So Close, Yet So Far Away

It is impossible to look at our new Fraternal Movement without noticing that it is strikingly similar to the Fraternal Movement today. With the exception of a few big changes – 2 Councils and major university integration – The two movements are quite alike. Yet, it is painfully obvious that the headlines and traits exhibited in our Prezi presentation are all but absent from our community today. Let’s examine those differences and similarities, and dig deeper to find the core community characteristics that lead to them.

Similarities

You might argue that we haven’t quite reinvented the American Fraternity Experience, but produced an idealized vision of what the current Greek should aspire to be. In response to that, I would say, “Well, yes….to an extent.” The current system has standards of excellence. Our system has standards of excellence. The current system has governing councils. Our system has governing councils. The current system has individual chapters. Our system has individual chapters. The current system aims to develop its membership into better persons than they were when they joined. Our system aims to develop its membership into better persons than they were when they joined. Why are these things similar? I’ll take a moment to respond to each point.

The reasoning behind keeping Standards of Excellence, and many of the areas in which we currently have standards, is that as a group we recognized that the SoE has been incredibly successful in the 10 years or so (correct me if that number is wrong) since it was adapted. Before SoE, Greek grades at OSU were lower than student body grades. Since SoE, Greek grades have been better than student body grades every single quarter. Greek performance in philanthropy and service has shown similar results. The moral here is simple: hold people accountable for performing at a certain level, and the majority will reach or even exceed that level.

Concerning governing councils and individual chapters, we see a system that works but needs adjustment. I’ll discuss the adjustments later, but there are several pros to these things that I’ll quickly hit on. Governing councils are important because they’re a place for the community to collaborate together, and they’re responsible for holding everyone accountable. For fraternities, any punishments for rule breaking are handed out and decided by IFC. It is important to have the community punishing its rule breakers, not someone outside the community. Chapters are important because each chapter’s take on what it means to be a fraternity and what values to hold is a little different. This is the source of community diversity, along with diversity of membership. It is important that the community not only keeps diverse membership, but also keeps diversity in the ways it approaches the task of developing persons. Otherwise we’d all be exactly the same.

Concerning the goal of fraternity life, personal development, this one is really simple. The stated goals of the current Fraternity Movement revolve around producing better men and women. By “better” we mean teaching individuals leadership and stressing to them the importance of the values each and every chapter holds dear.  By doing this, we can be the perfect auxiliary to a college education, because we provide individuals with the leadership power and values necessary to take their college education and better the world.

Differences

The first major difference in our community is having only two councils: Men’s & Women’s. The purpose here is encouraging diversity. As it stands now, a whole set of diverse fraternities and sororities are segregated almost by design. By eliminating the other councils and ensuring that everyone has their fair say in the combined councils, our community ensures that diverse points of view are not only considered but encouraged. Furthermore, the new Movement envisions chapters that are more diverse than the ones we have currently, and this embracement of diversity must start from the governing body level. If councils who dictate the tone for the whole community decide to be exclusive rather than inclusive, then everyone not on the “inside” will feel marginalized and lose interest / lash out at the governing body. This is a recipe for failure.

The second big difference is university integration. We believe that Greek life, though not for everyone, can be the perfect auxiliary to the college experience and education. With that in mind, we feel that a close, transparent, and proactive relationship with the university is essential to the success of the new Fraternal Movement. Put simply, we must ensure that the values and goals of our community do not oppose those of the University, rather they must embrace University values and goals while taking a step further and become complementary to those University ideals. The fraternal community must view the university as an asset and vice versa. If both entities hold this view, then they will be able to work with each other to each other’s benefit.

Finally, there are other things in our vision of a new Fraternal Movement that differ vastly from the one we see today. This boils down to a new attitude. This is the area where I believe our community can begin its change into the new fraternal movement, but I also see a lack of change in this area as the beginning of the end for the fraternity system as a whole. I know I’m getting long, so I’ll make it simple. We, everyone in this community, must change our attitudes. We must stop perpetuating the idea that the university and IFC are out to get us. We must stop believing that being Greek means abusing alcohol. We must realize that ‘fratty’ is not the image we should be portraying. We need to look at our rituals and the ideals we claim to espouse and ask whether or not we’re fulfilling those. This goes for fraternities and sororities. When we can get together, start trusting each other, start trusting the process, and work together, we can do some really amazing things. There are some 4000 of us out here. If we all got behind one idea, no one could stop us. The world has been changed by far fewer people, so why don’t we take the opportunity to do something great and create a system that will perpetuate that greatness for generations of college students afterwards.  

As you can see, this dream Fraternity Movement we’ve cooked up is not just a dream. It’s far more than that. It’s a vision statement. It is a goal. It is the community we can, and must be if we are to remain relevant on the college campuses of tomorrow and today.

THE Social Change Model

Oh Social Change Model! Where do I start? I guess I’ll start by answering the first part of this blog prompt. “What have you learned about the Social Change Model?” you ask? Well, to start, I learned that the Social Change Model existed, and that it is a leadership model based in the belief that leadership development occurs in tandem with positive social change. As the quarter has passed, I’ve learned about the Seven C’s of Change – Citizenship, Common Purpose, Collaboration, Controversy with Civility, Consciousness of Self, Congruence, and Commitment. I think the most important thing I’ve learned this quarter, is that the SCM isn’t like a Hollywood diet. It isn’t a bunch of words and ideas with nothing backing it up. On the contrary, the SCM is a guide with real world evidence showing us how to be better leaders and how to create true, lasting, change within our world.

I personally find the most meaning in the areas of Consciousness of Self/Congruence, Collaboration, and Commitment. Before being exposed to the Social Change Model, I had never really sat down with myself and pondered my values. I always knew I had values, and generally I’ve acted according to those values, but I never took the time to list those values out and think about why and how they’ve become so important to me. After learning about SCM and Consciousness of Self, I firmly believe that before you can set out to be a true leader, you must know yourself and your values. Congruence goes hand in hand with Consciousness of Self. In a way, I think that these two Cs are almost necessary to combine because a value that you don’t act according to is not truly one of your values. That said, I recognize that no one is perfect, and that I am going to make mistakes as I walk through life. What is important is that I recognize these mistakes and learn from them. Collaboration is the ‘C’ that I found most interesting. This was because at first glance the notion that collaboration is more effective than competition sounds crazy. Our society relishes competition; it creates competition where there need be none. Yet in the end, the drive to be better than the next guy leaves me feeling empty, while working together for the common good is empowering. Collaboration is the realization that we are all in this together, and that working together is, frankly, the only option. Finally, I find Commitment very meaningful as well. I think if you grouped together 50 of the most well known names of social change, the ‘C’ that would stand out as most common to that group would be Commitment. Whether it was Betty Williams and her work creating the Global Children’s Foundation, or the founders of Amnesty International and their work to protect human rights, social change cannot have occurred without commitment.

Overall, the most important thing, to me, to take from the SCM is that anyone can cause social change. We just must take action. There is nothing more powerful in the world than a group of people with a vision. So, as we finish this class and take what we’ve learned to the Greek Community, we must take our collective vision and share it with our community. No doubt others will share our vision and together we can, and will, make positive change.

Strengths and Weaknesses

Phi Gamma Delta exists to promote lifelong friendships, to reaffirm high ethical standards and values, and to foster personal development in the pursuit of excellence. – Phi Gamma Delta Mission Statement

This is our mission statement. As a PhiGam, believing and working to fulfill this mission statement goes hand in hand with living our values. It is wonderful to think that these goals and our values are so immediately linked, that by striving to live by one, we can achieve the others. So as an organization, are we achieving these goals and living by those values? I believe that the Omicron Deuteron chapter of Phi Gamma Delta does a great job of fulfilling its purpose.

I think that most recently we have shown that we can be excellent in our philanthropy work and our brotherhood. This year’s success in the Rivalry Run shows the power our chapter has when each one of its members rallies around a cause. I was so proud to tell family and friends about our success in the Rivalry Run this year, and I think that continued success will foster an incredible relationship between our chapter, the Stephanie Spielman Fund, and the Ohio State University. Our brotherhood is also fantastic. The thing that makes Fiji brotherhood so amazing is, as another brother put it, we all look out for each other’s best interest. Everyone in the chapter has a passion, and pursues excellence in that passion. Each person is more than willing to share that passion with the chapter as a whole, and open themselves to the chapter at large. Brothers approach their academics with such passion, and anyone struggling with a class can find a brother who can guide them through it or point them in the right direction. The thing I love about Fiji is that I am surrounded by people doing amazing things every day, and their great triumphs spur me on to be excellent in the things I do.

That being said, Fiji is not perfect. Like other brothers have pointed out, we have grown complacent in a couple areas. I think that recruitment is still an area we must work. It is crucial that we continue to replace ourselves with quality men. While this may be stating things too simply, one of the things I took away from State Day this weekend was something Bob Neebaum said, “If you want to raise your chapter GPA, recruit men who have higher GPAs than you.” This idea can be applied to anything our chapter does. Recruitment should be the crux of our vision. If we want to be better at something, we should not only encourage brothers to work towards it, but we should recruit towards it. I think that our chapter attracts great men, but we must be out there selling it to them or else they’ll end up somewhere else. Another area we’ve become complacent in is service. I think we must work to redefine service in our chapter’s collective mind. No longer should service conjure thoughts of dreary hours cleaning trash up off a city street. Service will still involve doing jobs just like that, but I envision service as the ultimate brotherhood event. Not only do we grow our own brotherhood when we all participate in service together, but we reaffirm our brotherhood with the entire world. For isn’t that the true message of our value of friendship? We aren’t just friends with our brothers; we are friends of the world. By serving our communities we share a piece of Phi Gamma Delta with the world.

Moving on to IFC and its strengths and weaknesses, I think IFC has the power to be a crucial player in incorporating positive change throughout the fraternity community. I believe that IFC has the best interests of the community at heart, and that its vision for the fraternity community is the right one as we move into the future. That said, I think that the problems with IFC lie in that its perception within the Greek community is negative, and that this perception keeps chapters from buying into it. A lot of this trouble lies in IFC’s transparency. Not many people know much about how IFC works, how it comes to decisions, what it is actually doing. This promotes all kinds of hearsay about IFC. The thing about hearsay, is that it gets worse as it passes from person to person, and people are going to believe what they want to believe about it. Because of this, IFC gets marginalized and becomes a scapegoat for things that aren’t even true. I think that by opening up and being transparent about its decisions and what it is doing within the community, IFC can overcome its stigmas and become the governing body this community needs.

Our community is great because, as the numbers will tell you, being involved in the OSU Greek Life means that on average you outperform campus at large academically, and you’re more involved on campus than most students. I know that my observations on this are completely anecdotal evidence, and that many people aren’t Greek and are involved. However, when I meet people who are in campus organizations like honoraries, USG, SAC, and others, those people are more often than not involved with Greek Life. It is a tribute to the Greek Community that our culture dictates that we should involve ourselves in the university rather than keep away from it. However, our community must work to combat the popular image of  Greeks. We must both start living in a way that is congruent with our values while also actively informing anyone and everyone about the good things we do. One of the things that struck me from talking to Sharrell was that OSU Greek Life and the Honors and Scholars center don’t have much of a relationship. Yet, many people I know in Greek life are also Honors and Scholars students. We must work to make both sides aware of this and the fact that we are working to create a Greek community that is the perfect way to augment an honors college experience.

Anyways, let me know what you guys think and I’ll see you on Tuesday.

Blog 8: Doing Service

Unlike everyone else, I’m going to talk about a different service event. Although Rivalry Run is always an extremely memorable service experience, I’m going to write about serving at Honors Day. Honors Day is an event put on by the University Honors and Scholars center as a sort of orientation/info session for students who have been offered admission to the University Honors program. I know it isn’t a stereotypical service event because the people it benefits aren’t exactly “needy”, but I find that I still get great satisfaction out of helping out at the event.

The thing I like best about Honors Day is that I can share my Ohio State experience with prospective students. I like to think that my story can help other students and families to see the great potential that this university offers. Also, I think that if I were back in the shoes of those prospective students, I would want to hear from regular students on campus. I’m not knocking the job of our university ambassadors, because they do a great job. However, I feel that the views of the average student have more resonance because they aren’t immediately affiliated with the university.

The other thing I like about participating in Honors Day, is that it’s a great way to network with other honors students as well as the Honors staff. Several other brothers helped out with the event this year in various capacities, and I was also able to meet several other people who coincidentally are also involved in Greek Life. The opportunity to network makes Honors Day a rewarding event even for those who are helping out.

Like I said earlier, Honors Day isn’t your stereotypical service event. The benefactors are prospective students and their families. However, I find Honors Day rewarding because it is a huge opportunity to meet people and maybe even influence a prospective student’s decision to come or not to come to Ohio State. By participating in this event I’ve learned that I enjoy meeting prospective students and their families, and I enjoy feeling like I’ve made a difference. I’ve also learned that many of my peers share those feelings, and that lots of people like me are doing awesome things here at Ohio State. 

The Dilemma Facing the Fraternal Movement

The Dilemma Facing the Fraternal Movement

In advance I apologize if I get heated or start to rant during this blog. One of the assumptions we made as a class was that the fraternal movement is at a crossroads and is in danger of losing relevance on college campuses. Unlike a simplified thermodynamics problem, the assumptions we’ve made are true in real life. The fact of the matter is that Greek Life wouldn’t just be better if it were changed, it must change.

The biggest dilemma facing the Fraternal Movement right now is ignorance: ignorance of rules, ignorance of others, ignorance of the effect that the poor actions of just one group can have on the whole. This ignorance is the result of several factors. The first is stereotypes. We’re all aware of the stereotypes about Greek organizations. The sad fact is that these stereotypes build an expectation in the minds of new college students that actions like hazing, out of control drinking, and raging parties don’t just occur, but are the norm. The second factor is history. Too many people in this community look back to the 80s and 90s  - a time dominated by reports of chapters just like ours engaging in too many illicit activities to count. The thing that gets glazed over by this absurd nostalgia is the fact that those activities took some lives and adversely affected many others.  The issues facing us as a community today aren’t in spite of those of that time, they are a result of them. The third factor is the failure to realize that our community’s existence is solely dependent upon our ability to work with our host universities. We didn’t exist before colleges, colleges weren’t founded from us. If our actions are contrary to the goal of our host colleges, then we are worthless and expendable. Too many Greek organizations have the attitude that the university and other governing bodies are out to get them. They would rather work towards gaining positions of power in these governing bodies as a means of shielding their chapters from their poor actions than abandon those activities. As a result of these factors, individual Greek organizations are ignorant. Even those organizations who are working toward the positive are ignorant, in that they fail to see that if they don’t work together with other organizations to promote the positive, they’ll be gotten rid of along with the organizations who are causing problems.

It is frustrating being a part of such a community, when I talk to people who aren’t Greek and they immediately start making assumptions based on stereotypes. We talk about how FIJI is a fraternity, not a frat, and I get really offended when people make a stupid remark about me, my brothers, or my fraternity based on some idiotic scene they saw in a movie or on tv. I hate how I immediately get a reputation with some people just because I’m involved in Greek life. Let me paint you a picture. Suppose you’re walking around off campus and you’re in front of the house of one of those “Frats”. Across the street is a house party of people, none of whom are in the Greek community. At the “Frat” house are a bunch of guys doing keg stands and bonging beers, blaring music and acting “Fratty”. Across the street, the partiers are doing the same thing. Yet the ‘Frat’ guys will point across the street and laugh at how “uncool” their neighbors are, and the neighbors will point back and talk to their friends about how douchey the ‘Frat’ guys are. It’s the same crap. The popular notion of college being sold to high school students is that college is a place to party. Why do you think freshmen’s GPAs are traditionally low? Parents who say their kids, “had a rough time adjusting” are ignoring the fact that their kids spent too much time partying and not enough studying. People have forgotten what college is about. College is first and foremost about education. It is about preparing young men and women to solve problems in the real world. Likewise, the purpose of Greek Life is to provide further opportunities for college students to develop the skills they’ll need in the real world. In fact, Greek Life is unique in that it has the potential to produce better human beings than any other college organization can. But that will never happen if leaders in Greek Life continue to be so ignorant and short sighted about their place in the college community. We need to stop living party to party and start living our values.

In many ways, even though many people are working hard in our community for progress, everyone still treats that progress as a big joke. Truth is, the joke is on us.

Red Bull - It Gives You Wings...and collaboration?

I read this prompt and immediately thought to myself, “Man, that’s a tough one.” In a lot of ways, this is something I expect to get asked in a job interview. So I sat down for a while, and – slightly distracted by Facebook (Millenials multi-task remember?) – it finally hit me. The best and most obvious time where I engaged in an authentic collaborative effort was last spring when a small group of brothers and I designed and built our chariot for the Red Bull Chariot Races. 

A week or so before the races, I met in the FIJI house dining room with a few brothers, and we pulled out a big dry erase board and listed all kinds of ideas for the chariot. Everyone’s opinion was respected, and all the ideas were considered at first. Once we had a sizeable list, we talked about pros and cons of each idea. Together, we addressed issues like the time required to build, ease of finding materials, and strength of the design. We came to consensus about some defining characteristics our design should have in order to be successful. We judged our ideas against these characteristics and constraints to conceive our final design. For instance, one of the ideas was to create a system by which the wheels could swivel and help steer the chariot.  We dismissed this idea because of its technical complexity. It would take a long time to design something like that, and that system would be easily broken. We were time-limited as the races were in a week, and one of our priorities was strength. Similarly, another design idea was to use children’s bicycle wheels on our chariot. This was something we stuck with because the wheels would be strong, while the chariot’s center of gravity would be low.

Having agreed on a design, we set out to build the chariot. The same group of brothers was extremely helpful, and everyone played a vital role, whether it was screwing 2x4s together, measuring pieces, or just providing input. We were able to build the chariot over the course of two days, and put the final artistic touches on it the day of the chariot race.

As many know, we went on to win the chariot race.

From the experience, though, I took a lot of valuable lessons. First, a small group who is energized around a goal has a lot of power. When you approach the task in a way that involves everyone and seeks to collaborate, you are far more likely to succeed. I have no doubt that we were able to win because everyone felt so personally invested in the project. It wasn’t only that we were representing our fraternity, but that we were representing ourselves as well as the value of the time we’d put into our creation. Finally, I saw the power that our group could have on the rest of the chapter. Our hard work and our victory really lit a fire under the chapter, and the chapter really carried the momentum of the chariot races into Greek Week and Islander.

These are lessons that I keep in mind in my role as a chapter officer. Much of our approach as a cabinet has revolved around getting the right people in the right places to energize our various committees towards being successful. I know that if we can be really successful in something like Rivalry Run, Education, or Service, we can build off that success.

Bonus Blog! Ayrton Senna - A Legend

Ayrton Senna – Perhaps the Greatest Formula 1 Driver of All Time and Possibly Its Biggest Paradox

You all should have expected my bonus blog to involve Formula 1. I’m going to tell you a little bit about Ayrton Senna, and link some themes from his life to our class. Now, before I get into it, I’m letting you know right now that this blog may be a little heavy on the videos. I apologize, but I don’t believe that my words alone can do Senna the justice he and his legend deserve.

If you have the time, I urge you to watch the following video (divided into two clips) created last year by the presenters of the British TV show, Top Gear.

Ayrton Senna da Silva was born in Sao Paolo, Brazil on March 21, 1960 and passed from this life on May 1, 1994. He was the son of a wealthy Brazilian land owner, and at an early age he developed an interest in motor racing. By 1984, Senna had won two Formula Ford championships as well as the British Formula Three Championship, and he graduated to Formula One with the Toleman team. That year, his drive in a extremely wet Monaco Grand Prix showed flashes of brilliance to come.

He moved on in 1985 to the Lotus team, and with that team he scored his first few victories. In 1988 he moved on to McLaren, where he would become a star. It was with McLaren that his rivalry with teammate Alain Prost (another one of F1’s great drivers) began. Senna would win the 1988, 1990 and 1991 Formula One World Championships, all with McLaren. I’d like to focus on 1989 and 1990 as well as a few other incidents in Senna’s career that make his personality such a paradox (and relevant to this class).

I mentioned that Ayrton had a rivalry with Alain Prost, that is the understatement of the century. No two men before or since have ever had such an acrimonious relationship on and off the track as Senna and Prost. Senna’s character made him a very tough person to get along with, and this stemmed from his values as a racing driver. Some of Senna’s memorable quotes speak to this extent:

“Being second is to be the first of the ones who lose.”

“Racing, competing, it’s in my blood. It’s part of me, it’s part of my life; I have been doing it all my life and it stands out above everything else.”

“Winning is the most important. Everything is consequence of that.”

You must take the compromise to win, or else nothing. That means: you race or you do not.”

Clearly, on the racetrack Senna had one objective: to win. His determination to do so was so great, that it garnered him a reputation for being reckless. The 1989 Japanese Grand Prix was the first incident, which lead to a greater incident in his career one year later involving reckless determination. In ’89, while dueling with teammate and rival Prost for the lead and the championship, Senna and Prost made contact. Prost, his car too damaged to continue, retired from the race while Senna was pushed back onto the track by the track marshals and continued. He was then black flagged for receiving assistance and disqualified, handing the 1989 championship to Prost. Debate exists to this day about whose fault the accident was, but a year later, Senna took his revenge. In 1990, this situation again came down to the Japanese Grand Prix to decide the championship. This time, Senna started from pole, with Prost’s Ferrari in second. Prost gained the advantage at the start, leading into the first turn. Senna, determined to pass or at least secure his championship, dove to the inside where there was no room and drove into the side of Prost’s car. Both drivers retired from the race, and Senna won the championship

Yet, Senna also showed an amazing compassion for his fellow drivers. In 1992 at the Belgian Grand Prix, French driver Erik Comas was involved in a massive crash. Senna stopped his car and ran across the track to Comas’ aid. Later he visited Comas in the hospital.  The most somber event in Ayrton’s career also showed the Brazilian’s compassionate side.

The weekend of May 1^st, 1994 will live on forever in motorsports infamy. During Friday qualifying, young Brazilian Rubens Barrichello slammed heavily into the tire barrier, breaking his nose, arm, and swallowing his tongue. Barrichello was a protégé of Ayrton. Saturday during qualifying, Austrian driver Roland Ratzenberger was killed when the front wing broke off his car, and he crashed into a concrete wall. Senna was visibly distraught after these two incidents, and in the Sunday (race day) drivers meeting, he called together his fellow drivers and urged them to recreate a Drivers’ Safety group. He volunteered himself to be its first leader. Despite the weekend’s already horrific events, Senna and the other drivers started the race. On lap 7, while leading the race after a caution restart, Senna’s car went off at the high speed Tamburello curve. He hit a concrete retaining wall at 135mph. After being airlifted to the Bologna hospital, Senna was pronounced dead. As track officials examined his wrecked car they found a furled Austrian flag, which Senna was going to raise upon winning the race in honor of Roland Ratzenberger.

Like that, one of the world’s greatest drivers was gone.

As his Formula 1 career shows, Senna was a paradox: obsessed with winning to the point of ruthlessness, but also deeply caring about his fellow drivers. Near the end of his career, Ayrton began to realize the plight of children in his home country. He donated around $400 million dollars to children’s charities by the time of his death. He created a cartoon character – Senninha for children’s books. Finally, he set the groundwork for what would become the Instituto Ayrton Senna, a Brazilian organization whose mission is:

 “Based on Ayrton Senna´s life and ideals, our mission is to positively intervene in the lives of Brazilian children and adolescents, providing them with conditions and opportunities to promote their full development as human beings, citizens and future professionals.”

http://senna.globo.com/institutoayrtonsenna/

So as we can see, Ayrton Senna worked to create positive social change in Brazil. I’d say he lived congruently with his values, but those values were often at odds with one another. Yet he remains a legend, not because of what he did on the track – that only made him great – but because of what he did with his fame and fortune off the track.

I’m hoping that this blog will lead to some discussion about values, congruence, and social change and whether or not it is acceptable for us to have values at odds with each other, or to struggle with perfect congruence. Regardless, I hope that you look more into Ayrton’s story, and that you find him as inspiring as I do.

I leave you with two quotes.

“Wealthy men can't live in an island that is encircled by poverty. We all breathe the same air. We must give a chance to everyone, at least a basic chance.”

“And so you touch this limit, something happens and you suddenly can go a little bit further. With your mind power, your determination, your instinct, and the experience as well, you can fly very high.” – Ayrton Senna