Last Post!

One thing I would like to see change in Greek Life before I graduate would be the betterment of relations between fraternities. In the last few years, there have been many acts of animosity between chapters that is getting a little out of control in my opinion. By doing more events with other chapters and actually begin to get rid of the us v. them mentality, we can progress and create a more positive Greek community.

Behind the podium

Being in an exec position, I can relate to some of the problems that author faced. There are times when I feel like I am the only one caring about what is going on and am the only one left to plan events. When I get to feeling like that, I fall into an apathetic mood and really just want to stop caring.  I would tell the author to try and not let the little stuff get to him. Those brothers just don't understand what it's like being in charge and put too much blame on you.

Looking back...

Since I have been in office, my chapter has accomplished a lot, but the thing that I am most proud of would have to be our participation in Dance Marathon. This event was completely new to us and without any prior experience, we decided to participate and get involved. In doing so, we had most of our chapter donate $25 and over half attended the event. In doing this, I feel that we are becoming more involved with Ball State and in the community. Even if I'm not in office next year, I would still like to see our involvement with Dance Marathon continue and improve.

Oh Women........

I absolutely think women influence the behavior of men. The only reason we have parties are to meet girls and everything we do revolves around getting women to like us. I think if the women changed the way they reacted to how men behaved, the men would quickly change how they acted.
Three biggest effects on guys:

• Following risk management policy
• women not attending degrading parties
• girlfriend asking if you would haze your child

Three things guys could care less about:

• The girl confronting you about trying to hook up with her friend
• The kind of shirt they wear
• the "degrading" serenade 

 The one thing that a girl could do to affect the behavior of a guy would be to tell him he's being stupid or insensitive, and actually mean what they are saying. Far too often, girls tell a guy he's being an idiot one night and the next day act like that behavior was okay because he was drunk. If they were true to their belief, then the guys might just change their behavior.

Brotherhood

Throughout my time at Sigma Phi Epsilon, I have grown to appreciate brotherhood and friendship at a deeper level. Before joining, I had my friends that I would regularly hang out with and considered them my best friends. While I am still close with these friends, I feel that I am not on the same level of friendship and as close as I am with my brothers. Being in a fraternity creates a bond between men in that we are all in the organization for a common purpose. After spending all of our time together, sharing the good times and bad times, and by participating in our ritual, we are unified in a way that an "independent" really couldn't understand.

3 Challenges

1) The biggest challenge I've faced in my position so far has been dealing with the lack of moral in the house. Whenever I plan a brotherhood event or an event in general, people just whine and complain about having to go. It really is frustrating to see most of the brothers not get excited about anything.

2) Another challenge has been developing a New Member development plan. When looking back to my education, it was done so poorly that I feel like I need to create a better one. It has been harder with out a base to develop upon, but it I feel that I'm beginning to get there.

3) Lastly, having to keep track of the chapters academics have been relatively challenging. There are several members who have grades below our GPA standard and I have been working with them to do better in school. Working with these members has been a bit frustrating but I enjoy striving to get our chapter where it needs to be.

Organization Values

Virtue
Diligence
Brotherly Love

Virtue- When looking at virtue, I have been in many situations where I have had to decide whether or not a certain action coincided with my moral beliefs. One of these situations occurred over Christmas break when some friends wanted me to ditch out of spending time with my family and lie to them. I didn't really feel comfortable doing this and my friends surprisingly didn't really pressure me into doing it.

Diligence- A fine example of my diligence can be seen on March 14th when I needed to finish a homework assignment while the weather was perfect. I struggled internally on whether or not I should skip the assignment and have fun, but I decided to be diligent with my studies instead.

Brotherly Love- Recently, one of my brothers and I had a disagreement that turned into a large argument. Instead of being mad at him for a long time, I understood that we were brothers and could talk our problems out in a mature and civilized manner. He agreed and through our brotherly love, we worked out our problem.