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