Posted on June 29th, 2007 at 12:39 pm by GregM
I got back on Wednesday evening from my fraternity conference in Lexington, VA. I was a facilitator for a bunch of leadership workshops and things like that, and it was really encouraging to see all of the undergraduate members of the fraternity who were really working to make their chapters better. I hate it that fraternities have such a bad reputation. The truth is, fraternities and sororities offer leadership programs that are not offered in any other venue, they raise tens of millions of dollars each year for philanthropic organizations, they offer young college students a supportive atmosphere that helps relieve the stress of college, they provide educational opportunities to learn about how to manage risk (alcohol abuse, abstinence and safe sex education, fire safety, etc.), and much, much more.
True, bad things happen. However, if you think of any setting where a group of college students are living together, something is bound to go wrong eventually. Even if it is in a dormitory, someone in the dorm will make a mistake. The difference is that in a fraternity or sorority, the person who messed up will have a support group of friends who will help him or her through that time. Additionally, in a fraternity or sorority, the odds of something bad happening are decreased because there are more people with a vested interest in making sure something doesn’t happen.
On another note, my chapter of Sigma Nu did extremely well. We won more awards than any other chapter! I was inducted into the Alpha Chapter (which is an honor only ten seniors per year can achieve), one of my best friends (Bryan) was named the Scholar of the Year, we won Excellence in LEAD Phase I, Excellence in LEAD Phase II, Excellence in LEAD Phase III, Excellence in All-Chapter LEAD, LEAD Chapter of the Year, the Increase in Manpower Award, and we were named among the top 10 Sigma Nu chapters in the world through Sigma Nu’s “Pursuit of Excellence” program.
If you’re wondering what all of the LEAD stuff is, it’s our membership development program. LEAD stands for Leadership, Ethics, Achievement and Development.
Link Here | June 30, 2007,
I’m glad you are home! That is a good assesment of a fraternity. They do get a bad rap when in truth they do a lot of good. Glad you got to go to VA and participate.
Comment by Karen |
Link Here | July 2, 2007,
Hey there Speaker G, glad to see you on the linky blog roll. Conferences are fun. I just came back from a convention and had a great time. Did you take pictures while you were there at your conference. Were you able to be in them. I was able to be in many of my photos because I used a cool device called the Xshot. I was asked to receive one and review it, I liked it so much I asked for 3 more so I could give them away on my blog. An XShot is a personal hand held tripod that you can use to take pictures of yourself and friends as if you had someone standing three feet away who was taking the picture. If you want to participate in my contest check out the link connected to my name.
Comment by Drew |
Link Here | July 4, 2007,
pssst… you’ve been tagged!
Comment by Laurie |
Link Here | July 6, 2007,
Sounds like you had an awesome trip! I can’t believe your time at Butler is almost done!
Comment by Lynne |