations. People who are not part of Greek life would not know the difference between a recognized group and an unrecognized group. They just hear 'fraternity' and associate their bad behavior with us. They do not flow the same rules and regulations that the groups that are still part of the campus have to follow. Their advice was to figure out what value the group still have by operating around your campus and stop it.
The next session I attended was called "Back to Basics" and it was all about the importance of education and the Circle of Sisterhood charity. If you are reading this right now, you are more fortunate that 3 billion people. Only 7% of the world's population will ever receive a college degree. The Circle of Sisterhood is working to eliminate these statistics and help remove the barriers that are preventing girls from receiving an education. It only costs $50 to send a girl in Tanzania to school for a year. It costs $3.30 to provide a lunch for them for an entire year, which may be the only food they receive in the day. It is so simple to help and I was so touched by this session. As a future teacher, I strive to help kids be successful in the classroom, I should also be helping kids even just reach the classroom. I want to get the BSU community involved with this organization somehow, since we all are part of that lucky 7% of college students. We should give back and help.
My favorite speaker of the entire weekend was Justin Jones-Fosu. His session was "Be an ACTion H.E.R.O" and it was all about how to be an effective leader. H stands for Be Humble, don't be afraid to admit you make mistakes, it will make you more trustworthy. E stands for Be Empowering, give others the chance to lead and give them your support. R stands for Be Relational, if you don't know where people want to go, how as a successful leader can you help them get there? And lastly O stands for Be Optimistic. But be authentically optimistic. It is easy for us to say we have a good attitude, but how many of us complain when our computer is too slow, or our car breaks down. My favorite quote was "There are some people who would LOVE to have your bad days." Justin had been dancing and singing in our session, but after he said this the tone of the speech changed into a much serious one. He told us the story of his friend's wife who was diagnosed with cancer and only had 4 months to live. When she found out the first thing she said to her husband was "Well I guess it's a win win situation. If I die I will be in heaven and if I don't I'll be healed." How many of us would look having cancer with that same positive outlook...not many of us. But if we are genuinely optimistic, we could have that same attitude, which is truly inspiring.
Overall, I learned so much truly inspiring and motivating information that I cannot wait to share with my chapter and the rest of the community. It made me proud to be a BSU Greek and excitied to help our community become even greater than it already is. I am forever grateful to MB for giving me this opportunity to grow and learn as a leader and thank her so much for all that she does. We are so lucky to have such an awesome Greek advisor! I'll reflect more about NGLA tomorrow, but it's back to classes in the morning so I need to sleep now. But thanks to everyone who has been reading and stay tuned for my last post!
Goodnight Bears!
Much NGLA and Greek Love,
Kristen
So after a 4 hour nap today, I am finally awake enough to really put yesterday into perspective and tell you all about the great things I learned on the third day of NGLA.
Yesterday morning started off with our keynote speaker, Ginny Carrol, telling us what "The Gift of Greek" is. Is the gift of being Greek the parties, the hazing or poor stereotypes about our organizations. Or is it our brotherhood/sisterhoods, our intellectual growth, our service to our communities, our personal development and the network of people we are connected to. Well, the answer clearly is the second option. She told us about her charity that she founded with women from other sororities called the Circle of Sisterhood. But I'll talk more about this later since I went to a session about it later in the day. One of my favorite quotes that put everything into a a bigger picture for me was "If your founders were sitting around a table with your chapter, would they be proud of you? Do you uphold what they fought for?"
"Start with Why" was the first session I went to. It was all about how organizations typically focus on WHAT they are doing, not WHY they are doing it. Knowing the "why" means understanding your purpose as an organization. Organizations that understand their purpose will think, act and communicate from the inside out and live their purposes everyday. Alex who was leading us asked a great question to ask our brothers and sisters about the events we put on. He said "If it is not going to make our members a better person, why are we doing it?" He also said in regards to recruitment that you can be the most energetic group but it can seem fake, but if you genuinely care about what the PNMs are saying, they will want to join you. A quote I took away from this session was "People don't buy what you do, they buy why you do it!"
The next session I attended was called "The Monster in the Basement" which was all about unrecognized sororities and fraternities and how to handle them. The main point I took away from this was that their mere existence is bad for our organizations. People who are not part of Greek life would not know the difference between a recognized group and an unrecognized group. They just hear 'fraternity' and associate their bad behavior with us. They do not flow the same rules and regulations that the groups that are still part of the campus have to follow. Their advice was to figure out what value the group still have by operating around your campus and stop it.
The next session I attended was called "Back to Basics" and it was all about the importance of education and the Circle of Sisterhood charity. If you are reading this right now, you are more fortunate that 3 billion people. Only 7% of the world's population will ever receive a college degree. The Circle of Sisterhood is working to eliminate these statistics and help remove the barriers that are preventing girls from receiving an education. It only costs $50 to send a girl in Tanzania to school for a year. It costs $3.30 to provide a lunch for them for an entire year, which may be the only food they receive in the day. It is so simple to help and I was so touched by this session. As a future teacher, I strive to help kids be successful in the classroom, I should also be helping kids even just reach the classroom. I want to get the BSU community involved with this organization somehow, since we all are part of that lucky 7% of college students. We should give back and help.
My favorite speaker of the entire weekend was Justin Jones-Fosu. His session was "Be an ACTion H.E.R.O" and it was all about how to be an effective leader. H stands for Be Humble, don't be afraid to admit you make mistakes, it will make you more trustworthy. E stands for Be Empowering, give others the chance to lead and give them your support. R stands for Be Relational, if you don't know where people want to go, how as a successful leader can you help them get there? And lastly O stands for Be Optimistic. But be authentically optimistic. It is easy for us to say we have a good attitude, but how many of us complain when our computer is too slow, or our car breaks down. My favorite quote was "There are some people who would LOVE to have your bad days." Justin had been dancing and singing in our session, but after he said this the tone of the speech changed into a much serious one. He told us the story of his friend's wife who was diagnosed with cancer and only had 4 months to live. When she found out the first thing she said to her husband was "Well I guess it's a win win situation. If I die I will be in heaven and if I don't I'll be healed." How many of us would look having cancer with that same positive outlook...not many of us. But if we are genuinely optimistic, we could have that same attitude, which is truly inspiring.
Overall, I learned so much truly inspiring and motivating information that I cannot wait to share with my chapter and the rest of the community. It made me proud to be a BSU Greek and excitied to help our community become even greater than it already is. I am forever grateful to MB for giving me this opportunity to grow and learn as a leader and thank her so much for all that she does. We are so lucky to have such an awesome Greek advisor! I'll reflect more about NGLA tomorrow, but it's back to classes in the morning so I need to sleep now. But thanks to everyone who has been reading and stay tuned for my last post!
Goodnight Bears!
Much NGLA and Greek Love,
Kristen
"Hakuna Matata; it means no worries"
Hi Friends!
So the only reason I did not blog last night was due to my own exhaustion. For me, this blog should be something that I put everything I have into; so why only do it half way when I could write in the morning. Hence posting about yesterday today.
"The early bird gets the worm". We've all heard it before. However, when trying to get a coffee from Starbucks before 900 other people, rushing down there at 7am is totally worth it. Instead of feeling rushed, Nichole and I were able to get ready without the "oh crap! I'm running late" feeling. Needless to say, we were once again in go mode after getting our coffees.
At 9am, Ginny Carroll was introduced as our keynote speaker and she was a phenomenal contrast to David Stollman from Friday! She took a whole different route about sororities and even shared some of her personal stories. She left us with facts such as there are 260,000 sorority women on 655 campuses, 350,000 men on 800 campuses, and over 10 million alumni. She also brought up a slide of people who were famous and then asked us "why dont' we know that famous people are Greek?" Greek life is something that people should be proud of and it was very interesting to learn that Martin Luther King Jr, Ashton Kutcher, and Carrie Underwood were Greek! Ginny went on to talk about what makes us similar and what we have an a common bond. Things on the list were:
1. Brotherhood / Sisterhood
2. Intellectual Growth
3. Service to Communities
4. Personal Development
5. Leadership Opportunities
6. The Network
All of these make us so similar as a community and we are all so lucky to be given the chance to partake in each and every one of these categories. She also gave the equation that college = academic intellect + fraternity / sorority life = social deterixity. These two items combined equal career / life success. This is what we get from being a part of Greek life and it is something bigger than just us. There is so much more that we can do for our community and I now am dying to get involved with Circle of Sisterhood to help girls around the world go to school and get chances that they may never have gotten before. Ginny Carroll was the perfect person to start off day 2 because I knew day 1 would be hard to follow, but she certainly set the tone for the day.
The first session that I attended was called "The Dead House: Solo Cup Recruitment, Little h Hazing, and Other ways to kill a chapter". I knew that this session was going to be interesting, but it ended up being very different from what I thought it would be. Chris Shade came out and said that this session wasn't going to be about just crappy chapters; it was going to be about how great chapters go to really crappy chapters. He asked us why decline happened and everyone's answers were "we're lazy; we dont' care; why fix something that can't be fixed". He answered this with "Decline is natural. You don't have to be intentional, unbiased, remove emotions, and you don't even have to think. It just happens". Then he went on to talk about how we were connected and they were the same items that Ginny had listed. Chris then talked about what he calls "Little h Hazing". This isn't your typical hazing but it's the hazing that doesn't exactly make sense and it doesn't hurt you. It doesn't prepare you to do well in the organization and it just makes older members feel better. Chris then talked about "Solo Cup Recruitment" which is exactly what it sounds like. In a few words or less, it means recruiting people you meet at a party. This means that you want to get them drunk to figure out who they really are and it intensifies your chapters chances of idiots joining. This is a large reason as to why chapters start to decline. Before going on, he went on the give us a few statistics. Chris said:
1. 51% of undergraduate men chose not to join because they didn't offer what they wanted
2. 30% worried about their grades
3. 30% feared that they would be hazed
Little h hazing and Solo cup recruitment are not the only reason that a chapter goes downhill. Chris described that a 'great chapter' was talked about themselves in terms of "why"; a 'good chapter' in terms of "how"; an 'okay chapter' in terms of "what"; and finally a 'crappy chapter' of what times of "what they were". Chapters go from why we are great to what made us great so easily. He kept saying that it doesn't take much to make a chapter go downhill. At the end of the presentation Chris gave us a few words on making change. He said: do strategic planning, get people to talk about what they believe in, engage all parties and meet them where they are, and finally don't overuse the trophy stands. This session was one of the most interesting to me because society talks about how to build a crappy chapter back up, yet Chris gave us the opposite. I'm so glad I went to this because I now feel as if I understand how chapters to get to be where they are.
After Chris' session, I moved onto my second session for the day and that was "Naysayers, Crickets, and Whiners: Overcoming Barriers to Change". I wanted to attend this session because my organization is always going through change and I wanted to find ways to help the people who may not always speak their mind or who just sit back and complain without taking any action. Dan Wrona was hanging up pieces of paper as I walked into the room and I knew that this was going to be interactive. Dan had us start off by figuring out what kind of people we had in our chapters besides the naysayers, crickets, and whiners. As a group, the initial list of three grew to be 14 total types ranging from downers, to thought leaders, to divas. We went through and described of each of these people. I'll give you just a few:
1. Naysayers -- shoots down ideas for no good reason; always looking for roadblocks not the opportunity; not their idea; first to criticize - last to do; and not something they would want to do
2. Crickets -- someone who won't say something but will say it after the fact; the quiet ones in the background that complain after the fact
3. Whiners -- on board until the final moment; always ask "why"; won't say a word yet complains anyways
At the end of the conversation, he had us all get up and write out answers to each of the excuses that were on the walls. These were all excuses that I had heard before, such as "I'm too busy; No one will come; Someone else has already done that" and the list goes on and on. The part of this activity that I didn't enjoy was the fact that he said that we could be snarky and witty. To me, that didn't seem like a productive reason of putting up post-its because we were supposed to be getting advice. I found this session interesting, but I'm not sure if it was one of my favorites.
Next was the Affiliation Lunch. I walked into the ballroom and I saw Katelyn and Lexi! I was so excited because they were finally here and I had wanted to hear about their sessions. I got to sit with them and some other lovely Gamma Phi Beta ladies such as Victoria and Caitlin. We had some great conversations and it was awesome to see everyone getting along. My only wish was that there had been more Gamma Phis at the conference, but alas. The food was delicious and I tried eggplant for the first time. After lunch, I was full and ready for the Saturday Showcase.
This was the first time that as a delegation, we were able to attend the same session as someone else in our group. Myself, Amanda, Nick, Nichole, and Erin all happened to end up in Dr. Mari Ann Callais' room, "Ritual to Reality". Hands down, this was my favorite session of the day and of the weekend. She started off by having 6 volunteers come up to the front and they helped her sing. They started off by singing "Lean on Me" and the whole room joined in. Then she moved on to "Hakuna Matata" and the entire room lit up with excitement. Finally, she ended that part with "Live Like We're Dying" and she never sang a word but the first few lines; we as a group sang out like there was no one listening. One of the first questions she asked us was "how many of you have a fines / points system?" which she followed up with "since when did we need fines and points to hang out with our families?". She went on to talk about how we all have different rituals but they should all be somewhat similar. Greek life is based off the same values and somehow our rituals should be similar to each other. She then had more volunteers come up. They had to place their badges in the middle of a blanket and then she asked them to drop a hand if they had done on of the questions she asked them. By the third question, everyone was out and the badges were on the floor. One girl went to grab hers and Dr. Callais said to leave it on the floor. She then said "that is what it is about". She then proceeded to say "It doesn't matter where our letters are; they represent the same thing every time". She went on to ask us questions about if our founders would be proud of for the work that we have done. After that she let us get up and speak. The stories that people shared were unbelievable ranging from getting a tombstone for a brother who had died to a 92 year old man getting "FIJI" branded on his chest. These stories really showed what it meant to be a member of a Greek organization and just why I love my chapter so much. I would love to see Dr. Mari Ann Callais come to BSU because if everyone here could feel the love and passion that she has for Greek life, it might help those people who feel disconnected reconnect with their chapter.
"Identify Problem Drinking" was my last session. I have never been so proud of our Greek life because I had learned that I had had values instilled in me that were very different from many other people. Kyle Pemberton split up the entire group into groups of 4 and we went a corner in the room with pieces of paper that said "not serious" and "serious". We were given a stack of paper that had situations ranging from "sexual assault while intoxicated" to "positing drunk photos on Facebook". We were supposed to put them across the wall in an order that we found to be appropriate. I soon learned that I felt very differently than my entire group. There were many items that I found to be serious that the group did not agree with. This session made me realize what should be handled in a personal conversation and what should perhaps to be a conversation with Executive Board about getting someone help. Because we spent so much time working in our small groups, the large group conversation was small but it definitely made an impact on me.
We then finished up our sessions with our last small group meeting. This was focused on how to handle confrontation and to make an action plan. I was the only person who brought up the idea of SMART goals and I was so proud of my chapter for actually having plans in place for change in our organization. There are 7 steps to confrontation:
1. Initiate Contact
2. Establish Rapport
3. Identify the issue / problem
4. Agree on the problem
5. Obtain attainable commitment
6. Keep commitment
7. Evaluate / Praise success
We then went on the realize that we need to have a sense of urgency without installing fear within our chapters and not confusing them. We talked about issues without our communities and it was great to provide people with information that I had found within my own chapter. Lastly, "DWYSYWD" or rather "Do What You Say You Will Do". This is so important. If we don't have accountability, then our chapters will never get anywhere. We did action plans and came up with goals for ourselves. Even though my facilitators may not have been my favorite, I definitely loved the advice that I got from them and the messages that they instilled in me.
After a day full of sessions, Erin, Nichole, and I got ready for the Awards banquet. We walked in and sat at our reserved table with a few students from The College of New Jersey. They were really nice and we had some great conversations at the table with them. After an unbelievably delicious dinner, we had tiramissu for dinner and then they presented the awards. Even though BSU did not win anything, I was able to walk away with some new and wonderful ideas for our community to do in the future.
As the night ticked down, Erin, Nichole, and I were hanging out in our room just talking. These are two women that I am so thankful to have met and bonded with. I can honestly say that they are two women that I now have friendships with and that I can see myself being friends with for a long time. It's conferences like NGLA that bring people together. After chatting we all slowly drifted into sleep preparing for our final night as roommates. I'm sad to say that it's over but I'm so thankful it happened!
Lots of Greek love,
Kara
So the only reason I did not blog last night was due to my own exhaustion. For me, this blog should be something that I put everything I have into; so why only do it half way when I could write in the morning. Hence posting about yesterday today.
"The early bird gets the worm". We've all heard it before. However, when trying to get a coffee from Starbucks before 900 other people, rushing down there at 7am is totally worth it. Instead of feeling rushed, Nichole and I were able to get ready without the "oh crap! I'm running late" feeling. Needless to say, we were once again in go mode after getting our coffees.
At 9am, Ginny Carroll was introduced as our keynote speaker and she was a phenomenal contrast to David Stollman from Friday! She took a whole different route about sororities and even shared some of her personal stories. She left us with facts such as there are 260,000 sorority women on 655 campuses, 350,000 men on 800 campuses, and over 10 million alumni. She also brought up a slide of people who were famous and then asked us "why dont' we know that famous people are Greek?" Greek life is something that people should be proud of and it was very interesting to learn that Martin Luther King Jr, Ashton Kutcher, and Carrie Underwood were Greek! Ginny went on to talk about what makes us similar and what we have an a common bond. Things on the list were:
1. Brotherhood / Sisterhood
2. Intellectual Growth
3. Service to Communities
4. Personal Development
5. Leadership Opportunities
6. The Network
All of these make us so similar as a community and we are all so lucky to be given the chance to partake in each and every one of these categories. She also gave the equation that college = academic intellect + fraternity / sorority life = social deterixity. These two items combined equal career / life success. This is what we get from being a part of Greek life and it is something bigger than just us. There is so much more that we can do for our community and I now am dying to get involved with Circle of Sisterhood to help girls around the world go to school and get chances that they may never have gotten before. Ginny Carroll was the perfect person to start off day 2 because I knew day 1 would be hard to follow, but she certainly set the tone for the day.
The first session that I attended was called "The Dead House: Solo Cup Recruitment, Little h Hazing, and Other ways to kill a chapter". I knew that this session was going to be interesting, but it ended up being very different from what I thought it would be. Chris Shade came out and said that this session wasn't going to be about just crappy chapters; it was going to be about how great chapters go to really crappy chapters. He asked us why decline happened and everyone's answers were "we're lazy; we dont' care; why fix something that can't be fixed". He answered this with "Decline is natural. You don't have to be intentional, unbiased, remove emotions, and you don't even have to think. It just happens". Then he went on to talk about how we were connected and they were the same items that Ginny had listed. Chris then talked about what he calls "Little h Hazing". This isn't your typical hazing but it's the hazing that doesn't exactly make sense and it doesn't hurt you. It doesn't prepare you to do well in the organization and it just makes older members feel better. Chris then talked about "Solo Cup Recruitment" which is exactly what it sounds like. In a few words or less, it means recruiting people you meet at a party. This means that you want to get them drunk to figure out who they really are and it intensifies your chapters chances of idiots joining. This is a large reason as to why chapters start to decline. Before going on, he went on the give us a few statistics. Chris said:
1. 51% of undergraduate men chose not to join because they didn't offer what they wanted
2. 30% worried about their grades
3. 30% feared that they would be hazed
Little h hazing and Solo cup recruitment are not the only reason that a chapter goes downhill. Chris described that a 'great chapter' was talked about themselves in terms of "why"; a 'good chapter' in terms of "how"; an 'okay chapter' in terms of "what"; and finally a 'crappy chapter' of what times of "what they were". Chapters go from why we are great to what made us great so easily. He kept saying that it doesn't take much to make a chapter go downhill. At the end of the presentation Chris gave us a few words on making change. He said: do strategic planning, get people to talk about what they believe in, engage all parties and meet them where they are, and finally don't overuse the trophy stands. This session was one of the most interesting to me because society talks about how to build a crappy chapter back up, yet Chris gave us the opposite. I'm so glad I went to this because I now feel as if I understand how chapters to get to be where they are.
After Chris' session, I moved onto my second session for the day and that was "Naysayers, Crickets, and Whiners: Overcoming Barriers to Change". I wanted to attend this session because my organization is always going through change and I wanted to find ways to help the people who may not always speak their mind or who just sit back and complain without taking any action. Dan Wrona was hanging up pieces of paper as I walked into the room and I knew that this was going to be interactive. Dan had us start off by figuring out what kind of people we had in our chapters besides the naysayers, crickets, and whiners. As a group, the initial list of three grew to be 14 total types ranging from downers, to thought leaders, to divas. We went through and described of each of these people. I'll give you just a few:
1. Naysayers -- shoots down ideas for no good reason; always looking for roadblocks not the opportunity; not their idea; first to criticize - last to do; and not something they would want to do
2. Crickets -- someone who won't say something but will say it after the fact; the quiet ones in the background that complain after the fact
3. Whiners -- on board until the final moment; always ask "why"; won't say a word yet complains anyways
At the end of the conversation, he had us all get up and write out answers to each of the excuses that were on the walls. These were all excuses that I had heard before, such as "I'm too busy; No one will come; Someone else has already done that" and the list goes on and on. The part of this activity that I didn't enjoy was the fact that he said that we could be snarky and witty. To me, that didn't seem like a productive reason of putting up post-its because we were supposed to be getting advice. I found this session interesting, but I'm not sure if it was one of my favorites.
Next was the Affiliation Lunch. I walked into the ballroom and I saw Katelyn and Lexi! I was so excited because they were finally here and I had wanted to hear about their sessions. I got to sit with them and some other lovely Gamma Phi Beta ladies such as Victoria and Caitlin. We had some great conversations and it was awesome to see everyone getting along. My only wish was that there had been more Gamma Phis at the conference, but alas. The food was delicious and I tried eggplant for the first time. After lunch, I was full and ready for the Saturday Showcase.
This was the first time that as a delegation, we were able to attend the same session as someone else in our group. Myself, Amanda, Nick, Nichole, and Erin all happened to end up in Dr. Mari Ann Callais' room, "Ritual to Reality". Hands down, this was my favorite session of the day and of the weekend. She started off by having 6 volunteers come up to the front and they helped her sing. They started off by singing "Lean on Me" and the whole room joined in. Then she moved on to "Hakuna Matata" and the entire room lit up with excitement. Finally, she ended that part with "Live Like We're Dying" and she never sang a word but the first few lines; we as a group sang out like there was no one listening. One of the first questions she asked us was "how many of you have a fines / points system?" which she followed up with "since when did we need fines and points to hang out with our families?". She went on to talk about how we all have different rituals but they should all be somewhat similar. Greek life is based off the same values and somehow our rituals should be similar to each other. She then had more volunteers come up. They had to place their badges in the middle of a blanket and then she asked them to drop a hand if they had done on of the questions she asked them. By the third question, everyone was out and the badges were on the floor. One girl went to grab hers and Dr. Callais said to leave it on the floor. She then said "that is what it is about". She then proceeded to say "It doesn't matter where our letters are; they represent the same thing every time". She went on to ask us questions about if our founders would be proud of for the work that we have done. After that she let us get up and speak. The stories that people shared were unbelievable ranging from getting a tombstone for a brother who had died to a 92 year old man getting "FIJI" branded on his chest. These stories really showed what it meant to be a member of a Greek organization and just why I love my chapter so much. I would love to see Dr. Mari Ann Callais come to BSU because if everyone here could feel the love and passion that she has for Greek life, it might help those people who feel disconnected reconnect with their chapter.
"Identify Problem Drinking" was my last session. I have never been so proud of our Greek life because I had learned that I had had values instilled in me that were very different from many other people. Kyle Pemberton split up the entire group into groups of 4 and we went a corner in the room with pieces of paper that said "not serious" and "serious". We were given a stack of paper that had situations ranging from "sexual assault while intoxicated" to "positing drunk photos on Facebook". We were supposed to put them across the wall in an order that we found to be appropriate. I soon learned that I felt very differently than my entire group. There were many items that I found to be serious that the group did not agree with. This session made me realize what should be handled in a personal conversation and what should perhaps to be a conversation with Executive Board about getting someone help. Because we spent so much time working in our small groups, the large group conversation was small but it definitely made an impact on me.
We then finished up our sessions with our last small group meeting. This was focused on how to handle confrontation and to make an action plan. I was the only person who brought up the idea of SMART goals and I was so proud of my chapter for actually having plans in place for change in our organization. There are 7 steps to confrontation:
1. Initiate Contact
2. Establish Rapport
3. Identify the issue / problem
4. Agree on the problem
5. Obtain attainable commitment
6. Keep commitment
7. Evaluate / Praise success
We then went on the realize that we need to have a sense of urgency without installing fear within our chapters and not confusing them. We talked about issues without our communities and it was great to provide people with information that I had found within my own chapter. Lastly, "DWYSYWD" or rather "Do What You Say You Will Do". This is so important. If we don't have accountability, then our chapters will never get anywhere. We did action plans and came up with goals for ourselves. Even though my facilitators may not have been my favorite, I definitely loved the advice that I got from them and the messages that they instilled in me.
After a day full of sessions, Erin, Nichole, and I got ready for the Awards banquet. We walked in and sat at our reserved table with a few students from The College of New Jersey. They were really nice and we had some great conversations at the table with them. After an unbelievably delicious dinner, we had tiramissu for dinner and then they presented the awards. Even though BSU did not win anything, I was able to walk away with some new and wonderful ideas for our community to do in the future.
As the night ticked down, Erin, Nichole, and I were hanging out in our room just talking. These are two women that I am so thankful to have met and bonded with. I can honestly say that they are two women that I now have friendships with and that I can see myself being friends with for a long time. It's conferences like NGLA that bring people together. After chatting we all slowly drifted into sleep preparing for our final night as roommates. I'm sad to say that it's over but I'm so thankful it happened!
Lots of Greek love,
Kara
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