The power of a print

A month or so ago, it seemed as though my Facebook newsfeed and Twitter stream were full of posts about Lilly Pulitzer prints from women all over the sorority world. My comment at the time was:

"What could happen if we harnessed the power of the sorority women vying for Lilly Pulitzer prints and actually did something meaningful?" 11:25 PM Mar 4th via Echofon


This weekend, the posts about prints have returned in force. I've been invited to Facebook events encouraging me to vote. (I said "no, thanks.") Here's the thing: I can somewhat understand why you want to rally tens of thousands of members around the country in order to be able to say that your organization is the next one to get a print. Somewhat. But I'd understand a lot more if you used that exact same power on a regular basis to do something more meaningful and impactful for our world.

Think about the number of women across the country (and around the world) who have connected with this effort through their national organizations in one form of social media or another. What if just half of those women who have engaged in this effort on some level gave $1 each to the Circle of Sisterhood Foundation to create educational opportunities for women worldwide? Or donated $1 each to your sorority educational foundation to create scholarships for women to participate in educational or leadership events? Or donated $1 to your national organization's philanthropic cause of choice? You could contribute to support students in attending one of the AFLV Global Immersion Trips (as pictured above).  Or one might just simply share about one of these important causes on their Facebook wall or Twitter feed instead of, or, in addition to sharing about how they voted for a print. What if?

We have tremendous power as sorority women. I truly believe we can change the world. That responsibility belongs to you, and it belongs to me. If it makes you feel better, make sure you have a really fashionable matching bag and scarf in your organization's print as you set out on that mission. And, in the meantime, my kudos to the marketing team at Lilly Pulitzer for a job well done.

It’s Friday, Friday, gotta get down on Friday!!

For those of you who are pop culture junkies like me, Rebecca Black has given you a big reason to get through the week until Friday comes. Today, AFLV gives you one more: Day Two of the Western Fraternal Leadership and National Cultural Greek Leadership Conferences. And just like Rebecca Black’s music video, today at #WFLNCGLC11 is going to be “Fun, Fun, Fun, Fun!”

We start the day with a great friend of mine, Jessica Pettit, who will lead us through our opening general session. I met Jess almost five years ago when I was an undergraduate at The University of Arizona. She was a social justice educator for the university, and definitely taught me how to be a better fraternity man through my actions as an ally to others.
We’ll continue our Educational Programs in the morning followed by the Affiliation Luncheon. You don’t want to miss this!! With over 700 people at #WFLNCGLC11, it’s easy to stick with your delegation and not branch out to meet new people. Luckily, ALSAC/St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital have sponsored today’s Affiliation Luncheon that gives us a chance to connect with members of our own sororities and fraternities from other campuses. You’ll also have the opportunity to hear about ALSAC and St Jude’s work, which has transformed the lives of countless families, and find out how you can help their work. Don’t forget to bring a camera to lunch!! Snap some photos of your sisters or brothers. Who knows? Maybe you’ll wind up on your organization’s website or publications.
After lunch, you’ll get a chance to check out some of our featured speakers. Check out pages 23 and 24 of your conference program book to learn more about these dynamic presenters; you won’t be disappointed. We’ll round out the afternoon with two more Educational Program Blocks before heading in to our evening.
This year, #WFLNCGLC11 offers three structured excursions for our guests. There are trips to Anaheim to see an Angels baseball game, to Disneyland to enjoy the theme park, and to the shopping and restaurant district known as Downtown Disney. For more information, please stop by the Registration Desk to inquire about these excursions or to purchase tickets. One important thing to note is don’t miss your bus! If you miss the AFLV shuttles, you will be responsible for your own transportation back to the conference.
I hope you all are having an educational and enjoyable experience! In the words of Rebecca Black, “Tomorrow is Saturday, and Sunday is afterwards, I don’t want this weekend to end!”

Cameron Blair Warner is a member of Beta Theta Pi Fraternity and a Graduate Student at the University of Texas at Austin.

It's Clicking!

As a member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. and currently serving as the advisor to the Multicultural Greek Council (MGC) at the University of the Pacific here in California, I understand that culturally based fraternities and sororities have very unique needs. I have been given the specific task of assisting with the National Cultural Greek Leadership Conference (NCGLC) and ensuring that all of our culturally based members are getting the tools that they need to best navigate their conference experience.

As the first day of the WFL/NCGLC educational sessions get underway, it's amazing to see that the information being shared is starting to click! As a Graduate Intern for the Association of Fraternal Leadership & Values (AFLV), I am truly enjoying all the conversations that I'm having with all of the many students in attendance at the conference.

Yesterday I had the pleasure of assisting presenter Sam Centellas of OutSight Consulting during his presentation, "Quality over Quantity: The Worlds Greatest Excuse." I loved watching him work his magic as he engaged the students in an honest dialogue about intake/recruitment practices. While droppin' some knowledge, the students were challenged to think outside the box and turn the intake/recruitment process into one that is less scary for potential members. Many of the students stayed after to get some extra tips on how they can bring his tips back to their campuses.

I can't wait to see more light bulbs go off as WFL/NCGLC continues. I remember attending this conference as an undergrad (way back in 2008), and really getting inspired to make a change on my campus. I was able to identify a speaker to bring back to campus, made connections with other chapters going through circumstances, and most importantly I was inspired to become a Greek Advisor myself.

If you do nothing else at this conference, make sure that you are taking the time to really self-reflect on what you can do to strengthen your leadership skills and discover what it means to live your values!
See you around!

Shante Hearst is a member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. and a Graduate Student at the University of the Pacific. She is serving as a Graduate Intern for the West Fraternal Leadership Conference and the National Cultural Greek Leadership Conference.

Welcome to #WFLNCGLC11!

It’s here… the weekend that so many of us have been waiting for… it’s #WFLNCGLC11!!!! Did you ever think you could be so pumped up about a hash-tag with no vowels?? I bet you didn’t.
For those of you who have no idea what I’m talking about, for those of you who have never been here before, and for those of you who are just as excited as I am, let me welcome you to the West Fraternal Leadership and National Cultural Greek Leadership Conferences 2011. I’m excited and grateful you have all jumped on board this ship that’s about to set sail.
Let me introduce myself. My name is Cameron Blair Warner, I am a graduate student at The University of Texas at Austin, and a member of Beta Theta Pi. I am a graduate intern for #WFLNCGLC11, and will be serving with ten other rockstar interns and an unbelievable conference staff.

Graduate… what? Interns? Conference staff? The first time I came to this conference (back in 2007), I had no idea what a conference staff or intern was or what they did. If you’re like me you may be wondering the same, so let me tell what I do:
I’m here to help YOU!!

The conference staff have been planning this event for months, and together with the interns, have been training tirelessly to make #WFLNCGLC11 an enjoyable and valuable experience for you and your delegation. If you’ve had a great experience, or want to share something you’ve learned, shout it out! Sign your tweets with the #WFLNCGLC11 to grab our attention.
Today you’ll see our staff around the Hilton Orange County Costa Mesa in burnt orange shirts with silver name badges. If you have a question, don’t be afraid to get our attention and ask for assistance. Some of us will be spread throughout the hotel to help welcome you to Orange County and #WFLNCGLC11, while others will be tasked with specific duties like working the registration desk.
Oh hey, that reminds me! We’re trying our best to streamline the registration process for you so only one person from your delegation, either your Head Delegate or your Fraternity/Sorority Advisor, needs to check in your group. Please be patient with us; there are over 700 #WFLNCGLC11 attendees this year and we want to get you your information as quickly as possible so that you can enjoy the conferences!
The kick-off event of tonight starts at 7:30pm in the Pacific Ballroom on Level B2. I strongly encourage you to use the escalators and stairs to get down to the B2 Floor; with so many of us here at #WFLCNCGLC11, the elevators are bound to back up. After our general session, we’ll move in to our first Educational Programs, followed by the closing General Session at 10:45pm in the Pacific Ballroom. Look for me on stage as I introduce Wendi Fox tonight!
I hope you have a great time here at #WFLNCGLC11!! Stay tuned for tomorrow’s blog… I have a feeling that it’s going to have a lot of “FUN FUN FUN FUN” involved.

Cameron Blair Warner is a graduate student at the University of Texas Austin and a member of Beta Theta Pi Fraternity.

The power of social media

Smack dab in the middle of conference season, the power of social media in our world is more evident than ever. As an association, we used Twitter, Facebook, and FourSquare to interact with our attendees at #CFLNBGLC11 and will do the same at #WFLNCGLC11 in a few short weeks. Our peer associations like @TheNACA and other Higher Ed Associations like @AFA1976, @NASPAtweets , @ACUItweets, and @ACPA are all using social media to engage participants. It is neat to see the connections being made, and the additional learning that can take place on the conference backchannel.

As with most tools, in the right hands they can be used for good - and in the wrong, for bad. Amongst all this excitement surrounding the potential of social media in our little corner of the fraternal world, there has been something that has been bothering me for a while. I saw a tweet re-tweeted by several people this weekend that brought my frustrations back to the surface.

"@TFM: Charlie Sheen parties pretty hard for a GDI, but I don't think he would have survived the weekend I just had. TFM. "

I don't personally follow TFM, because in my mind, following is a silent endorsement, or approval of content. And that is content I'd personally rather not be connected with, thank you very much. But apparently a lot of people I follow, follow TFM. And over 100 people re-tweeted that tweet. Sad. If that is your definition of the fraternity/sorority experience, I'd invite you to spend some time with your ritual, and tell me where your organization has taught you to value "partying hard". And if Charlie Sheen is an example of "winning" then I'd rather be a loser. If that is the experience you'd like to continue to have in college, please go ahead and take off your badge and turn it in.

I did some quick research to see how many people are following some fraternity/sorority related Twitter accounts. As of 9:00am MT this morning, here are the numbers:

@TFM: 74,050 followers
@TSM: 16, 955 followers
@AFLV: 1,687 followers
@FraternalValues: 221 followers
@fraternalthghts: 875 followers
@fraternityinfo: 680 followers
@nicfraternity: 1,369 followers
@npcwomen: 2,800 followers
@NPHC1930: 235 followers
@AFA1976: 337 followers
@FraternalRitual: 373 followers
@GreekCompass: 239 followers

#thataintwinning, friends, that's worse than I thought. Obviously the followers of TFM are not limited to affiliated members. But consider for a moment that there are hundreds of thousands of living affiliated people. Even if only 5% utilize twitter, our followership is dismal. Clearly, the tweeters of the fraternal world need to be doing more to provide valuable, engaging content for followers (we here at AFLV included). And just like in the "real world", we need to be aware that like it or not, to an outsider, our interfraternal brothers and sisters are representing us to the world. Challenge others when their content is not in line with our shared values. We need to take ownership and responsibility.

We would love to hear your thoughts and comments. How do you represent your values through social media? How does your organization? How are we holding our members accountable for representing our founding values in their tweets? Is this a conversation you've even had? What could we be doing differently?

#livingtheritual

We’ve come to that time of the academic year when chapters begin preparing in earnest to initiate its newest members.  If your university is on the semester system, perhaps you are nearing the end of your 8-week new member process; if you’re on the quarter system Initiation may still be a few weeks away.  It’s always been my contention that the Ritual is not simply a ceremony that we dust off 2-3 times a year, but rather something that, if internalized, truly becomes a tool to help us navigate our undergraduate careers and beyond.

So why the # sign (hashtag, in the Twitter vernacular) in the subject of this post?  The value of the hashtag on Twitter is that it keeps a conversation going, or simply tags a comment along a continuing theme.  #livingtheritual can be used as a way to point out when students or staff exemplify their chapter’s values and Ritual.  Sometimes, it is used to identify a situation that runs counter to those values.   It’s a small way to hold ourselves and each other accountable to the things we all swore an oath to live up to.

#livingtheritual isn’t always easy.  I suppose if it was easy, every organization would have a Ritual.  But our letters, for better or worse, set us apart from other organizations and hold us to a higher standard.

The challenge (and reward) of #livingtheritual lies in a recent comparison I heard from a UIFI graduate: Ritual is not a wedding, it’s a marriage.  Simply put, the real work of the Ritual begins after the ceremonial initiation of each new member.  Once the symbols are revealed, badges are bestowed, and mysteries are explained, the hope is that we walk out of the ceremony with a renewed sense of what it means to live as a man of honor, a woman of virtue, or whatever language your own ceremony employs.  In marriage, the work begins after the reception is over, when the gifts are opened and thank you notes sent.

Serendipitously, I’ve been fortunate to be a Greek member as long as I’ve been a husband, with just over two months separating those two important ceremonies.  I try to live as a good husband every day.  Some days are better than others, like when I volunteer to cook dinner when my wife gets home from work late.  Some days are worse, when I have unfair expectations of my wife’s ability to read my mind and know why I am upset or frustrated.

Similarly, there are days when it is easier to live up to my fraternal oath, and days when I rely on my brothers to assist me.  But just as marriage includes the good days and bad ones, so too, does our Ritual.  If your brothers or sisters hashtagged your actions with #livingtheritual, would it be because more often than not, you exemplified your chapter's values, or because you failed to do so?

Just because many of the elements of most Rituals are secret, doesn’t mean that that how we live out those values should be a secret. 

Congratulations to all new members who will start their Ritual journey in the coming weeks; I look forward to seeing how you all #livetheritual.

Jeff Pelletier is a 1994 graduate of Boston College, and a 2006 Initiate of Delta Tau Delta at Ohio State University, where he currently serves as the chapter advisor.  He works for the university on the staff of the Ohio Union, managing budgets and operations for the student organization community.  You can follow him on Twitter @JeffBC94

So you think you can Greek?

The 2011 Central Fraternal Leadership Conference/National Black Greek Leadership Conference in St. Louis has finally arrived!! Training with the rest of the undergraduate and graduate student interns was a blast and we are ready to welcome a record-breaking number of attendees! The energy is contagious and I cannot wait to experience something “life-changing,” as previous attendees have described their experience.
Try and picture this: nearly 2,350 fraternity/sorority leaders from around the country in one convention center discussing all things “Greek.” I cannot help but ask, “So you think you can Greek?”

It’s time to start seeing the bigger picture of the fraternity/sorority community. So you know your organization’s history, values, ritual, colors, chants, etc., but how much do you know about the other organizations in our fraternal family? Striving for excellence and upholding the values of our own organizations is great, but we must continue to advance the entire community…TOGETHER! It’s time to work together, to challenge our perceptions of what Greek really means, and to inspire positive results from our brothers and sisters.

Each conference attendee is bringing a unique perspective. We have new members, chapter leaders, council presidents, advisors, alumni, unaffiliated supporters, headquarters staff, NPC, NALFO, NPHC, NIC, associate representatives, professional speakers…the list goes on and on. Overall, representatives from 164 affiliations are at the conference! Yes, that is 164 different affiliations! I want to see letters I’ve never seen before, I want to hear chants that make me say, “Wow,” I want to have a fresh outlook on fraternal values, and I want to share it with someone when I leave the conference. How about you?

So, do you think you can Greek? Be prepared to think again.

Jon Bell is a graduate student at the University of Kansas, a graduate Intern at Baker University, and a member of Alpha Delta Gamma.