CPLI Recap

This past weekend was fun. Highlights: Thrive Five tape games, wobbling, playing mafia until 3:30am with all the councils represented (Bril, Khris, and Delonzo are hilarious). Building friendships with my fellow CPLC members through all these experiences and others will make Wednesdays from 3:30 to 5:18 more meaningful. The first day of CPLI I lucked out by being chosen to switch from "chapter two" into "chapter five" since Molly and Ashley from class were both in my new group. Andy and I were able to discuss how FH keeps grades up and how his fraternity keeps 100% attendance at all events. FIJI's Adam sure is well spoken and loves his fraternity. My freshman year Adam and I sat down and he showed me the ropes of all there is to offer here at Ohio State. I wrote him a thank you note reminding him of that meeting. In all, the most valuable thing I took away was the new relationships with other chapter presidents. I am already scheduling coffee breaks, lunches, and dinners with them. Since my LEAP goal coming out of CPLI is to reach sixty active members by Fall 2012, I am in need of seeking advice in making first order changes to accommodate the growth. This weekend I decided to sit down with each new exec board member and ask them their goals for the year. Now we can all keep these in mind as motivation throughout our terms.

Week 3: Change

“They say that time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself.” –Andy Warhol

*I do not know the context of Andy’s quote, but I will use his quote for my purposes.

Time is an overarching abstract concept that was personified in Andy’s statement. As he noted, it cannot “change” anything. An individual’s actions lead to change over time. For example, the President or his advisors made a single order change by deciding to create a website after the stimulus/recovery bill passed to show projects where stimulus money was designated too. This is a single order change because many Americans demanded transparency and all the White House needed to do was make a website (See http://www.recovery.gov/Pages/default.aspx). On a side note and in relation to our reading, part of citizenship is political involvement, and Americans need to stay current and express their opinions when appropriate to their representatives.

At the beginning of the quarter live-out fraternity brothers expressed concern that they were left out of fraternity events in the past because of a lack of communication. Part of this was because roles were not clearly defined among the executive board (which we are going to make clear at our first 100% attended executive board meeting Sunday night), and there was not an open calendar in house where people could read upcoming events. Therefore, one of our guys bought a calendar and posted it on the wall. I filled in the upcoming events and we received positive feedback. In addition to the calendar, every new member was finally added to the email listserve so all brothers can email everyone else quickly without typing in each person’s email address. These were both single order changes and resulted in positive change. 

Week 2: School Spirit

For the first football game during my freshman year at Ohio State I painted up. This means I only wore shoes and shorts and covered the rest of my body in paint with a letter on my torso spelling out GO BUCKS in coordination with other painted bodies. Since we had some extra time on our hands after completing the painting process, I decided to lead the group in several laps around the HorseShoe. We have been running around the stadium every game since, and the laps have evolved in running up to C and D Deck leading the fans in cheers. The change I helped make was a positive one not only for personal fitness but also for school spirit. It has been felt satisfying to put smiles on alum’s faces when they see the spirit we have for their alma mater. I learned that college students want a reason to act crazy that does not necessarily have to do with alcoholic consumption (at least for me it did not).

Qualification: I am sure others before me painted up and ran around the stadium too, but the first time I painted up it was only freshman like me.

I love change. I think I look for it in most things I do. In fact, I am ready to graduate and move on to law school even though I am creating great memories and learning much in undergraduate. Today I turned in my graduation application at the advice of my academic advisor. I plan on graduating Spring 2013—one year early given a traditional 4 year track. 

Eric’s blog post today laid out how change is most effective according to the book, which I am not arguing against, but I want to focus on just one step, which is having quick, small victories. Right after I was elected last fall, I worked hard to make sure we won the float contest in the Greek Homecoming competition. We did, and when they announced the results several days later over Twitter in the middle of the night, the entire house woke up and celebrating with joyous dancing and singing. As to managing change, I recall from the book that it is important that non-executive board members know they have a say. The best way to do so is to communicate with the chapter at chapter meetings and over the email list serve what tasks the executive is working on. Discussing at chapter meetings is essential, but I do wonder how growing our chapter membership will affect the ability for everyone to speak. And when others are trying to managing change in the fraternity, perhaps taking them out to dinner on my dime in order to make sure they know that I care about what the say ie changing “initiation week” activities to be more of a “Builder of Men” week even though current actives may say that the new members should go through what others had to go through. 

Week 1: ATZ Island

 “ATZ Island” was the dubbed name of my fraternity in years past. As my big brother tells it, the chapter did its own thing without engaging in the Greek community. The past two presidents before me oversaw major steps that built bridges across Indianola and 14^th Avenue.  As new pledge classes came, old ones went and so did the culture of isolation. In 2010 our 113-year-old chapter merged with FarmHouse International Fraternity, which connected us to 1500 other brothers across North America. We took ownership once again in participating in greek events like homecoming and greek week, and even won a few campus contests with our paired greek organizations. Our brothers became presidents and executive members in multiple student organizations. And now that I took over the reigns, it is my role to cast a vision of growth from our stagnant 20-30 membership range to a 40-60 range. In doing so, we are continuing to recruit men who have the capacity to meet and make friends and who will not return FarmHouse to its island-like past. 

Giving credit where credit is due--this is the area where I hope I am improving. My big brother pointed out to me that as the titled leader I need to recognize and honor those who built those bridges that rescued us from our isolationist state--even though I may be in charge when we see major accomplishments by our chapter. 

Though I think I have always associated social change as something that takes time, over the past month of being in office the benefit of gaining respect first by honoring those who put in hard work in the past is apparent (especially since I was elected just 7 months after being initiated). This made it a whole lot easier to receive buy-in for the vision of growth that I am casting. The results of our shared vision brought in 15 PNMs this quarter (a few of whom are leaders in other student organizations), which is our largest pledge class ever and will put us at 44 members. Life on the mainland feels great.