Panel Discussion

        “Image over time equals reality.” This is striking. I really didn’t catch onto what was meant by this, but after talking about it with one of my sisters this past weekend I feel like a light bulb turned on in my head. If as a community, as a council, as a chapter, or as a member we want to see change then we have to imagine change. The way that I interpret this quote is that we have to set our standards for ourselves and for our chapters, which is already accomplished through our mission statements and purposes. What we also have to do is see the outcome or “image” that our mission statements and purposes produce. What do our values look like? For example, my chapter’s first purpose is: Serve the University, campus, and community. The action that results from that standard is seen weekly when we go to West Broad Elementary to tutor 2^nd grade ESL (English as a Second Language) students in a smaller setting to help them improve their language and communication skills. The way that we had envisioned our purpose was by imagining our chapter getting involved with younger children in the Columbus Community since our philanthropy is the Boys and Girls Club. I would like to see my chapter evolve in our other purposes as well by following the mentality of “image over time equals reality.”

        Another advice that was given by one of the panelists was that as a chapter we need to hold each other accountable for our actions and make sure that we are all upholding our values. That’s fair game. But there is a second part. If we see a member not acting in accordance to our values, then we need to be the leaders that we are and show them that they are not upholding our values. I personally know that this is one of the hardest things to do. It makes you step out of your comfort zone because you have to ignore what your brother/sister might think of you or if it might change your relationship. As uncomfortable as it can be I did appreciate that statement because sometimes a member does need an accountability partner to check them when they are not behaving appropriately. I personally want to work on this because it will also make me more cautious of my own actions if I am helping my brothers and sisters stay on the right path.

        There was one last comment that stuck with me over the weekend: the act of acknowledging the people who do show their dedication instead of dwelling on the people who do not. When talking to one of my sisters about this we realized that we really needed to hear that. I feel that maybe we have overlooked the positivity that some of our members bring to our chapter and have stressed too much over the slip-ups that our chapter faces.

        Overall, the panel discussion did give me some insight on how to better my chapter while also bettering myself as a leader. I became more aware of the power that I have in leading elevation. Watch this video that can also inspire change.

Making an Oath to an Oath

When I took an oath to uphold my fraternity’s eight purposes I made an oath to more than that. I made an oath to respect, treat with value, and care for each member. An initiation oath is a promise to keep the secrets of the fraternity, to promote the fraternity, not to join another fraternity, and for the new brother/sister to improve himself through the fraternity. This initiation oath is to connect the new member to the brotherhood forever.

As I took on my own oath I realized that I have to carry that out every single day. When I go to my chapter meetings, go to class, plan events, participate in community service, interact with other chapters, when studying, and wearing my letters I am putting into action what I said I would uphold: academics, professionalism, serving the university campus and community, responsibility, self-growth, promoting inter-fraternity relations, etc. I see my oath in everything I do. Here is a look at how one of our chapters puts into practice our oath.

An oath is also a promise that someone makes to himself/herself OR to another person. In my eyes, an oath in terms of the fraternity life is a lifetime commitment to the organization and brotherhood/sisterhood. As we all know, being part of a fraternity or sorority does not end after graduation. It carries on for life and that means that as an adult, as a professional, and as a person each one of us is personally responsible for carrying out our respective organization’s purposes, mission statement, and values.

A perfect example of a person that continues to follow through with his fraternity’s purposes and mission statement is one of my fraternity’s founder: Juan Casimiro. He is also the founder of the Casimiro Foundation, Vice President of Programs and Global markets for Excent Corporation, a Big Brother to three elementary students from Miami-Dade Public Schools, and many more unbelievable things. His biggest project is his Casimiro Foundation which is a youth development organization providing a variety of gifts and services to communities in developing nations around the world. His foundation’s “mission is to proactively foster education and social entrepreneurship globally. Seeking to accomplish that mission as part of an effective sustainability strategy, the Casimiro Foundation, a 501(c)3 non-profit organization that empowers and prepares students to be global leaders.”

The oath that this founder took 25 years ago still continues to exist today. This is what I look up to and hope to see many Greek members follow this example. An oath is a guideline a new member follows throughout their service to the chapter during their undergraduate involvement, and is a lifetime commitment.

Incongruencies

          A simple explanation for why incongruencies exist in fraternity life is that no one is perfect. A better explanation would be that when people join social fraternities and sororities they are concerned MORE about the social aspect rather than the values the organizations are meant to live by. Think for just one moment. What was your first reason/thought for wanting to become Greek? There are many reasons, such as an opportunity to make connections, join a lifetime network, to have friends who party, attending formals, having older friends to get you into bars, etc. It is more of the social aspect of Greek life that probably got you interested in the first place. And you cannot be blamed since a big part of recruitment does involve a lot of socials.

This is where I think Greek life becomes incongruent with each organization’s values and mission statement. There is more of a focus (or more so the community sees this) on the social life and interaction WITHIN Greeks, and less time and energy is spent on reaching out to the community. I personally think that because we centralize our attention on planning events (and a lot of socials) with other Greek orgs (because we want to create a stronger community within ourselves and get to know other Greeks) we often forget to tailor our events more towards the OSU community. Although most of this is not done on purpose to exclude non-members, having too many socials that only attract members of the Greek community (whether or not you realize you’re narrowing your target down to Greeks only) may not always be the best thing to do.

In my chapter we face one of our incongruencies with the first part of our mission statement: To promote continued personal and collective growth of our membership. Our membership is lucky enough to have a mixture of personalities which at times gets in the way of maintaining consistency since there is so much diversity in characters; we face dynamic interpersonal interactions. This means that at times we bump heads with one another when deciding on something, or we prefer to stay quiet about our opinions instead of confronting a member about the issue that is bugging us. It is normal to have this kind of conflict when a group is involved, but the bigger problem is when members do not fully embrace the difference in personalities and look beyond them. We are here to help build each other into greater people, and by avoiding confrontation we hinder ourselves from accomplishing a part of our mission statement.

To promote continued personal and collective growth of our membership, success and unity through education, leadership, cultural awareness, and community service.

                Our fraternity embodies true family support, brotherhood and

sisterhood. We hold a very strong pride in the fact that we are familia that helps better each member personally, academically, and professionally. Our members grow through our many opportunities for community service, academic support, campus involvement, and everlasting friendships. We promote collective growth of our membership by holding each other accountable to our stated values. As a familia we do not let a member fall short on the promise he/she made to the fraternity, and therefore we uplift each other when we see that a brother or sister needs an ecouragement.

The fact that we are a co-ed fraternity makes us very unique. The brothers have a bond that sadly can only be understood by them only just as the sisters share a close attachment with each other. But when we’re all together our familia ties are even stronger. The sisters keep our mission statement alive with the everyday work we put into keeping our fraternity in tact, and the brothers are the glue that hold it together and do not let it fall apart. Because both genders contribute something special to the familia it keeps us united in our time spent together.

             We promote personal growth of our membership by dedicating the necessary resources to promote healthy life-styles and to encourage each other to emphasize our common core values. One of the values that we hold to high standards is that we positively affect intelectual development by maintaing grade point averages and graduation rates. Also, as an incentive to keeping high GPAs we have developed scholarship programs that challenge our chapters to achieve academically, provide scholastic support, involve faculty advisors, and recognize both improvement and excellence in academic performance. Many of our members, especially in our chapter, are recognized through academic achievement, especially since many of our members have been inducted into Order of Omega.

           

I believe that the best example of how my fraternity stays congruent with our misstion statement is through leadership. We highly encourage members to take a positive leadership role within our chapter, Greek community, campus, local community, public, and society. We have many alumni that are still active in the Columbus and OSU community which shows that our leadership involvement does not end once our undergraduate career ends. The only thing that we tend to not stay in congruent with is the last part of our mission statement. Although we have do encourage all members to participate in community service and our philanthropy we are lacking in hands-on involvement. The biggest issue preventing my chapter from engaging more in this area is due to the our busy schedules. It is very hard to find time where 100% of our membership can part take in community service.

We believe that our brothers and sisters must take a more active role in our communities. As the fastest growing segment of the population, Latinos are in need of good leaders. This necessitates a continued progress and success. Alpha Psi Lambda is an organization committed to fostering both leadership and unity. We are innovative in our pursuit of participation in a wide variety of activities both on and off campus. We brake away from the negative stereotypes of Greek-lettered organizations, and become the pathfinders for Latinos in general, and for others to follow.

Organizational Values

A college education is a determining factor in professional success. Researchers estimate that a college degree is worth $1 million in additional earnings over the course of a career—and deeply affects quality of life in many ways. Unfortunately, each year, nearly 200,000 college-capable high school graduates from low-income families do not enroll. 

The fact is that low-income students who get A’s on standardized tests go to college at the same rate as their higher-income peers who get D’s on the same tests. Thousands of low-income high school graduates who could succeed in college don’t even submit applications. Not every high school in the United States is fortunate enough to presume opportunities in higher education. For those students who have potential to succeed in college, but have never been motivated, an organization is there to help them pursue that dream: College Summit. College Summit strives to change that fact by helping high schools dramatically increase college enrollment rates. College Summit began in 1993 in Washington, D.C. to provide writing skills and the “know-how” for urban youth to enroll in college. Since then, the program has expanded to 13 states and helped thousands of high school seniors pursue a college degree. For many years, a lot of counties and cities that host College Summit have provided scholarships (through sponsors, such as Deloitte) to many College Summit participants to attend a state college. Many school boards have found the need to partner with College Summit to mentor incoming freshmen; raise money to provide scholarships; and hold public forums to discuss the role higher education plays in their lives.

We live in a time when more than ever our values, our core beliefs, are being challenged and questioned. Reaching a common understanding about the inherent beliefs in the organization provides a platform for further explorations of the norms of behavior that help define the organization's culture. Operating values are the principles that govern the actual decision-making process in an organization. The paradox of operating values is that while they are resistant to change, they provide the most leverage for creating significant change in organizations. College Summit holds many exceptional operating values because this organization aims to create sustainable change.

I chose this organization because I have personal ties with it. I was a participant (also known as a Peer Leader) of College Summit in the summer of 2007 at the University of Maryland, Eastern Shore, and then I became a volunteer in the summers of 2008, 2009, and 2010 as an Alumni Leader at nine workshops in D.C., Maryland, Indiana, and West Virginia. I have seen the background work that all the founders and employees put forth year-round just to make the life-changing summer workshops a success. Through my experience I have seen firsthand their values and they implement them in many ways, such as the following:

• Operating in nearly a dozen states, collaborating with almost 20 urban and rural school districts, and implementing its post-secondary planning program in nearly 100 high schools nationwide.
• Providing training, curriculum, and measurement tools that have helped its partner schools achieve double-digit increases in college enrollment over baseline based on externally verified data, improvements ranging from 10-50 percent.
• Since 1993, supporting more than 20,000 high school students in navigating the college application process, including 7,000 summer workshop participants.
• Training more than 700 teachers and counselors in its in-school post-secondary planning.

The Value of Values

This is such a hard topic to talk about because I never stop to think about this. What do I really value and hold close to my heart? Values mean standards or ideas which most people have about the worth of good qualities such as kindness, freedom, mercy, respect, and love. Your core values are the things that are most important to you in life and influence the way you act, the choices you make, the way you spend your time. The first thing I value, and that comes to mind, is the relationship I have with many people that contribute to the many aspects of my life.



My best friend and I

The relationships that I value the most are the ones with my boyfriend, best friend, and fraternity sisters. There are a lot of things I have learned about myself through the interactions I have had within these relationships. My boyfriend tends to do a lot of self-reflection, which even though it gets annoying after a while, it allows me to realize how important it is for me to sit back and look at how I’m living my life; see what’s missing and what’s working for me. I value this relationship because I feel very comfortable going to him with any problems or issues that I have. I feed off of his positive attitude when I feel the worse, I take into deep consideration his advice, and I really admire his ambitions in life. Now with my best friend I have learned the most. Although I am always the one giving her the shoulder to cry on she does not realize how much of an impact that has had on me. She has struggled on a daily basis with a lot of family drama, but despite her battles it has made her into a very dependent and courageous woman. Those qualities have transpired onto me. My best friend means the world to me. We have seen each other go through one of our toughest times in life, we go on the craziest adventures together, and we have each other’s back no matter what. My fraternity sisters are what bring joy to me every day. As girls we can always talk about everything for hours and enjoy each other’s presence. They create that balance between my busy schedule and the stress that comes with life. Relationships like these are what I value the most in life because they have and continue to shape the way I act and think.

              I also value trust. Two people who have established trust can create more value in their relationship as each has more access to the other’s resources. One can compensate for the other’s weaknesses and each is more free to focus on the things they are personally best at. Two people who work together well will be more able to connect with a third person, and so on. Contagious trust can build fantastic creative communities. Similarly, once distrust is established between two people, their energy gets channeled into defensiveness, which reduces openness, and further diminishes trust, in what can be a vicious circle. Trust doesn’t just happen. It arises from the way people choose to interact. Trust in relationships should not be left to chance. It helps to follow certain practices to maintain and grow trust. One of the stronger principles of humanistic psychotherapy is the observation that love is a verb, not a noun. It is an action, or rather a series of actions, that we do – it is not some magic feeling that we have. This also applies to trust. Trust is created – or destroyed – by our actions. The simplest and most important of these is our ability to keep the promises we make.

Changing the World

          Who am I? That's hard to answer. I am smart. I am enthusiastic. I am patient. I am a lot of things. No matter what words I use to describe myself they truly cannot capture my essence and give you a better picture of who I am. Instead, I have created a more thoughtful presentation of myself that conveys where I come from, what has shaped me, who has affected me, and how I see myself. This quick explanation of myself is called an I Am From poem. Enjoy!

I am from my best friend's fierce attitude, loving soul, and curious mind.

I am from being like a treasure; a rare beauty, hard to find, but worth the search.

I am from THE Ohio State University, home of the Buckeyes.

I am from my mother's soft hands, sensitive heart, and bold character.

I am from my father's stern looks, decisive personality, and patient temper.

I am from a family of past generations who build a pathway for my future out of nothing.

I am from vibrant Latin music, hot tortillas, and a Spanish-speaking house.

I am from taking risks without weighing the consequences, and not regretting my decision.

I am from a Noble familia, Alpha Psi Lambda.

I am from being a daughter, best friend, confidant, aunt, student, sister, teacher, and leader.

          I am from my surroundings, my relationships with people, and my associations with others. In general we are all from our experiences. With that simple thought I plan on changing the world with my experiences. I have already found a basis in which I can change the world and it is where I learned how to use my experiences and the knowledge I have taken from them to enlighten the experiences of others.

          For the past two years I have taken on the position as an Alumni Leader for a non-profit organization, College Summit, that is designed to build the capacity of high schools to raise their college enrollment rate and build the kind of college-going culture that helps all students in the program stay on track academically and graduate college ready. As an Alumni Leader I volunteered for their intensive summer workshops to support and encourage high school seniors through the College Summit process by facilitating activities to help the students achieve the goals of the workshop: (1) completing a college application; (2) learning about financial aid; (3) compiling a list of recommended colleges; (4) writing a personal statement; (5) learning what it means to be a “Peer Leader.” I have been able to share my collegiate experiences with students that are so eager to know more about all the aspects of college life. But the way in which I changed the world the most was by making a connection with the students that really thought college was not for them because of their poor grades, low tests scores, and because they thought they were "dumb". I was able to change their perspective on what intelligence really entails, and after a few days they came to the conclusion that college work is more of putting forth an effort and working hard than it is having a high IQ. I want to change the world by sharing my experiences.