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
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
Reflection
Ever since I returned to campus, a number of people have asked me how the conference was. I felt immediately inclined to inform them of the valuable tools, strategies, and material I learned as well as how much it changed the way I feel about Greek life at BSU. However, I cannot truly say that this affected me to that extent until I apply everything I learned to BSU Greek Life. I feel that each BSU representative learned valuable lessons and information at NGLA, but our representation of BSU at NGLA doesn't end there. It is our privilege and duty to carry these experiences over to our campus and contribute to the growth and development of each individual chapter just as much as the entire Greek community. I'm grateful to have this experience, and I'm even more grateful to have represented us at NGLA 2012. The valuable yet tiring days at NGLA are done, but our real work begins tomorrow.
Final Day
The first session I attended on the last day of the
conference was titled, “Attracting Quality People: Culturally Based Chapters.”
The session leaders and participants examined the cultural divide in the Greek
and collegiate community and how to break through these barriers to include
more diverse students to your Greek organization. This was the encompassing
focal point, but I feel that the session addressed various recruitment
perspectives, and this is substantiated by the packet given out halfway through
the session. This packet was approximately ten pages long, and its purpose was
to address membership/recruitment conflicts by utilizing the presenters. The
presenters offered their assistance to attract more worldly scholars to each of
our organizations.
The second session I attended was intriguing due to my love
for history and interest in psychology. The hour long presentation educated the
crowd on the history and psychology of hazing, and it was quite informative. We
explored the inception of hazing, which originated in the 18th and
19th century educational institutions. Fraternities were established
in order for collegiate men to earn an education separate from the classical
education taught in the collegiate classroom. Hazing was explained as a forced
assimilation on college campuses that were believed to strengthen the values of
the institution. The presenters showed several quotes from famous figures,
including Vince Lombardi and Arthur Hadley, supporting hazing because of its
valuable effects on tradition and humility. A weak and insufficient administration
staff allowed for hazing to emerge on college campuses because of their
inability to uphold the moral character of the institution.
We then discussed Chuck Stenzel. Stenzel was a public figure
because of his commercials with Ovaltine, and he became the face of hazing in
the 70’s after he rushed a fraternity in New York. His hazing consisted of him
being thrown into the trunk of a car in subzero degree weather with a handle of
whiskey and was told he could not come out until he finished the handle as the
fraternal men drove around for a few hours. When they opened the trunk, they
found that he had attempted to drink the whiskey, vomited, and died. This
resulted in the first state legislation prohibiting hazing, and as of now, 48
states have laws forbidding hazing.
Following this, we examined the psychology of hazing by
discussing various focal points, including the Stanford Experiment. The
experiment took a group of individuals and assigned half of them the role of
prison guards and the other half prisoners. They were taken to the basement of
Stanford University. The prison guards were given a list of rules to uphold,
but the experiment had to end after six days when the prison guards and
prisoners were exhibiting emotional and psychological trauma. The experiment
was supposed to last 14 days. This displayed the effects of creating a social divide/hierarchy
within a group of individuals.
The presenters dove into shock-based experiments and their
effects on altering perspectives to obey authority. A group of people were
asked to answer a simple question regarding a bar graph. They received shocks
for answering the correct answer as the experimenter conditioned them to answer
incorrectly in order to corrupt their minds and conform them to the
experimenter’s beliefs. These exercises were often utilized by many Greek
organizations. 65% of the individuals experiencing the experiment suffered from
shocks at 450 watts. The presenters elaborated on the fatality of hazing and
how one one bad barrel can poison an entire batch of good apples.
The next presentation was the most influential on me. Justin
Jones-Fosu was the talk of NGLA because of his enthusiastically captivating
speech, and the BSU NGLA representatives are attempting to have him present at
Greek Week this semester. He discussed what it means to be an ACTion H.E.R.O.
by breaking down the H.E.R.O. acronym. First, it was established that you must
be Humble. It is imperative to ask for help when you need it and admit your
mistakes. He suggested evaluating yourself through a plus/delta chart. You take
a sheet of paper, divide it into two columns (plus and delta), and then write
the things you’re doing right on the plus side and the things you’re doing
wrong on the delta side. The psychology of this is that you are more likely to
be honest with yourself about your flaws after you write what you’re doing
right.
The next letter of the acronym asked the audience to “be
Empowering.” Jones-Fosu described this as simply inspiring those around you. It’s
easy to say “this is going to be the best year ever” for your organization, but
you never want it to be the best year ever. You want the year after that, and
the year after that to be progressively better. Otherwise the organization can
only decline if it has already reached its peak. Instead, empower your colleagues
to take your place after you leave in order to strengthen your organization for
future generations. He also encouraged each organization to develop a
succession plan.
The “R” stands for “Relational.” It is instrumental to your
success as a leader to be relational to your colleagues. Jones-Fosu encouraged
us all to get to know each of our members and ask them two questions. 1. Why
did you join our organization in the first place? 2. What does a successful
experience look like to you? He also encouraged us to find some way of praising
each member by catching them doing something right. It is just as valuable to
show that you will metaphorically fight for your members or else they won’t
fight for you.
The last letter of the acronym was the most important. It
asked us to “be Optimistic,” with authentic optimism. You don’t want to be
obnoxiously and unrealistically optimistic. You want to be optimistic for
change that is attainable while inspiring those around you simultaneously. He
used one analogy: A pirate is with his shipmates, and he has been informed that
several other pirate ships plan to invade their ship the next day. The captain
tells one shipmate, “When the other pirates are in sight I want you to grab my
swords and my red shirt.” The shipmate replies, “Why the red shirt?” The
captain says, “Because. If I am wounded, I don’t want you to see my blood and
lose the momentum to hold down the ship.” The next day, the invading pirates
send out an unfathomably large armada, and the captain turns to that shipmate
and says, “Grab my sword and brown pants.” Lolz.
Jones-Fosu then took a full glass of water and drank half of
it. He proceeded to ask the crowd if it was half full or half empty. There were
obviously mixed responses. The explanation and necessity for optimism altered
the mood after the pirate joke when Jones-Fosu turned the speech into a serious
matter. He told the story of his best friend’s wife being diagnosed with
cancer. His best friend called Justin in tears, telling him what happened. The
doctor had told Justin’s best friend before his wife was informed so he could
be strong for his wife. They walked into her room and told her the diagnosis.
She had four months to live. She burst into tears, and her first response was, “Well,
it’s a win-win. I’ll either be in heaven or here with you.” I was shocked by
the response because I don’t know if I have ever heard a line so concise yet
inspiring. It makes you realize how precious each hour of the day is and makes
you cherish it that much more with the ones you love.
Mixed Emotions
As I am sitting in my room back at school these are definitely what I am experiencing. Part of me already misses NGLA and all of the excitement surrounding it, but the other part of me is even more excited to bring everything I learned to not only my chapter but the community. As I stated in my last post, I have four goals that I am taking away from the conference and I can not wait to get going on them. I even started on my first one with being more proactive as a sister of my chapter of Delta Phi Epsilon sorority. I can not wait to completely get going on my goals and the positive changes I plan to bring. Thank you to everyone for all of your support!
Lots of NGLA love,
Sadie
Lots of NGLA love,
Sadie
Back at the Bridge
Our time in Hartford may now be over, though that doesn't mean that it means NGLA 2012 is. We, as a delegation went to about 60 (total) programs at this conference, and we each attended 6 actual sessions, 2 key notes, and one of 3 choices of speakers.
I feel that overall I learned so much at this conference. We, as a delegation now have so much we can bring back to the campus, and though I am a bit disappointed that it is over, I'm excited to see what we bring back and how it is implimented to our campus.
The bonds we forged together were awesome, as until this conference the only people I really interracted with were Nick, Amanda, Matt and Swiddy, and in class Sadie.
We may not be shacked up in a hotel anymore, or heading to sessions and it'll be "back to the grind" now, but the things we learned at this conference don't have a time limit. They are always pressing issues, and the blogs we post will be a great resource for not only the 'right now' but also the future for when we are all out of college and we can not only use these in our chapters, our councils, but also our professional lives as well.
Thank you for a wonderful time Hartford, but it's always a great day to be a BEAR!
-Dan Eveline
I feel that overall I learned so much at this conference. We, as a delegation now have so much we can bring back to the campus, and though I am a bit disappointed that it is over, I'm excited to see what we bring back and how it is implimented to our campus.
The bonds we forged together were awesome, as until this conference the only people I really interracted with were Nick, Amanda, Matt and Swiddy, and in class Sadie.
We may not be shacked up in a hotel anymore, or heading to sessions and it'll be "back to the grind" now, but the things we learned at this conference don't have a time limit. They are always pressing issues, and the blogs we post will be a great resource for not only the 'right now' but also the future for when we are all out of college and we can not only use these in our chapters, our councils, but also our professional lives as well.
Thank you for a wonderful time Hartford, but it's always a great day to be a BEAR!
-Dan Eveline
To Hartford We Went!
Although not part of the BSU delegation this year, unfortunately, I wanted to share my experience with NGLA. Katelyn Rapoza and I submitted 2 educational sessions last fall in the hopes that we would be privileged enough to present at this conference. Around December we were informed that not just one, but BOTH of our ed. sessions had been chosen. Beyond ecstatic we started to prepare :)
So yesterday we presented... our first session was on "Reaching Out To Those That Need It Most". We were both nervous, and it didn't help that my name was "Alex Kay" in the program. But we were also nervous that no one would show up to our session... turns out they had to bring in extra chairs! It was a full house and I was anxious to start. As soon as we introduced ourselves and stated our outcomes, I was at ease. It was so easy for me to explain how to identify members slipping away from your organization, how to identify that member's strengths, challenge them, and keep them connected! Our audience was actively engaged and we even had some avid note takers in the first few rows. We were even blessed to have had the presence of Maribeth and Sandy Burba, two fellow sisters!
We then had lunch and did a mental check and preparation before our next session, Creating Strong Public Relations In and Out of Letters! We were excited for this session because of the video we had made which was an adaptation from a Delta Zeta video using TJ Sullivan's speech from CampusSpeak. We had another good turn out and only a minor snafu with the projector. The audience seemed a little tired, but we presented in the last ed session block for the entire conference so it was understandable. We even had Tori Ford, a Delta Phi Epsilon in the audience. I met Tori at the New England Greek Summit at MIT last semester and it was great to reconnect with her!
Overall, I had a fantastic day and didn't think that I would be as comfortable as I was in a large group of people who were actively listening to information that Katelyn & I had put together. It was also reassuring and a nice pick me up to see all the tweets from the BSU Delegation wishing us the best of luck! I am so thankful to have had this amazing opportunity and hope that I get more opportunities like this in the future. It was a great opportunity to build on my knowledge base, network with peers, work with a partner and build on my communication skills. I had a great day at the conference and even though we had almost a 14 hour day (including driving) I wouldn't change it for anything :)
If anyone has any questions about our presentation feel free to contact Katelyn or myself! krapoza@student.bridgew.edu and akay@student.bridgew.edu
Much Greek Love,
Lexi
So yesterday we presented... our first session was on "Reaching Out To Those That Need It Most". We were both nervous, and it didn't help that my name was "Alex Kay" in the program. But we were also nervous that no one would show up to our session... turns out they had to bring in extra chairs! It was a full house and I was anxious to start. As soon as we introduced ourselves and stated our outcomes, I was at ease. It was so easy for me to explain how to identify members slipping away from your organization, how to identify that member's strengths, challenge them, and keep them connected! Our audience was actively engaged and we even had some avid note takers in the first few rows. We were even blessed to have had the presence of Maribeth and Sandy Burba, two fellow sisters!
We then had lunch and did a mental check and preparation before our next session, Creating Strong Public Relations In and Out of Letters! We were excited for this session because of the video we had made which was an adaptation from a Delta Zeta video using TJ Sullivan's speech from CampusSpeak. We had another good turn out and only a minor snafu with the projector. The audience seemed a little tired, but we presented in the last ed session block for the entire conference so it was understandable. We even had Tori Ford, a Delta Phi Epsilon in the audience. I met Tori at the New England Greek Summit at MIT last semester and it was great to reconnect with her!
Overall, I had a fantastic day and didn't think that I would be as comfortable as I was in a large group of people who were actively listening to information that Katelyn & I had put together. It was also reassuring and a nice pick me up to see all the tweets from the BSU Delegation wishing us the best of luck! I am so thankful to have had this amazing opportunity and hope that I get more opportunities like this in the future. It was a great opportunity to build on my knowledge base, network with peers, work with a partner and build on my communication skills. I had a great day at the conference and even though we had almost a 14 hour day (including driving) I wouldn't change it for anything :)
If anyone has any questions about our presentation feel free to contact Katelyn or myself! krapoza@student.bridgew.edu and akay@student.bridgew.edu
Much Greek Love,
Lexi
Reflection
This trip was a really good experience. I got to learn a lot of information and i really feel like i can better my chapter and the Greek Community in so many ways. It's time for change and that change is going to be a good one. By bringing some of the speakers to this campus and sharing the information I received I really feel like we will all become united for as a community. I am glad I got the opportunity for this experience and I couldn't thank BSU enough. I have learned the type of leader I need to be in the community and my own chapter. It is time to stop sitting back and letting things go and start to make a difference in Bridgewater. I am looking forward to the next year because I know how much things will change and get better from the information I took away from NGLA. I had a lot of fun with everyone that went and thanks again for the opportunity.
-Boyle
-Boyle
Day 2: "The Gift of the Hood"
7am my alarm went off and after getting ready I knew
I needed to get breakfast to get the energy I needed for the long day ahead. I
was able to rally up Amanda, Dan and myself and we all walked to Dunkin Donuts
where we ended up not just getting breakfast but meeting a nice gentleman named
Kevin. Kevin, a 28 year old man looking for employment, was very impressed by
our professionalism and asked us a bunch of questions like where we were from,
what we were apart of, and what we were doing. After informing him of our
current trip for NGLA at the Mariot he said that is was “very inspirational to
see young individuals striving for something great and something they truly
care about!” We wished Kevin the best of luck with his job search and headed
back to the hotel to start the second day of the conference.
The keynote speaker for this day was Ginny Carroll who
explained to us “The Gift of the Hood.” The gift of the hood is another way of
saying the gift that comes with your brotherhood or sisterhood. Many people see
the gift as things such as binge drinking, hazing, drug use, poor grads/study
habits, elitism, sexism, and rape. This is when the typical stereotypes come in
and as Greek communities we need to prove those individuals wrong. Right now
there are 260,000 women on 655 campuses who are in a Sorority, and 350,000 men
on 800 campuses who are in a Fraternity, and over 10 million alumni. We all
need to start showing people the true gift which is ritual, lifetime
involvement, depth of personal development, and brotherhood/sisterhood and it
all starts with our generation.
My first session called “coping with change” focused
on the way to positively change your organization. Leadership is a privilege
and it is not about building a resume, it is about leaving a legacy. The
speaker Andrea Mosby pointed out to the group that you have to do what you have
to do in order to change your fraternity for the better and you must be
patient. If your brothers or sisters really care about their organization and
your opinion they will listen and take into consideration what you say. They
should have your back with your ideas and help you succeed. You as an
individual need to show people how much you care for your organization and your
fellow brothers and sisters, this makes the organization grow. For example if
someone is struggling to lose weight, offer to go for a walk with them, or a
jog. When you give somebody just a little bit of your time it helps and shows
to them you do care for them. Even in your chapter meetings you should have
business but keep time for open discussion. See how every member is doing in
life. We are creating an environment that no one feels they can open up
anymore. If we want to produce any change it has to be authentic and real and
it starts with understanding your members and what they like do and do not like
and to find out their interests in and outside of the organization. An example
that Andrea Mosby used was “how many of you would let someone sleep with your significant
other for one million dollars? None of us because of the values we all hold.” There
will be things that we must say no towards because of our values and what we
stand for as an organization. For most cases though, someone may not like change
but it needs to be explained that it is in the best interest to better our
organization and our organization will be known for that specific change
whether it is in our chapter or for the community. One thought that we were all
left with was, “do we all have the courage?”
Following that session I continued into the next
presentation called “Greek Life: The Hidden Experience.” I chose this session
because I find my Fraternity is always looking for ideas for philanthropy and
this entire session was all about ideas and case studies of philanthropy,
service and advocacy. Philanthropy is most commonly expressed through
organizations, fraternities and sororities, coming together to co-sponsor
events and raise money for a cause. The pros of doing philanthropy events can
be the ease of giving money over volunteering time, the different entertaining
events you can put on, and it creates an inter-chapter bonding. There are some
cons too though like generating new ideas, over programming across the campus,
the event may not engage the community, and it can be difficult to track the
actual impact it has. Besides this though I was able to get a bunch of good
ideas for my Fraternity to start planning and creating annual events too. Some
of them include dunk tanks, pie tosses, relay for life, fashion for the cure, a
softball tournament raises awareness for breast cancer, 24 hour barbeque, and a
dance marathon. I know that when chapter comes this Wednesday I am going to
meet with my Philanthropy chair and give him all these ideas so he can start
getting us more Philanthropy hours and get us more involved with the school and
the community.
When I left this presentation I was able to sit down
with other Sigma Pi Brothers and have an affiliation lunch. This was definitely
one of my favorite experiences of being at NGLA. I met 7 other brothers from
different places such as Rutgers, New Jersey, and even Pennsylvania. We all
shared our pledge processes with each other and different events we have all
been working on. I found it interesting being able to share ideas with one
another so we could all better our Chapters. I know that they liked some of the
things I shared and I really was able to take away some good ideas from them
too. We also talked about our positions and I found out two other brothers are
also getting ready to run for sage in the upcoming elections. We all had so
much in common and it felt like we all knew each other forever but in reality
it was the brotherhood bond that brought us all so close. After talking and
having lunch we had to part ways though so we all exchanged information so we
could hang out sometime and get our chapters together.
One of the most interactive sessions I went to was
right after lunch, the Saturday Showcase with Mari Ann Callais. Her
presentation on “From Ritual to Reality” was so much fun because she started
off with playing the guitar and we all got to sing along to a few songs. Ones
such as The Lion Sleeps Tonight, Build me up Buttercup, and Lean On Me. Everyone
was sitting and singing along but of course me being who I am, I stood up and
had my own solo at one part which was hilarious. Besides the fun part though
she continued on to explain how we do not take our ritual seriously. We all
know our values and follow ritual but how many people actually know what
everything from ritual is and means to their chapter…not many. She explained to
us how we should sit down and go over everything form ritual and ask ourselves
as a chapter, “If your founding fathers were alive would they approve of your
chapter and what you stand for?” She then had few volunteers go up and offer to
tell a story about their values from their creed and ritual and an experience
that person had gone through that showcased those values. At this point Kara
stood up and shared a story about her sisterhood surprising one of their
sisters at their ball with her boyfriend who lives in Europe. It was to show
that her sisterhood would go to great lengths to make each other happy.
Following this John Rodriguez went up and shared a very emotional story about
when they were chartering, one of the current brothers had been going through a
rough time and almost committed suicide. The brothers and the happiness that
chapter brought him made him change his mind and that really hit home for John.
It was a loving story that we all could all tell really meant a lot to him and
his feelings toward his Fraternity. To wrap up the session Dr. Mari Ann Callais
shared her story of how not too long ago she had a health issue that made her
very sick. Her biological sister actually called up Mari’s big sister in her
sorority and said “you made a promise right?” Within a few hours Mari’s big
sister was at the house taking care of her. This made me start to get choked up
because I know that if I ever needed anything my big brother would be there for
me. Amanda
turned towards me at this point and said the same exact thing I did, “I Miss My
Big!” I knew that the next time I saw him he was getting a huge hug from me. This
was definitely one of my favorite sessions from the conference.
Recruitment was my last education block and this was
fantastic. I do not want to write about it too much because our entire BSU crew
decided we are definitely bringing David Stollman to our campus. He was the
best presenter and always gave great information while making it fun. From this
session one of the biggest things I took away was make a wish list. The simplest
way to recruit is have every brother write down one or two guys they think
would be a good fit or is a nice guy to hang with. Then you post that list up
every week at chapter and make sure you stay in touch with all of them even
just to hang out. Does not mean they have to join your organization it is just
a way for you to hang out and see the type of person they are. Maybe they will
actually reach out to you and be interested in joining. The best people for
your organization actually end up being the people that never thought of
joining a Fraternity or Sorority.
We then all attended our own individual small group sessions.
In this session we just recapped the information we all received and how the
best way to implement it was. We all came to an agreement that it would be
smart to take only the information that can make a big impact in our
organizations and present that. Then over time bring other things out but if
you try to bombard your chapter with all the information at once then they won’t
take it into consideration because they will not know where to start. Once we
left this we all went back to our rooms and changed for the evening Award
Banquet.
At the Awards Banquet, Bridgewater did not win
anything but we stayed the whole time to support everyone else that did win or
get an honorable mention. When we got back to the room afterwards it was a lazy
night. Dan, Swiddy, Amanda, Matt, and myself all hung out and talked about a
bunch of different things, it was a nice chance for us to hang out and relax
for the first time all day. There was one thing we all definitely agreed on, we
received a lot of good information but now bringing it back to our chapters
will be the greatest challenge…Challenge Accepted!
“Letters are a way of life.”
-Boyle
Saturday was a great day to be a bear at NGLA! The keynote speaker was inspirational and the session were fantastic. The most eye opening session I attended yesterday was "hazed and confused" during this session a brother of ΣΝ in Auburn Alabama talks about the death of his little Blair. His story was sad and eye opening. Even though hazing is not a serious occurrence at BSU it was still an eye opening story. The affiliation lunch and closing banquet left me feeling so connected to my Greek community at the conference. The night ended with a phone call home and more roomie bonding! I can honestly say Nichole and Kara have been awesome. They have made this experience so much more for me than just a leadership conference. I feel like I am going back to school with two knew friendships that never would have been made without NGLA12!
Final Day
Today Started of with a Keynote speaker who talked about the gift of being Greek. This presentation gave a quick history of Greek Organizations and how they were built. This all lead into discussing the benefits that you get from being in a Greek Organization such as organization skills or an impressive array of interpersonal and intrapersonal skills. This was a great reminder of the benefits I am receiving from being a Fraternity man. It is always a breath of fresh air when you are reminded that you are doing something worth while.
The next section of the day was dedicated to block sessions. The first session I attended was called building blocks and was about creating a New Member Education program. I thought this was a great presentation and there was a lot for me to take from it. My chapters is so new that we have a lot to take from this and add to our Associate Member Process. It mapped out important facets of a good program: Brother/sisterhood bonds or learning the facts about the Fraternity and not just nationally but your own local history. The second session I went to was called Ringing the Doorbell: Saner, Healthier Sex in college. This was a very entertaining and was a great break from the presentations about growing your organizations. It was nice to be in a session that was all about personal growth.
Once the first two block sessions where over we had the affiliation lunch. This was a lot of fun for me and my Phi Kappa Theta Brothers really enjoyed. The only other Phi Kaps that were here were the Brothers from the chapter at WPI who we already have a good relationship with them so it was a really good time. After lunch we had some more interesting sessions to go to. I attended one amazing session about being a good leader. I was called being an ACTion HERO and was all about good qualities to have as a leader. The presenter was energetic and entertaining. The information was different than what i am use to hearing so it was very good. After that session I went to a very interesting session called Answering the Call. It was all about trying to take action towards an issue you see through the basic model the fictional superhero stories follow. It was really interesting to see something that I have great interest in, fictional superheroes like Batman, and see how you can address and issue in a way that would be mapped out in a story about them. This session also gave me a chance to reflect on the mission of Phi Kappa Theta and what it means to me. The final session of the day was a wrap up of the action planning session that was started the day before. In this we discussed a seven step model on how to settle confrontations, this was very good to have as an open discussion since the day before I was at a session about judicial meditations.
To end the day we had a very nice award banquet dinner. It gave the other delegates and myself a chance to dress in our best and see some amazing things that chapters our doing around the Northeast. Overall, it was another great and productive day at NGLA. Heading home in the morning.
Matthew D. Foss
Saturday, February 25, 2012
Final Day of Sessions.
Now yesterday was intense, though today may have given it a run for it's money. This morning started with a trip to Dunkin Donuts, where as Nick and I were standing waiting for our breakfasts, a man came up to us and asked why we were so well dressed for a morning like this; and asked what company we worked for. We then told him that we were actually representing greek life at a conference, and he was so taken aback. He wished us to have a great time at our conference and to keep working toward what we are doing. It's good to see that Kevin was able to see through the stereotype of "oh you're in a frat, you must get hammered all the time", and see the "oh, you guys are fraternity men, you must be very fine, upstanding citizens, keep on being productive."
Once back on site, we started today off with our keynote speaker, Ginny Carroll. Her speech today was more about the aspects of greek life that we all know; our ritual, what that means to us and where that is going.
My first session today was Marc Wayshak's Outstanding Leadership in an Ever Changing World seminar. When he introduced himself, I found out that we have a few commonalities, such as local places we both frequent. He then began talking about his experience in sky diving with the 300 ways to die skydiving video and his jumper crazy Jason.
He stepped out of his comfort zone to go skydive, and that is definitely the first step. I quote Marc in saying "people usually don't take those first few steps, unwilling to step out of your comfort zone". We were then introduced to the '6 year old mindset', because 6 year olds are absolutely fearless. Two forms of the model are strategy: find someone you can emulate and copy the technique of, and mindset: as there is not one skill you can't learn from a book.
The three mindsets that we were told of were of the Three P's, those of which being: Pay no attention to the negative voices, Picture yourself breaking through, and Persist absoluetly. To demonstrate that, he taught us how to break a board with our hand. That said, he had us write what our inFEARation was on the front of it. For example, mine is fear that I won't accomplish my goal of writing the entirety of my screenplay. I broke through my board first try. (picture left)
One of the quotes that really stood out to me in his session was "The most successful people fail the most." It's a concept that many people don't tend to realize, is that success only comes from failure. Very rarely does someone succeed at doing something the very first time.
The next session I attended was Grow a Backbone, by our keynote speaker Ginny Carroll, and we had two 'math' problems. Starting out the equation: competence+confidence=influence, and one equation I'll get to later. We defined qualities that make a positive and negative qualities in leaders.
We then went over the tips to build influence, which list as: get eyes wise, associate on purpose, be a quick study, ask good questions, be open to new insights, build your network, be present, know your values and mind your manners.
Some of these are more easy to recognize than others, like knowing your values, be a quick study, ask good questions and minding your manners, though just looking at the list I had no idea about what get eyes wide meant. It actually means to know the significance of the eye, look for sparklers and not dim bulbs, and beware of dishonest intentions. Association on purpose is to hang around people you learn from, and beware of CAVES or Creeping meatballs. A CAVE is a citizen against virtually everyone. Being present means more than just being at meetings, or being physically there. Study your demeanor, which is essentially everything you say without opening your mouth, pay attention, become a jotter and use meetings as a means of discovery.
We also sharpened our BS detectors by learning about baseline behavior. Learn to ask more toward minute details to weed out people who are fudging the truth a bit, but also offer an out and make it easier to get that person to tell you the truth. The second 'math' equation we were given was that of influence. Competence+confidence=purposeful risk.
The association lunch we had paired us with our brothers from WPI. Tony and Anthony were both at our regional conference, and Frank was one of the brothers there for our initiation, so it was great seeing the three of them again.
The choice of three sessions had a strong set of support at the presentation by Justin Jones-Fasu, who I went to a program of the day before. Be an ACTion Hero: The ACTions of Super Successful Student Leaders was where me and a handful of others of our delegation were. Justin knows how to put on a show, I will say that right now. He had a dramatic dance session detailing how had he truly loved someone who broke up with them he'd dance their affection back by his incredible moves at the song No Air. He explained the term HERO. H is for humbleness, and to know when to ask for help, and that it's alright to admit mistakes. There needs to be an ability to show an open environment, and not to be afraid to evaluate yourself and be able to admit flaws.
You need to be empowering, though you need to realize that you never want to have the best year/day/program/etc ever, because that can hamstring your organization with too high of expectations. You need to be able to empower others to be able to replicate what you are doing, and to be able to do succession planning and not make it so you are focusing only on you, know that you need to plan for the future.
The R is to be relational. You need to know who's who in your organization and know multiple strengths and weaknesses. Praise is a weird topic because some people love to be outwardly awarded by their accomplishments, while other people don't like making a big deal out of it.We were also told of the two key questions to ask, which are: Why did you originally join?, and what does a successful experience look like?
The O is optimism, You need to be realistic, but you don't need to be a downer. Optimism is more or less a simple topic.
That said, he then introduced us to his friend Jordan and his wife Danielle. Jordan is one of Justin's best friends, and showed us a picture of Justin and his wife, Jordan and Danielle, and another couple. Jordan and Danielle had been married for 9 months, and two weeks after the photo we saw, he told us that she was diagnosed with a very malignant form of cancer and she was given 4 months to live. She wasn't even 30. Her first response was "It's a win win situation, either I'll get better or I'll be in heaven.' Coming from someone who has lost people to cancer in the past I know how painful it is for cancer to take a loved one away from us. On top of that past quote, there was another quote that really stuck with me. "There are people who would love to have our bad days". How often do we complain about the internet being too slow, or not having anything fun to do? I know I complain about nearly everything, but that's something I want to change.
The final actual session I went to was Nathan Mitchell's Getting What You Want by Doing What Others Want, and we determined the difference between leadership and self leadership as a leader directs the group by actually guiding or directing, and they deal with being accountable. Self leadership is about knowing who you are and what you can do and youre ability to manage your communication, emotion and behavior to get there. The difference between the two is leadership is accountability, and self leadership is the accountability of yourself. Within Self leadership there is a list that we learned:
1-decide excatly what you want
2-write in detail and set a deadline
3-target initial knowledge, skills, and ability to achieve the goal
4-determine obstacles to overcome and reach your goal
5-identify those who can help you
6-detailed plan broken down by activity and organized by priority and sequence
7-immediately take action
8-evaluate results and if necessary change your approach.
The power of intention starts with getting clear about something you want then write it down, then get someone to keep you accountable to that goal, and take action everyday toward it as if it's impossible to truly fail.
With our time at NGLA coming to a close, I just want to thank everyone for a great conference, and I look forward to hopefully seeing some of these speakers again on our campuses, or at least keeping contact with them.
-In the words of Mahatma Ghandi, We must be the change we wish to see in the world,
DWYSYWD
Do what you say you will do, or Don't waiver, you start yourself with drive.
-Dan Eveline
Once back on site, we started today off with our keynote speaker, Ginny Carroll. Her speech today was more about the aspects of greek life that we all know; our ritual, what that means to us and where that is going.
 |
| Marc Wayshak and I after I broke the board. |
He stepped out of his comfort zone to go skydive, and that is definitely the first step. I quote Marc in saying "people usually don't take those first few steps, unwilling to step out of your comfort zone". We were then introduced to the '6 year old mindset', because 6 year olds are absolutely fearless. Two forms of the model are strategy: find someone you can emulate and copy the technique of, and mindset: as there is not one skill you can't learn from a book.
 |
| My parnter and I after breaking our boards |
One of the quotes that really stood out to me in his session was "The most successful people fail the most." It's a concept that many people don't tend to realize, is that success only comes from failure. Very rarely does someone succeed at doing something the very first time.
The next session I attended was Grow a Backbone, by our keynote speaker Ginny Carroll, and we had two 'math' problems. Starting out the equation: competence+confidence=influence, and one equation I'll get to later. We defined qualities that make a positive and negative qualities in leaders.
We then went over the tips to build influence, which list as: get eyes wise, associate on purpose, be a quick study, ask good questions, be open to new insights, build your network, be present, know your values and mind your manners.
Some of these are more easy to recognize than others, like knowing your values, be a quick study, ask good questions and minding your manners, though just looking at the list I had no idea about what get eyes wide meant. It actually means to know the significance of the eye, look for sparklers and not dim bulbs, and beware of dishonest intentions. Association on purpose is to hang around people you learn from, and beware of CAVES or Creeping meatballs. A CAVE is a citizen against virtually everyone. Being present means more than just being at meetings, or being physically there. Study your demeanor, which is essentially everything you say without opening your mouth, pay attention, become a jotter and use meetings as a means of discovery.
We also sharpened our BS detectors by learning about baseline behavior. Learn to ask more toward minute details to weed out people who are fudging the truth a bit, but also offer an out and make it easier to get that person to tell you the truth. The second 'math' equation we were given was that of influence. Competence+confidence=purposeful risk.
The association lunch we had paired us with our brothers from WPI. Tony and Anthony were both at our regional conference, and Frank was one of the brothers there for our initiation, so it was great seeing the three of them again.
The choice of three sessions had a strong set of support at the presentation by Justin Jones-Fasu, who I went to a program of the day before. Be an ACTion Hero: The ACTions of Super Successful Student Leaders was where me and a handful of others of our delegation were. Justin knows how to put on a show, I will say that right now. He had a dramatic dance session detailing how had he truly loved someone who broke up with them he'd dance their affection back by his incredible moves at the song No Air. He explained the term HERO. H is for humbleness, and to know when to ask for help, and that it's alright to admit mistakes. There needs to be an ability to show an open environment, and not to be afraid to evaluate yourself and be able to admit flaws.
You need to be empowering, though you need to realize that you never want to have the best year/day/program/etc ever, because that can hamstring your organization with too high of expectations. You need to be able to empower others to be able to replicate what you are doing, and to be able to do succession planning and not make it so you are focusing only on you, know that you need to plan for the future.
The R is to be relational. You need to know who's who in your organization and know multiple strengths and weaknesses. Praise is a weird topic because some people love to be outwardly awarded by their accomplishments, while other people don't like making a big deal out of it.We were also told of the two key questions to ask, which are: Why did you originally join?, and what does a successful experience look like?
The O is optimism, You need to be realistic, but you don't need to be a downer. Optimism is more or less a simple topic.
That said, he then introduced us to his friend Jordan and his wife Danielle. Jordan is one of Justin's best friends, and showed us a picture of Justin and his wife, Jordan and Danielle, and another couple. Jordan and Danielle had been married for 9 months, and two weeks after the photo we saw, he told us that she was diagnosed with a very malignant form of cancer and she was given 4 months to live. She wasn't even 30. Her first response was "It's a win win situation, either I'll get better or I'll be in heaven.' Coming from someone who has lost people to cancer in the past I know how painful it is for cancer to take a loved one away from us. On top of that past quote, there was another quote that really stuck with me. "There are people who would love to have our bad days". How often do we complain about the internet being too slow, or not having anything fun to do? I know I complain about nearly everything, but that's something I want to change.
The final actual session I went to was Nathan Mitchell's Getting What You Want by Doing What Others Want, and we determined the difference between leadership and self leadership as a leader directs the group by actually guiding or directing, and they deal with being accountable. Self leadership is about knowing who you are and what you can do and youre ability to manage your communication, emotion and behavior to get there. The difference between the two is leadership is accountability, and self leadership is the accountability of yourself. Within Self leadership there is a list that we learned:
1-decide excatly what you want
2-write in detail and set a deadline
3-target initial knowledge, skills, and ability to achieve the goal
4-determine obstacles to overcome and reach your goal
5-identify those who can help you
6-detailed plan broken down by activity and organized by priority and sequence
7-immediately take action
8-evaluate results and if necessary change your approach.
The power of intention starts with getting clear about something you want then write it down, then get someone to keep you accountable to that goal, and take action everyday toward it as if it's impossible to truly fail.
With our time at NGLA coming to a close, I just want to thank everyone for a great conference, and I look forward to hopefully seeing some of these speakers again on our campuses, or at least keeping contact with them.
-In the words of Mahatma Ghandi, We must be the change we wish to see in the world,
DWYSYWD
Do what you say you will do, or Don't waiver, you start yourself with drive.
-Dan Eveline
Day 2: The Real Edition (Even though it's a Day Behind)
Hello wonderful friends,
So I promised I would explain my key words and elaborate on how my first day of sessions went so here it goes!
Sadie and I's Starbucks Adventure: We awoke at 7am which is a terrible time since we are nottttt morning people by any means. We headed downstairs after much grumbling about being seperated from our comfy beds and head to the Starbucks for some delicous coffee. We figured since it's wicked early, everyone else would just be in their pj's too but NOPE everyone else was dressed to badge! We looked so out of place and it was just so funny to us. I was impressed everyone else can function that early. So we made a mental note to get dressed first this morning.
Buy In or Get Out: This was the name of David Stollman's presentation which focused on "fraternal values, standards and what to do about those breaking them." He was all about real talk and took real Greeks' Facebook pictures that showed us in a negative way, like girls chugging wine and guys using paddles for hazing. He read a poem about the negative steroetypes we face and I was so angry listening to it because that poem did not properly respresent me as a sorority woman but it is how the public views us because of the Greeks who don't actually live their values. He had some great quotes like "Friends say the things you want to hear, brothers and sisters say the things you need to hear" and "You are always wearing your letters, from the 1st time you put them on, they never come off." And he encouraged us as leaders to hold the Greeks who are not living their values to be accountable for their behavior and change, or to get out.
Small Groups: In our small groups, we broke up to discuss problems our organizations faced on campus and what influences we had control over and what we had no control over. A person in my session said we have no control over how the media protrays us as members in the Greek community, which many of us disagreed with. Alex Brown, from Keene State College, was leading our discussion and he had a great quote which I loved. It was "If we don't do dumb things, the media can't report it." It was so simple yet so true. Instead of trying to explain why you may have hazed or broken rules, just don't do the stupid behavior and you won't have to deal with the negative backlash.
No More Drama: Conflict Resolution Skills for Leaders: This was the first session I attended, run by Christopher Irving from the Miller Institute. It was about learning effective conflict resolution skills for situations that may arise in your chapter. His session was very interactive and lots of fun. He had us look at optical illusions and say what we saw. There were two different pictures with the illusion, so the point was that sometimes you need to change your perspective to see the whole picture. He also said we need to stop making assumptions if there is a conflict and listen to the whole story.
Understanding your LGBQ Broters and Sisters: This session was about promoting a better understanding of what struggles your LGBQ brothers, sisters and their whole community face simply because of the gender they love. It started out with a video called Love is Love and it flipped the perspective as if straight people were the minority and the gay community was the socially acceptable one. It was great way to change your perspective on things. The next activity was heart wrenching for me. We had to imagine we were members of the LGBQ community. Then we took a star and put down names of our best friend, communities we belong to, family members, our dream job and future life goals in each of the points. Then Alicia who was leading us, read different paths that each person could take. My colored star represented a person who was completely shunned from my family, friends, work and community because of coming out. I had to rip up my entire life written on the star and throw it to the floor and realize I have no future now because no one was supporting me. It was a big reality check that many people face that same situation. The message was that we as Greeks need to still support our brothers and sisters, and show them that they still are supported and loved and that we are a safe place in the community for them.
Check Yourself Before You Wreck Yourself: This session was all about your Standards for membership and the incentives you provide to hold one another accountable. It was really good information that was presented. A point the stood out to me was that you shouldn't expect things from others if you wouldn't do them yourself. And to also set up realistic expectations for membership. Of course we all would love to have that 4.0 GPA and attend 100% of events and meetings, but those are unrealistic expectations which isunfiarly setting your sisters up for many Standards Board hearings. Also we need to look at what incentives are we giving girls. Are they only negative, like fines or hearings? Or do they include positive incentives like holding a dinner honoring girls who made points all semester or improving their GPA, small rewards or having to not pay a portion of their dues. These were all postive ideas for motivation to improve your attendance.
The Black Bear Saloon: Where we went to dinner and it was delcious! Only fitting that the BSU Bears go dine at the Black Bear!
Cheetah Footie PJs, Cathphrase and Ice Cream: Our pajama jammy jam was a big hit. I had cheetah footie pjs with cat faces on the feet so I won most fun, I was quite proud. We played Catchphrase, which I had never played before and it was highly entertaining. And lastly, Sadie and I ordered ice cream from Room Service. It was delivered to us and we had been told it would cost $8, when in fact it was $10.21....we didn't have the 21 cents so the nice delivery man said he would just pay it for us....but we felt TERRIBLE. There was no reason for him to pay our 21 cents, sooo we ran downstairs in our bare feet because we were such a rush to make it right, down to the front desk to deliver more money and tip the nice man. We righted the world and showed the Greeks do care and no one should take responsibility for what we owed. It was a nice moment, even if it was only for 21 cents!
So this was my real Day 2...the super long version, but I needed to get alllll the details out! Thanks for reading Bears. I'm going to sleep now since Day 3 was very eventful too...but you'll get the recap tomorrow. I'm a day behind, sorry friends.
NGLA 2012 Love,
Kristen
So I promised I would explain my key words and elaborate on how my first day of sessions went so here it goes!
Sadie and I's Starbucks Adventure: We awoke at 7am which is a terrible time since we are nottttt morning people by any means. We headed downstairs after much grumbling about being seperated from our comfy beds and head to the Starbucks for some delicous coffee. We figured since it's wicked early, everyone else would just be in their pj's too but NOPE everyone else was dressed to badge! We looked so out of place and it was just so funny to us. I was impressed everyone else can function that early. So we made a mental note to get dressed first this morning.
Buy In or Get Out: This was the name of David Stollman's presentation which focused on "fraternal values, standards and what to do about those breaking them." He was all about real talk and took real Greeks' Facebook pictures that showed us in a negative way, like girls chugging wine and guys using paddles for hazing. He read a poem about the negative steroetypes we face and I was so angry listening to it because that poem did not properly respresent me as a sorority woman but it is how the public views us because of the Greeks who don't actually live their values. He had some great quotes like "Friends say the things you want to hear, brothers and sisters say the things you need to hear" and "You are always wearing your letters, from the 1st time you put them on, they never come off." And he encouraged us as leaders to hold the Greeks who are not living their values to be accountable for their behavior and change, or to get out.
Small Groups: In our small groups, we broke up to discuss problems our organizations faced on campus and what influences we had control over and what we had no control over. A person in my session said we have no control over how the media protrays us as members in the Greek community, which many of us disagreed with. Alex Brown, from Keene State College, was leading our discussion and he had a great quote which I loved. It was "If we don't do dumb things, the media can't report it." It was so simple yet so true. Instead of trying to explain why you may have hazed or broken rules, just don't do the stupid behavior and you won't have to deal with the negative backlash.
No More Drama: Conflict Resolution Skills for Leaders: This was the first session I attended, run by Christopher Irving from the Miller Institute. It was about learning effective conflict resolution skills for situations that may arise in your chapter. His session was very interactive and lots of fun. He had us look at optical illusions and say what we saw. There were two different pictures with the illusion, so the point was that sometimes you need to change your perspective to see the whole picture. He also said we need to stop making assumptions if there is a conflict and listen to the whole story.
Understanding your LGBQ Broters and Sisters: This session was about promoting a better understanding of what struggles your LGBQ brothers, sisters and their whole community face simply because of the gender they love. It started out with a video called Love is Love and it flipped the perspective as if straight people were the minority and the gay community was the socially acceptable one. It was great way to change your perspective on things. The next activity was heart wrenching for me. We had to imagine we were members of the LGBQ community. Then we took a star and put down names of our best friend, communities we belong to, family members, our dream job and future life goals in each of the points. Then Alicia who was leading us, read different paths that each person could take. My colored star represented a person who was completely shunned from my family, friends, work and community because of coming out. I had to rip up my entire life written on the star and throw it to the floor and realize I have no future now because no one was supporting me. It was a big reality check that many people face that same situation. The message was that we as Greeks need to still support our brothers and sisters, and show them that they still are supported and loved and that we are a safe place in the community for them.
Check Yourself Before You Wreck Yourself: This session was all about your Standards for membership and the incentives you provide to hold one another accountable. It was really good information that was presented. A point the stood out to me was that you shouldn't expect things from others if you wouldn't do them yourself. And to also set up realistic expectations for membership. Of course we all would love to have that 4.0 GPA and attend 100% of events and meetings, but those are unrealistic expectations which isunfiarly setting your sisters up for many Standards Board hearings. Also we need to look at what incentives are we giving girls. Are they only negative, like fines or hearings? Or do they include positive incentives like holding a dinner honoring girls who made points all semester or improving their GPA, small rewards or having to not pay a portion of their dues. These were all postive ideas for motivation to improve your attendance.
The Black Bear Saloon: Where we went to dinner and it was delcious! Only fitting that the BSU Bears go dine at the Black Bear!
Cheetah Footie PJs, Cathphrase and Ice Cream: Our pajama jammy jam was a big hit. I had cheetah footie pjs with cat faces on the feet so I won most fun, I was quite proud. We played Catchphrase, which I had never played before and it was highly entertaining. And lastly, Sadie and I ordered ice cream from Room Service. It was delivered to us and we had been told it would cost $8, when in fact it was $10.21....we didn't have the 21 cents so the nice delivery man said he would just pay it for us....but we felt TERRIBLE. There was no reason for him to pay our 21 cents, sooo we ran downstairs in our bare feet because we were such a rush to make it right, down to the front desk to deliver more money and tip the nice man. We righted the world and showed the Greeks do care and no one should take responsibility for what we owed. It was a nice moment, even if it was only for 21 cents!
So this was my real Day 2...the super long version, but I needed to get alllll the details out! Thanks for reading Bears. I'm going to sleep now since Day 3 was very eventful too...but you'll get the recap tomorrow. I'm a day behind, sorry friends.
NGLA 2012 Love,
Kristen
Can social media change the Greek world?
I've been thinking...and tweeting, blogging, and FBing.. (< not a word kids) about how effective use of social media could truly help elevate our community. Today I presented a session with 3 amazing colleagues Adam McCready from MIT, Courtney McKenna from Quinnipiac, and Laurel Peffer from Campuspeak, our session was called Tweet2Congruence and we live streamed our conversation on a large screen and posed questions, solicited feedback, and shared resources all via twitter. I loved it, it was one of those sessions you felt like giving a 100 high fives out after. #bsulife (see! there it is again) has really raised the bar for many departments using social media and I think as a result... a lot more people talk about good ol' Bridgewater State University than ever before.
I'm a one woman show for fraternity & sorority life at BSU so managing twitter, facebook, and recruiting bloggers is my job but the amazing things I get to post.. well that comes from my amazing students. I love reading these blogs, seeing their tweets, and checking out their status updates here at NGLA, there is learning happening everywhere (can you believe it OUTSIDE the classroom??) and they have the ability to share it with others in seconds.
I hope all this work on the social media ends helps us promote what we are REALLY about... we are passionate leaders who choose to live our organizations ideals and principals every day, for the rest of our lives, I also hope it also gives us the courage to challenge those who do not live our values.
Be bold, be courageous and tweet on brothers & sisters!
Good night NGLA!
I'm a one woman show for fraternity & sorority life at BSU so managing twitter, facebook, and recruiting bloggers is my job but the amazing things I get to post.. well that comes from my amazing students. I love reading these blogs, seeing their tweets, and checking out their status updates here at NGLA, there is learning happening everywhere (can you believe it OUTSIDE the classroom??) and they have the ability to share it with others in seconds.
I hope all this work on the social media ends helps us promote what we are REALLY about... we are passionate leaders who choose to live our organizations ideals and principals every day, for the rest of our lives, I also hope it also gives us the courage to challenge those who do not live our values.
Be bold, be courageous and tweet on brothers & sisters!
Good night NGLA!
"What's Your Action Plan?"
This is what out small group facilitators asked us at the end of session today, and to be honest at the time I wasn't completely sure. I knew that I wanted the Greek Conduct Board to be succesful, I want to continue to grow as a leader and take on more responsibilty, and I wanted to be a more proactive member of my chapter, but I wasn't exactly sure how I was going to do so. Needless to say I was a confused individual and had all these awesome ideas in my head but they were all jumbled together due to the "conference high" and I was unsure of what I wanted to do with everything I have learned. Now, before I tell you what my four goals are I am going to tell you about what I experienced today.
We began the day by waking up to what sounded like a fire alarm but it was actually just Kristen's alarm. We then made ourselves look presentable, went and got our Starbucks fix and got prepared for the day. Today's sessions began with a speaker who talked to us about "The Gift of Being Greek". She explained to us that these gifts were ritual, brotherhood/sisterhood, lifetime commitment, and depth of personal development. These are all ideas that we get from being Greek, and they all spoke deeply to me. I realized that when you join a sorority you truly are joining a sisterhood and it is for life. This is a promise that you make to something more than yourself, and I am glad that I have grown to apreciate this more.
My first session of the day was "Running a Self Governing Greek Judicial Board". This was awesome for me to go to because it showed me how Cornell runs their Judicial Board, and it also taught me what we can't have at BSU. It also made me realize what I truly want out of conduct board, but I will explain that more later in my goals. I think it is awesome that Cornell has this judicial board where the Greeks completely hold each other accountible, and it shows what strong leaders their Greeks are. I think that these members represent what it truly means to be a Greek, and it was great to see how other campuses run.
I then attended a session entitled "Be Strong, Be Confident: Empowering Sorority Women". This basically taught us to embrace our confidence and understand how great it is to be a sorority women. It reinforced everything I have found I have become since joining a sorority, and it was a great reminder of the growth in confidence and leadership I feel I have experienced since joining Delta Phi Epsilon.
We then attended our Affiliation lunches where we got to spend time with other members of our organizations. This was awesome because before this conference I have never met other members of Delta Phi Epislon. I can honestly say that I come from an amazing group of women, and it's awesome how well I connect with them.
Aften lunch Maribeth asked me to attend the NPC Area Meetings. This was so cool because we got to have a small group conversation with our NPC Area Advisor, Lynn Marano, and a couple other schools. I loved this because I truly feel that although I love my chapter and what my letters stand for my passion is completely with Panhellenic. I feel as though I thrive the most in Panhellenic, and I really apreciated Maribeth inviting me to this conversation. Thank you MB :)
My final session was "Making Meetings Matter". In this we learned about the negative aspects and disruptions of meetings and we also learned how to productively run a meeting. I enjoyed this because I hope that as my time in college grows I will take on more leadership roles, and will have to run meetings on my own.
The conference ended with a wrap up session with our small groups where we reflected on the conference and what we got out of it, and what we are going to bring back to our campuses. After this we had the Awards Banquet. Unfortunately, we did not win any awards, but I am still very proud of everyone nominated! Go Bears!
Before I end this post, I want to explain to everyone the four goals that I am taking on and will bring to my campus:
Much Greek and Bear Love,
Sadie
We began the day by waking up to what sounded like a fire alarm but it was actually just Kristen's alarm. We then made ourselves look presentable, went and got our Starbucks fix and got prepared for the day. Today's sessions began with a speaker who talked to us about "The Gift of Being Greek". She explained to us that these gifts were ritual, brotherhood/sisterhood, lifetime commitment, and depth of personal development. These are all ideas that we get from being Greek, and they all spoke deeply to me. I realized that when you join a sorority you truly are joining a sisterhood and it is for life. This is a promise that you make to something more than yourself, and I am glad that I have grown to apreciate this more.
My first session of the day was "Running a Self Governing Greek Judicial Board". This was awesome for me to go to because it showed me how Cornell runs their Judicial Board, and it also taught me what we can't have at BSU. It also made me realize what I truly want out of conduct board, but I will explain that more later in my goals. I think it is awesome that Cornell has this judicial board where the Greeks completely hold each other accountible, and it shows what strong leaders their Greeks are. I think that these members represent what it truly means to be a Greek, and it was great to see how other campuses run.
I then attended a session entitled "Be Strong, Be Confident: Empowering Sorority Women". This basically taught us to embrace our confidence and understand how great it is to be a sorority women. It reinforced everything I have found I have become since joining a sorority, and it was a great reminder of the growth in confidence and leadership I feel I have experienced since joining Delta Phi Epsilon.
We then attended our Affiliation lunches where we got to spend time with other members of our organizations. This was awesome because before this conference I have never met other members of Delta Phi Epislon. I can honestly say that I come from an amazing group of women, and it's awesome how well I connect with them.
Aften lunch Maribeth asked me to attend the NPC Area Meetings. This was so cool because we got to have a small group conversation with our NPC Area Advisor, Lynn Marano, and a couple other schools. I loved this because I truly feel that although I love my chapter and what my letters stand for my passion is completely with Panhellenic. I feel as though I thrive the most in Panhellenic, and I really apreciated Maribeth inviting me to this conversation. Thank you MB :)
My final session was "Making Meetings Matter". In this we learned about the negative aspects and disruptions of meetings and we also learned how to productively run a meeting. I enjoyed this because I hope that as my time in college grows I will take on more leadership roles, and will have to run meetings on my own.
The conference ended with a wrap up session with our small groups where we reflected on the conference and what we got out of it, and what we are going to bring back to our campuses. After this we had the Awards Banquet. Unfortunately, we did not win any awards, but I am still very proud of everyone nominated! Go Bears!
Before I end this post, I want to explain to everyone the four goals that I am taking on and will bring to my campus:
- The first is to be a more active sister of Delta Phi Epsilon in holding my sisters up to always representing our letters. I am going to be proactive, and if I feel as though a sister is not representing our letters properly whether it be her actions or appearance on a particular day and letters involved, I will take it upon myself to confront her and help her make better choices about this. I learned today that if we are not proactive and don't help others with what see is wrong, then it won't be fixed.
- My second goal is to plan all sorority women retreat for next semester. At the banquet tonight we were discussing the importance of bringing the sorority women together, and we decided that a retreat will be great bonding. We want to strengthen our Greek community, and this is one way to begin this.
- Thirdly, I want to involve Panhellenic with a specific philanthropy that we focus on and work with. I want this philanthropy to be one that everyone is excited about so I am looking for suggestions, but I think this will be an awesome addition to an already fabulous Panhellenic Association!
- My fourth and final goal is probably the most difficult one. I realized this weekend that before we can have a Greek Conduct Board/possibly a judiciary system we first need something along the lines of a Greek Council, where elected members of the organization run open meetings where all Greek members can come and discuss what is going on in the community/get advice on situtations or issues or anything they seek advice for within their chapter. I think by doing this we will begin strenghting our community and the trust that could possibly someday result in a judiciary aspect. I hope to eventually come up with a powerpoint presentation for all chapters to see what this board truly is in hopes to gain their support. I want to thank Lexi for letting me help with this project, because it is something that is very close to me, and I hope that we continue to gain support from our Greek organization members.
Much Greek and Bear Love,
Sadie
Bear Pride- Greek Advisor Edition
This is BSU's first year bringing a delegation to NGLA and every year I think to myself how all the stress of raising enough money and finding funding is 100% worth it. The enthusiasm and excitement from Bridgewater students to be here and soak up every bit of knowledge is truly awesome. I am so grateful to work with students who value and appreciate this opportunity.
David did a great job with Buy In or Get Out for the keynote and by the conversations the students had all day about it, they heard the message of holding our members accountable loud and clear. There is no relief in "thank goodness it was XXX organization and not mine" The reality is, what happens in any other Greek organization reflects ALL of us (yes, even us alumni members) and we have a responsibility to take ownership over it and be responsible about having the crucial conversations.
I was so happy to present a workshop with my good friend Cat Sohor from MIT. It came together when we chatted at the New England Greek Summit in October when we were talking about the idea that many Northeast Greek chapters think their brotherhood/sisterhood would be better if only they had a house. Cat and I had a great group of attendees who brainstormed creative ways to provide opportunities for brotherhood/sisterhood on your campus using what you have and benefiting from what is already happening on campus. (Shout out to Delta Phi Epsilon who made a Sisterhood event out of Program Committee's Italian Night last week!)
We had a great dinner out together and the conversations were non stop about the sessions they attended and the new things they learned. Again... none of this happens without this investment.
We concluded with the traditional Pajama Jammy Jam and the winner of the best pj's was.... Kristen Scoville by a landslide.. pics to follow :)
Stay well bears at home!
~Mb
David did a great job with Buy In or Get Out for the keynote and by the conversations the students had all day about it, they heard the message of holding our members accountable loud and clear. There is no relief in "thank goodness it was XXX organization and not mine" The reality is, what happens in any other Greek organization reflects ALL of us (yes, even us alumni members) and we have a responsibility to take ownership over it and be responsible about having the crucial conversations.
I was so happy to present a workshop with my good friend Cat Sohor from MIT. It came together when we chatted at the New England Greek Summit in October when we were talking about the idea that many Northeast Greek chapters think their brotherhood/sisterhood would be better if only they had a house. Cat and I had a great group of attendees who brainstormed creative ways to provide opportunities for brotherhood/sisterhood on your campus using what you have and benefiting from what is already happening on campus. (Shout out to Delta Phi Epsilon who made a Sisterhood event out of Program Committee's Italian Night last week!)
We had a great dinner out together and the conversations were non stop about the sessions they attended and the new things they learned. Again... none of this happens without this investment.
We concluded with the traditional Pajama Jammy Jam and the winner of the best pj's was.... Kristen Scoville by a landslide.. pics to follow :)
Stay well bears at home!
~Mb
Day 2
David Stollsman opened up this morning with a memorable, distinct, and comical speech. He is an engagingly powerful speaker who did a remarkable job delineating the prevalent issues with Greek stereotypes today. He showed us a slideshow of Greek brothers and sisters who were reflecting poorly on the Greek community through various means, including binge drinking, hazing, and unprofessionally inappropriate attire. One portion of his 75 minute presentation I won't forget was when he said that each Greek in the crowd was relieved when he or she did not see their letters in the montage. He addressed this because he believed we were thinking too independently. After all, if poor Greek images are portrayed by separate fraternities and sororities, then it has nothing to do with us. However, in reality, it is essential to Greek life's growth to maintain a strong comradery within the Greek community. Most importantly, we're not bound to collaborating with only our fraternity or sorority. We should always be working with all other Greek organizations because we share similar goals and objectives individually as well as in a group setting.
The first educational session I attended dealt with conflict management and even presented a detailed step by step process to address a conflict appropriately.
1. Identify there is a problem
2. Identify what is keeping you from acting.
3. When addressing the person, use the word, "I" instead of "we" because it less intimidating and offensive towards the person you are attempting to help.
4. Explain your concern calmly and respectfully.
5. Help the individual create a plan to address the concern.
6. Always offer support to the individual
7. Check in with the individual to ensure Step #5 is being followed unless the conflict is no longer existent.
I found the information garnered from this session helpful and resourceful, and I look forward to utilizing it in the future.
I went to an intriguing session earlier today on dynamic recruitment, which was presented by Matt Geik and John Rodriguez. Matt's enthusiasm was a significant factor in the success of the workshop. He elaborated on several key concepts John informed us of during chapter meetings. For example, there are three recruitment secrets. 1. You can't recruit who you don't know. 2. People don't join organizations. People join people. 3. You scare people. Be more normal. When meeting new people, it is vital to not shove Greek life down his or her throat. Instead, he advocated for the "F Them" treatment, which involves talking to the potential new members about family/friends, favorites, future, fun, and where they are from. Greek life should be the last thing you should be talking to them about because it creates an obvious sense of discomfort. Another important aspect of this session was the small activities approach. When attempting to integrate a PNM into a group setting to familiarize them with your brothers or sisters, do not exceed a group of 3-7 people. This approach's success is contingent upon doing an activity that is normal for them as well as maintaining the +1 ratio concept. The last part of the session I found insightful was the Values-Based Selection Process (VBSP). This involves having a sheet of paper describing your Greek organization's specific values and ideals you envision your PNMs to possess. After meeting with the PNM on several occasions, hand them this paper and ask them how they feel about it. This takes the interrogative pressure off you and allows the PNM to display any concerns with joining your organization in a more friendly and cooperative manner.
I attended another one of David Stollman's presentations later in the day, and it was just as passionate as his first. The topic was money and how we can finance doing almost anything in Greek life with the right mindset. He broke up the presentation into five solutions. The first called for recruiting new sources of income, which was described in further detail through recruitordie.com, RBC consultations, RBC coaching, national headquarters, and through the assistance of your Greek advisor. The second solution encouraged us to collect what is owed. To decrease the frustration of this inevitably arduous task, Stollman suggested various plans to ensure the fulfillment of these payments, including membership agreements (usually in contract form), explaining credit implications, collection agencies, and even going after the alumni who owe money. His third solution was the simplest and recommended lower expenses, which can be exercised by creating a budget, holding to the budget, and "keeping it simple." Solution #4 was to find alternatives. Stollman elaborated on this solution by explaining the benefits that can be brought about from SGA, local communities/companies, bartering, national headquarters, alumni, and other student organizations. His last solution encouraged fundrasing, and this became increasingly interactive for the entire group as a myriad of ideas were discussed. These ideas included a date auction, dance marathon, "volunteering" at Gillette Stadium, among many others.
The first educational session I attended dealt with conflict management and even presented a detailed step by step process to address a conflict appropriately.
1. Identify there is a problem
2. Identify what is keeping you from acting.
3. When addressing the person, use the word, "I" instead of "we" because it less intimidating and offensive towards the person you are attempting to help.
4. Explain your concern calmly and respectfully.
5. Help the individual create a plan to address the concern.
6. Always offer support to the individual
7. Check in with the individual to ensure Step #5 is being followed unless the conflict is no longer existent.
I found the information garnered from this session helpful and resourceful, and I look forward to utilizing it in the future.
I went to an intriguing session earlier today on dynamic recruitment, which was presented by Matt Geik and John Rodriguez. Matt's enthusiasm was a significant factor in the success of the workshop. He elaborated on several key concepts John informed us of during chapter meetings. For example, there are three recruitment secrets. 1. You can't recruit who you don't know. 2. People don't join organizations. People join people. 3. You scare people. Be more normal. When meeting new people, it is vital to not shove Greek life down his or her throat. Instead, he advocated for the "F Them" treatment, which involves talking to the potential new members about family/friends, favorites, future, fun, and where they are from. Greek life should be the last thing you should be talking to them about because it creates an obvious sense of discomfort. Another important aspect of this session was the small activities approach. When attempting to integrate a PNM into a group setting to familiarize them with your brothers or sisters, do not exceed a group of 3-7 people. This approach's success is contingent upon doing an activity that is normal for them as well as maintaining the +1 ratio concept. The last part of the session I found insightful was the Values-Based Selection Process (VBSP). This involves having a sheet of paper describing your Greek organization's specific values and ideals you envision your PNMs to possess. After meeting with the PNM on several occasions, hand them this paper and ask them how they feel about it. This takes the interrogative pressure off you and allows the PNM to display any concerns with joining your organization in a more friendly and cooperative manner.
I attended another one of David Stollman's presentations later in the day, and it was just as passionate as his first. The topic was money and how we can finance doing almost anything in Greek life with the right mindset. He broke up the presentation into five solutions. The first called for recruiting new sources of income, which was described in further detail through recruitordie.com, RBC consultations, RBC coaching, national headquarters, and through the assistance of your Greek advisor. The second solution encouraged us to collect what is owed. To decrease the frustration of this inevitably arduous task, Stollman suggested various plans to ensure the fulfillment of these payments, including membership agreements (usually in contract form), explaining credit implications, collection agencies, and even going after the alumni who owe money. His third solution was the simplest and recommended lower expenses, which can be exercised by creating a budget, holding to the budget, and "keeping it simple." Solution #4 was to find alternatives. Stollman elaborated on this solution by explaining the benefits that can be brought about from SGA, local communities/companies, bartering, national headquarters, alumni, and other student organizations. His last solution encouraged fundrasing, and this became increasingly interactive for the entire group as a myriad of ideas were discussed. These ideas included a date auction, dance marathon, "volunteering" at Gillette Stadium, among many others.
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