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.