Day two started off with three phone alarms going off and Jesslyn and I heading down to Starbucks. While we ventured down there we found that there was already a line so we decided to come back up to the room and get ready first. That wasnt the best idea because after 8am the line becomes a lot longer and with a long day ahead coffee was very important. The keynote speaker this morning was Kim Novak. She spoke to us about "being who we say we are" and living through our rituals in everyday life. This seems really important because while people always tell us to live our values, and when something wrong happens we might here "what would your founders think?" It was interesting hearing Kim speak because she said things that we may have not even thought about such as what would our founders think if they saw a room with 900 powerful leaders in one conference center ballroom? When Delta Phi Epsilon was established 96 years ago, did our founders really think that there would be chapters all over the nation and that a chapter could start with 30 sisters and 3 years later have over 70. Chances are they probably didn't. The most important thing I took out of this is to be authentic and if you say something follow through don't just say it because you think it is the right thing to say. After this speaker I was able to meet with a group of students at the NGLA institute to break down the dynamic of Greek life and to talk about things we can change at our schools and things that we may not be able to control. While some of our reality is negative a lot of things at Bridgewater have a positive reality. We have high standards for academics and we keep growing year to year. After that session I was super proud to be a bear. My first session I went to talked about going back to the basics. This session was great because I was able to collaborate with other chapter presidents and Panhellenic presidents about how while we may have different backgrounds every chapter lives their motto, mission statement, and values every single day. It was really interesting to learn about the perspectives of other Greek leaders and how there are so many different ideas for motivating sisters. All of these ideas from this session I am hopefully going to begin to implement in my chapter. The second speaker I went to talked about grades. As a member of Greek life at BSU we definitely strive to have chapter grade point averages over the general student GPA. This session taught me that while this may be good enough, are we really striving to have high GPA's if our minimum is a 2.5? If the majority of sisters have a gpa above this than maybe it is time to reevaluate. Another great thing I took from this is all of the different incentives for motivating sisters to excel in academics! My last session of the day was the most inspiring. One because I got a chance to sit next to a fellow sister from Clarion State who was Panhellenic President and two because it really helped me to understand what a leader truly needs to do. Being the newest sorority at BSU, Dphie is still trying to grow and any information of a successful experience is awesome to hear. One quote that truly stood out to me was when the speaker said, “ If your organization didn’t get better in quality or quantity than you really didn’t lead.” When I heard this quote I thought of all of the members of Greek Life stating we want this to be the best year ever, but what the speaker said was if this year is the best year than what is next year going to be? That really stood out to me because as a new chapter president and a member of the Beta class I have been able to see our chapter grow from the beginning and I know that since I joined in 2011 we have grown tremendously but there is always room for growth and while there are things we have tried that may not have worked but it is your mistakes that make you who you are. Also while you may think that an event is the best thing you have ever done what are you going to do next year to make it even better? At the end of this session we talked about positivity and how there is “no excuse for not having a win win situation.” In our lives we are approached with so many opportunities and it is our choice daily to decide if we are going to be that negative person or if we are going to be that person that turns a bad situation into something positive. What is your excuse for not having a win win situation?
Lots of Greek Love
Caroline
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