Day one of NGLA has come and gone. It seemed like only minutes ago I was receiving news that I had been chosen to represent our campus in the conference, now it is here and I am ready to take it all in. The Opening Night Keynote speaker this evening was Michelle Guobadia of Zeta Phi Beta, a cultural based sorority, and now the Director of Fraternity and Sorority life at the University of North Carolina. Her main point was "Be the dream maker, not the dream killer". She spoke of our founders, that every organization started with a dream. Sororities specifically, founded to form a safe space for women in the male dominated campuses of colleges. Our founders based our organizations on values that must be and always should be help closest to our hearts, if we truly believe believe our fellow Panhel and IFC members are our brothers and sisters than the values of our organizations should matter more than just the people we meet in them. Michelle also discussed hazing, and I sat and listened, and felt like the topic was unrelatable. Luckily for BSU, hazing is prohibited and although I myself could not bring any solutions back to my chapter I was grateful for this topic to be addressed. I am aware that other organization haze, and some of them have sent representatives here to NGLA. I truly hope those organizations benefited from that speech, and that all new members get the loving welcome that I received as a new member. I do not think I would have the amazing friendships, and bonds I have today with my sisters if I had to go through a hazing process, to be frank, I would not have put myself through it.
I am excited to see what tomorrow brings and the people I will meet and the new experiences i learn from and use to benefit both my chapter of Delta Phi Epsilon and the BSU Greek community as a whole.
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