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.