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.