NGLA Day 3

NGLA Day 3

The morning began with a keynote speaker titled "Living the Dream of our Founders" presented by Rick Barnes. Rick touched upon several ways that we need to realign our actions to more accurately reflect what the vision of our founders were. He also mentioned how we often say " We are sick of the Stereotypes" or "They don't accurately represent Greek Life." I know that I have been guilty of this as well in the past. However, we need to stop using these excuses and recognize that there is some truth behind them. For example, there have been campus' that have too much alcohol consumption within Greek Life and there are Greek chapters who have been closed for hazing. That is a fact. Instead of hiding behind the statement "these are unrealistic stereotypes" we need to recognize that this does happen and we need to start the move to change this negative perception. This change can only happen however if you regonize the problem you need to change.

My favorite session of the day was titled "6 ways to Chapter Enema". I can summarize this session in three words- Buy in or Get Out. Yes, at first it sounds very harsh, but the message is that we need to start holding our members accountable. Members need to either recognize the values we stand for or ultimately revaluate why they are here in the first place. A large portion of this comes from Chapters being able to hold people accountable. Yes we all have some type of standing rules and by laws, but what do they actually mean if Chapter Leadership isn't willing to enforce it? If accountability is not there, then the rules really mean nothing.

When I first heard this idea, I recgonized that this is the part of being a leader that is hard. It isn't fun and nobody wants to be the bad guy. Today I learned that your not the bad guy. When you have to take action to discipline a chapter member, it is appropriate to ask why they are putting you, there sister and brother, in to this uncomfortable position of having to discipline them. Interesting idea isn't it? We need to realize that holding members accountable is our job but we are not the bad guy when we do it. Discipline is not the fun part for any leader but adhearing to our standard rules and by laws is a must. If we want to be able to return to our Chapters as alum and see our chapter thriving then we need to adhere to our standards and values. If we choose not to, no one can guarantee that your chapter will still be there.I found this message really inspiring as a Chapter President. Leaders have an obligation to their chapter and making sure that our members are meeting the standards of membership fall under this. It's not always fun but it's necessary.

My last session of the day was titled "The Mighty Mouse Effect". Ideally the session was geared towards smaller organizations  but had a central idea around what an ideal chapter looks like. which appealed to me. The cool thing about this organization in perticular was that I got to talk to several leaders of culturally based FSL Leaders. Since we do not have these organizations on campus, I took the opportunity to learn more about their organizations. Although they are much smaller in size, some with only three active members, they have many of the same standards and values that our chapters do at BSU.  Their ideal chapter would also include actively involved members, high academic standards, an emphasis on community service, and a strong chapter as whole.At BSU, we all our in different chapters but have similar values. I realized that there is no reason why we can't be pushing members of our community to uphold the values that we all have. Overall, I learned that regardless of the letters we where we DO have alot in common. We all stand for same values and I feel sometimes that reality gets lost in translation.

Today I learned from numerous Fraternity and Sorority Leaders ideas that I can not wait to bring back to our campus. We are an amazing Greek Community but there is always ways we can strive to be better. Today I heard Greek Life described as a heart monitor. For example, you never want a heart monitor to be a flat line because that means your dead, right? Greek life is kinda the same way. Sure, we can be at a constant flat line and be content with where we are at but in the end we're going to die. We need the little hiccups and bups in the road in order to show that were alive and are always working to get better. This analogy really hit home for me. I hope that this idea makes you think about our community your individual chapter. Is your chapter flatlined or are you striving to always be better?