The time is now. Will you make a difference?

For ten weeks I have had the privilege to work with four passionate men and women to bring about positive and values based change to my chapter as well as the Ohio State Greek community. Directly experiencing social issues as well as learning about them from peers has shown me that consciousness of self is the most important C in the Social Change Model when becoming a change agent.

Consciousness of self allows an individual to start their leadership journey in the first place. Equipping an individual with the skill set to analyze who they are as a person and leader is a crucial component of growth and positive change that impacts more than just oneself. It is in this part of the Social Change Model where individuals are identified as leaders or followers.

I so deeply believe that leadership is a combination of the active choice to lead as well as the innate and undying passion for positively changing the network an individual belongs to. I had to choose to be the president of my organization. I have to choose every day to wake up and love my sisters more than I did the day before, and to continue to work hard for them to give them the best Alpha Chi Omega experience they can have. I make decisions and I choose to lean on my values when faced with making tough decisions. Arguably, leaders can accomplish "leadership" tasks without strong passion and sense of purpose. But leaders cannot enjoy, learn, grow, appreciate, or love their experience as a leader without it. Intangible feelings push people forward to places they never believed possible. Logic can only get you so far when you want to sincerely change and impact a community.

Becoming a change agents is not met without challenges. I believe two of the biggest challenges to becoming a change agent are believing that your effort can tangibly make a difference and staying committed to the change. The first obstacle might be the largest and hardest to overcome. As I worked to create change with my classmates -- the issues we talked about and addressed seemed so large that no matter what we did we could not bring about meaningful change in any way that would impact anyone besides the five of us. It was clear to me that we learned a great deal about the issues we were confronting and that I had personally implemented change in regard to how I reacted to or lead my officers, chapter or friends. (See... consciousness of self never goes away!) But reading and listening to the concerns of an anonymous group of Greek peers made me feel like 5 chapter presidents could never get a grasp on fixing some of the glaring issues our community members had bravely pointed out.

·         How do you create religious tolerance in an entire community?

·         How do five people get an entire group of individuals to respect one another -- to stop elitism and belittling others?

·         How do a small number of passionate people get other four governing councils to want to collaborate and work together? How do we get the individual councils to operate in a manner that serves its members better?

·         Can five people tear down stereotypes that don't exist Monday through Thursday because Greek members care about values based behavior during the week but not Friday-Sunday? 

As you can see, its easy to get discouraged and think that you can't make any sort of progress towards change. There seems to be an insurmountable, gigantic problem that can't be solved with 5, 50, or 500 people. I know I can start small... I can utilize the four other members of my class who feel passionately about the same issues I do. We may not see the change we wish to see right away... that it comes with generations of Greek members who want to make Greek life better and actively work towards those improvements. With the factors that I have control over here and now, I can make steps towards the change I want to see.

As I am in the beginning stages of implementing the change I want to see (through a collaborative Greek peer organization that actively promotes positive/values based social change), it is easy to say that I am committed to seeing the organization form, grow, and implement change. I know it will behard when members do not place the same importance on the issues I feel are most important. I know I will be discouraged when others do not want to work as hard or for as many hours as I do in order to make this change a reality. My passion for my organization, for Greek life, and for giving the future of the Greek system resources, tools and skills will carry me through to the end. Change can be done. It has been done by those before me and those who will follow me. The only thing is.... is I want to be someone to change the world too.

A successful person is one who can 
lay a firm foundation with the bricks that others throw at him or her.  ~David Brinkley

Being a sorority woman does not make me better than you... It makes me better than who I was.

"I, as a proud sorority woman, understand that being a member of a fraternal organization comes with extra responsibilities and expectations.  That when I took my oath to be a life long member, I promised to hold myself to a higher standard every day.  That being a sorority woman does not make me better than you - it makes me better than who I was.  I take my responsibility of being a sorority woman seriously and I get upset when others do not."

 -- Jessica Gendron Williams, Phired Up Productions

Here I am (holding my bid card!) starting my journey as a woman entering the sorority community -- aimless and hopeful of the possibilities and opportunities ahead of me. I joined the unknown world of Greek life ready to build truly meaningful relationships with a group of strangers that I hoped, and on some level knew, that I would be  their sister for a lifetime. I wanted to get involved in all aspects of my chapter but I had no idea what that meant. I knew I had leadership opportunities available to me because my sister had done it in her chapter. If she could lead, surely I could do the same. It didn't matter that I was one out of 104 strangers. I was in a sorority. My life was going to change for the better.

Reflecting  upon my membership thus far, my ideas of what role I want sorority life to take in my own life have changed drastically. Now, pictured here as a Chapter President and collegiate delegate at Alpha Chi Omega's 57th Biennial National Convention, sorority life means more than involvement or leadership. My vision of how I want to live my sorority life has changed drastically as well.

I joined a sorority to be a better woman: to develop my social interacting (building relationships) skills, participate in organizations on campus, impact a community of people with like-minded ideals. I decided to participate in chapter leadership so I could have a louder voice in steering our organization towards true success, at Ohio State and nationally. I chose to run for Chapter President because I wanted to empower others how Alpha Chi Omega had strengthened, challenged, and loved me. As President, if my members do not leave our doors a better woman in four years, I have in a way failed them. Of course, it is up to the individual to take advantage of opportunities before her but if I do not provide those experiences, I have failed her and my organization.

My vision for my life is to impact women in a positive and uplifting way. To show them that they deserve the best education, the utmost respect, and the tools to empower themselves and others. To show them that making hard decisions is a necessary part of life -- and when forced to make them, leaning on your values is the best way to do so. To show them that making socially responsible decisions may not be popular but are always in the best interest of herself as well as others. To help them experience that a sorority is more than a club -- sororities aren't about drinking with your best friends, or shopping together all of the time, or focusing on how to seem more attractive to men --- sororities are organizations that challenge your moral center andstrengthen your values and beliefs. To show them that expressing love for the organization through volunteering and positive attitudes will mean more to them in 10 years than they ever could have imagined. To push women to the forefront as authoritative, intelligent, poised, innovative and philanthropic. My vision for my life is to make sorority womens' experiences valuable and meaningful to them in a way that they will treasure their experiences and allow them to shape their future.

I have grown as a sorority woman. I have gained valuable experiences I could not have acquired anywhere else. I have recognized the importance of Alpha Chi Omega, in all of its aspects, in my life. I am ready to share that with every woman in my life and those I meet in the future.

We're ready for a big change.... Please don't slow us down...

Lets just chat about how silly Greek Rank is. Or how it stands for every stereotype that Greeks at Ohio State work so hard to prove wrong. As chapter presidents who want to make a true difference in each of our chapters, we also wish to improve the Greek community to provide the best Greek experiences for each of our members. We each have our own frustrations and each time we try to solve problems or push our members to truly live by our organizations' values,but of course we are met with some form of resistance. Whether it be members who are apathetic, other chapters' members who behave inappropriately, or even councils that seem unresponsive to our needs, people who want to implement change face challenges.

Through this leadership class, we have identified three serious problems that perhaps we can start tackling as a community. Relationships.Elitism. Respect.  As community members, we don't communicate with each other -- we brush off emails if they aren't something we are personally invested in, or forward it on to someone else because we don't have time to deal with it. We don't make an honest effort at communicating with chapters outside of Homecoming or Greek Weeks. We don't plan collaboratively with our MCGC/NPHC pairing like we should. Individuals/chapters think they are better than others -- refuse to plan TGs because the requesting chapter isn't hot enough, party enough or just straight up aren't "cool" enough. Women degrade themselves in silly costumes with plunging necklines and incredibly short hems. Fraternity men treat sorority women in ways that any parent would be appalled to see.... and sorority women LET this behavior happen. We talk about our values and what we wish to see but our actions are incongruent with what we say.

I finally have the opportunity to work with four incredible people to seriously attempt a meaningful, important change which can bring a huge positive impact on Ohio State's Greek community. We want to create  community that is unified, collaborative and consists of upstanding members who treat others with respect. We are ready to bring change. Jump on board... We need your help.Lets be better Greeks.

When will we stop competing against each other and start working together?

Now we see everything that's going wrong 

With the world and those who lead it 

We just feel like we don't have the means 

To rise above and beat it 

It's hard to beat the system 

When we're standing at a distance 

So we keep waiting 

Waiting on the world to change 

It's not that we don't care, 

We just know that the fight ain't fair 

So we keep on waiting 

Waiting on the world to change 

Discussion during class was interesting... and I finally realized how frustrated I really am with how much sororities/fraternities compete with each other instead of actually working together. John Mayer puts my feelings toward the Greek community and its level of collaboration into concrete words. As a community, I feel for the most part we want to work together, but we don't. It's not that we don't want to change the way we interact, no one really starts the movement or not enough chapters jump on board. Chapters might want to build better relationships but might run into frustrations with their council. It's not that we don't want to implement change, it's that every time someone has tried, it has never truly succeeded to the point where the entire community is involved in the success or change.

Sororities compete with each other fiercely during formal recruitment with the best themes or decorations by keeping everything secretive. Fraternities compete to increase their membership as well... holding as many recruitment events as they possibly can in the beginning of each quarter. Wouldn't every chapter of each council flourish if we all shared recruitment "secrets" to make the process less stressful and artificial on the Greek side and make it more about the potential new member... arguably getting more members that more accurately match the right organization? 

Alpha Chi has collaborated many times in the past, and even the recent past. As a chapter, we worked closely with IFC and pulled of an incredible Walk A Mile in Her Shoes. FIJI, Fuzzie and Pi Phi put together an incredible cancer awareness program just a week ago. Why can some chapters collaborate effectively with one another, but we can't expand it to a community-wide collaboration? What is the factor that keeps us from truly working together in an interconnected network to really push Greek life to the next level? I mean, sure, everyone in their heart believes their fraternity/sorority is the absolute best organization. Why else would you have joined it? What is it about our identification with our letters that is preventing us from working with others with different letters? Can't being Greek be enough of a unifying factor to have Greek members work together on all levels (council exec, chapter leadership, and general membership)?

Ohio State's Greek life isn't truly collaborative. What could we accomplish if it was? We won't know because we are too busy waiting on something else about our system to change....

Understanding citizenship

“The first requisite of a good citizen in this republic of ours is 

that he shall be able and willing to pull his own weight.”

-Teddy Roosevelt

Citizenship is a hard concept to grasp when you don't think about it in a political sense. We all know that as citizens of the US, we have certain rights and responsibilities.  How do we translate that into the Greek community at Ohio State? We each can argue that we have "rights" as fraternity or sorority members, such as the right of respectful relationships with brothers/sisters, the right to know reasoning behind chapter decisions, and others of the like. Of course, members as well as leaders have responsibilities that extend beyond attending chapter meetings and participating in community programming. But does this translate to PHA-IFC-MCGC-NPHC community?

When looking at chapters and their connection to their governing council, relationships may seem productive when in reality they are not. I cannot comment on any council aside from my own. I don't feel a sense of citizenship when looking at Alpha Chi's relationship with the other sororities or our Executive Board's relationship with PHA Exec.

I wish to see change in regards to how sororities interact with one another. Instead of acting as competing organizations we should be able to engage in activities and discussions that bring us together as Panhellenic women. Attempts at uniting the chapters have been made, most memorably through the Alpha Party (hosting a dinner and team building activities for all chapters that begin with Alpha) but that doesn't seem like enough. How can all of the PHA chapters gain the desire to want to work together to produce a better Panhellenic community? Can relationships between chapters change with one another when their relationship changes with PHA? I’d be interested to see how many chapters would be willing to hold PHA accountable, as well as PHA holding chapters accountable and if a sense of community and citizenship changes….

Be the change you wish to see...

"Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek." -President Barack Obama

Change cannot happen unless some one starts it. The change may be as small as mentioning suggestions for improvement or as large as completely implementing a new system of how a chapter operates. An issue that I think needs attention within Alpha Chi and the Greek community at large is AXO's participation in PHA. I would love to see AXO's relationship with the council as well as other sororities become more personal and connected.

A first order change that has already been implemented within Alpha Chi has been accountability teams. Accountability teams has appointed our Panhellenic delegate in charge of designating important PHA events to put on the chapter calendar and assigning individuals to attend the events. Leaders within their teams take attendance, organize a meeting place and generally take care of concerns throughout the event and then report back to the Panhellenic delegate. The use of accountability teams has increased participation in PHA events but it has not developed sincere relationships with other chapters or strengthened the relationship between our chapter and the council.

A second order change would include changing the way Alpha Chi Omega interacts with other chapters and the council in general. Our chapter has to be the one to implement the change. Hopefully after an effort to change the dynamic is realized, other chapters will jump in and participate.

Precontemplation: I don't really want to change our relationship with PHA because the effort of just one chapter won't do anything significant. It won't have any effect on other chapters to want to do the same.
Contemplation: I do want to change our relationship with PHA but I'm not sure I can do it, especially if no one in my chapter wants to make the effort towards improving. I can't change such an important relationship alone. The pros of this change include a unified, bonded Greek community that no longer attacks women for catty reasons or promotes a sense of superiority of one individual over another. The cons of this change include me putting in a lot of effort to get women in my chapter excited to participate, finding a way to ensure they stay committed to the goal, and facing the daunting task of involving other PHA chapters.
Preparation: I am going to change the relationship between AXO and PHA. I need to explain to the chapter members why this change is necessary and important for our success at Ohio State as a chapter, but also for our success as accepting, diverse and well-rounded women. In terms of thinking in small steps, I first need to talk with my Exec board and get them willing to participate and believe in the cause, that it will be beneficial for them and for the chapter.
Action: I am actively changing the relationship AXO has with PHA by communicating on a more regular basis with the council or advisors to provide my chapter with understanding to eliminate frustration. I try to offer positive suggestions for improvement if I am inquiring about a problem, this way the recipient of my message does not just think I am complaining and unwilling to offer help or a solution.

Change of this magnitude may be difficult in the beginning but the change that I want to see begins with me taking some sort  of action. Here it goes...