Value: Choose Your Battles Wisely

When it comes to truly valuing something in life, I feel that one must prioritize what he or she truly believes; the extent that a person believes in something, to me, is the true expression of what a person values. Personally, I feel that a person truly comes to value things in his or her life through experience.

For instance, some of the things that I value are honesty and accountability. These attributes are things that are of value to me because I have encountered situations where these things are extremely important in getting something fixed or accomplished. I have encountered situations where people have been dishonest, and whether it be a boyfriend, a classmate, a family member, or a sister, it will always be something that affects me heavily. In situations where people are dishonest, it only leads a situation into a bigger problem. Thus, from life experience with both dishonest and honest people, I have come to value honesty.

Accountability is a huge piece of the things that I value because it is important for those who make mistakes take the blame for things that they have done and work to make up for it. Without accountability, people would never really learn from their mistakes. I think it takes an extremely strong and mature person to take accountability for their actions. From my experience as a Chapter President, those who take accountability for their wrong doings are in the end helping the whole group. Those who do not take accountability, however, are jepordizing the rest of the group for something that they should not have to be punished for.

In the end, we have to sort of pick and choose the things we value. If were to say that we valued every single desirable quality in the book, we wouldn’t be able to ensure we are spending time on these things that we claim to value. If we focus on a few things that we truly believe in and value, then we ourselves are able to act upon these things more efficiently. We can ensure that we are spending time on these things by monitoring our own actions and ensuring that we are personally carrying out the things that we value.

As a side note, I just want to say thank you all for a wonderful quarter. This class is something that has truly affected me and my leadership style. Being in class with you all and discussing all of our hardships as Chapter Presidents has truly helped to push me to never give up. What I have learned from this class and from all of you has made me work to become not only a better leader but also a better person. Sorry to be so cheesy—but it is true! Thank you all so much and I hope to remain in contact with everyone! :)

“Unless commitment is made, there are only promises and hopes; but no plans” -- Peter F. Drucker

Commitment: Having significant investment in an idea or person, both in terms of intensity and duration. Having the energy to serve the group and its goals. Commitment originates form within, but others can create an environment that supports an individual’s passions.
I feel that Commitment is the most important C to keep in mind when acting as a Change Agent. One of the most important aspects of social change that we discussed very early on in this class is that in order to achieve social change, you must continually engage in the desired outcome. Social change is not a one time thing; it is an actual movement that perpetuates beyond a single service event or group seminar. From this explanation, I feel that commitment is the most important ingredient to acting as a Change Agent because it takes commitment to continue on the legacy of a movement for social change. Without “having the energy to serve the group and its goals” (as defined in the definition in the book), the movement for social change would slowly die out and the role as a Change Agent would become irrelevant.

In my opinion, the biggest challenge in becoming a Change Agent is dealing with adversity, distractions, and pressure from opposition. As Chapter President’s, we are always the most excited about social change and usually have the best ideas for social change within the chapter or the community as a whole, but we are often deterred from the path of achieving these goals by these three obstacles. As we learned at CPLI and GO!, often times as Chapter Presidents we find ourselves managing rather than leading. We are often caught up in adverse situations that usually come unannounced and at the worst possible time every time. Of course, it is vital for us to address and fix these issues, but it is a huge deterrent from implementing goals as a Change Agent. A second challenge to becoming a Change Agent is distractions. Often times in college we get mixed up in the shuffle and lose sight of what we want to achieve. Especially at a school like OSU, it is difficult to focus on one thing at a time. Whether it academic, extra-curricular, or social, it is hard to fit everything into just 24 hours in one day. Being a Change Agent takes focus and dedication, and without these, the distractions that we encounter in life will deter anyone from achieving their goals for change. Finally, the last piece that serves as a challenge to becoming a Change Agent is pressure from other peers who may oppose your goals or views. Often times as Chapter Presidents, it is up to us to make the final, right decision. We often have to make a decision that may be unpopular, but we have to do what is right for the chapter and the community. Caving in to heavy pressure from those who may be ignorant to the facts of what is truly the right thing to do will certainly deter a person from being a Change Agent and achieving social change. Staying committed to your beliefs in this realm will allow you as Change Agent to not only be congruent but also a good leader and a successful Change Agent!

Anyone can certainly be a Change Agent, that is, if they have the right mind set. As long as a person is COMMITTED to their goal and stays consistent with their vision, they can work to being a role model to the community as a Change Agent. In my perspective, Change Agent’s do not always have to be successful in everything they do. Even the most influential people in the world who have committed to and created change in the world have not always succeeded the first time around. At the end of the day, if you are committed to what you do, what you believe in, and what you plan to pursue, all of the hard work will pay off in some way or another and the pieces will eventually fall together.

“Unless commitment is made, there are only promises and hopes; but no plans”
--Peter F. Drucker

My Personal Vision Statement

When attempting to formulate my personal vision statement, I had a difficult time trying to narrow it down to a solid path. There are so many things that I believe in and that are important to me, but they do not all necessarily tie in together. So, I have decided to draft a personal vision statement that ties in closely with my personal vision for Greek life:

"My vision, as Chapter President, is to cultivate friendship and collaborative efforts throughout the Greek community, encourage my members to outside their comfort zone whenever the opportunity arises, and to promote unity of all Greek houses."

Although this vision statement seems a bit general, these three items are things that I believe in strongly. I see all three of these items as helpful ways for us to promote positivity and progression for the Ohio State Greek community.

I believe in friendship and collaboration among all Greek organizations because I feel it is the sole purpose for our existence. Sure there is the sisterhood/brotherhood and pride of individuality, but throughout the past four weeks of my presidency I have learned that the bonds that can be made outside of the chapter house are truly remarkable and are often neglected. So many of our members are often negligent to one another and are often guilty of only wanting to associate with members of their own organization. Personally, I think that we can learn a lot from each other from the many similarities and differences that we all as individual chapters bring to the table here at Ohio State. I have made some pretty incredible friendships with members from other houses, and I want to promote this opportunity to others as much as possible. The things that we can achieve as a community through multi-chapter collaboration is truly incredible; we should be proud of the differences that we can make in the world as single organizations, but these efforts can be even more impactful when we collaborate with one another.

I believe that stepping out of one’s comfort zone is the definition of truly living life to the fullest. I am a very ambitious person, and I feel that it is important to want to strive for diversity. The more that we learn, the more that we grow. Knowledge is infectious, and stepping outside of one’s comfort zone is the way to learning more about not only our Greek community, but also the world as a whole. I believe in the statement “never judge a book by its cover” and “never judge someone before you walk a mile in his/her shoes”. I feel that it is important to learn all walks of life before ever judging someone. This is an important part of my personal vision statement because I believe so strongly in the importance of diversity and learning about others and the world.

The last part of my personal vision statement deals with unity. I see this as a completely separate entity from the “collaboration” section because I think that unity means knowing that we are all one community. Often times we get caught up in our own worlds within out chapters, but I think it is important to always remember that at the end of the day, we are one community. With 63 chapters at Ohio State and 4 different governing councils, that is one hell of a support system! :) There are so many people that we all can reach out to and lend a helping hand to. I feel that often times we neglect the opportunity to unite and it is important for us to recognize all of the great resources around us that we can use as not only support systems, but as friends.

In all, my personal vision statement is all about the big picture. I have this vision because I believe so strongly in the community as a whole. I feel that the more that we open the door to community collaboration, friendships, education, and unity, the more we can progress toward making SOCIAL CHANGE. :)

Blog #5: Collaboration, baby!

I think that individuals find it challenging to collaborate with others because it is often difficult to find a group of people with the same exact vision as you. In order to collaborate and get something done, the group has to agree on working toward the same goal. Otherwise, you are wasting your time in round about conversations trying to tie together everyone’s ideas together. I feel that the things that are most difficult to engage in with collaboration is that often times people are unwilling to give up their initial ideas and mesh them together with others. From my experience, I feel like some people are just too egocentric to admit that another idea may be better than their own. Or, people may be so narrow minded that they cannot seem to detach themselves from their own ideas and accept others. Successful collaboration can occur when there is trust, delegation, and open-mindedness. From my experience, I feel that these three elements are necessary, and without all three, it will never work. More importantly, all members of the group must be engaged fully for it to work successfully. If one or more members are not on the same page as everyone else, it staunches the process and brings the entire group morale and effort down.

Diversity in an organization is beneficial because it brings in new perspectives. It lessens the chance of narrow-mindedness and keeps a group in check in the sense that they would have multiple perspectives to rely on. From my experience, I see that competition is the most important factor behind collaborative efforts. This may be a bold statement, but I feel like in things like Greek week, sporting competitions, etc. this is the time when a group truly comes together to buckle down and get the job done as efficiently and accurately as possible. Competition is often seen as a negative thing, but I feel it can bring out the best in people as far as getting things done and working efficiently. It motivates people to want to be the best they can be.

Citizenship Beyond the "Checklist"

I really enjoy the topic of citizenship because since the beginning of my presidency, one of my main goals was and has been to make a better, stronger, more positive image of my chapter to not only the Greek community but the community of the Ohio State University as a whole. As a younger, more naive student, I used to view citizenship as something where you did your “deeds” to society and called it a day. I saw it as a way to “check off the box of things to do” throughout a certain time period to make you a better person. Now, after experiencing numerous different leadership and community service opportunities, my view has opened up to a broader, more mature standpoint. In this current point in time, I see citizenship as constant engagement with those within the community beyond the required expectations. I see it as an ongoing effort to stay engaged with others in a positive way and working with others to improve the entire community as a whole.
From this experience of growth within myself, I have been able to portray this personal viewpoint to my chapter and try to implement it within our house. In the Greek community, we try to attend as many philanthropy and service events ran by other chapters to help support them throughout the year. We see this as a great act of citizenship because we are not only helping each chapter raise awareness and funds for a great cause, but it also helps us to maintain positive relationships with other chapters. We also do our best to do dinner swaps and collaborative Safety, Health, and Wellness events and service events with other chapters to maintain those relationships among other houses.
In all, having good citizenship is more than just completing a “checklist” of what is required by OSU or chapter guidelines. It is about reaching out beyond those requirements and doing something active and positive to help not only yourself but also others. To be a good citizen, you must transcend the norm or the “checklist” of what we see is right. A good citizen will do his or her best to lend a helping hand to those in need even when the deed has no visible incentive or reward in the end. I feel that if our community works to transcend what some people may see as being a “citizen” and actually gets active and innovative, we can truly work to make some positive changes in our community as Greeks.

Blog #3: Time & Change

"They say that time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself" - Andy Warhol.

This quote is extremely inspirational to me. No-- I do not just love this quote because Andy is a Pittsburgh native -- I love it because it exposes us to something that most people typically don't think about. A lot of people often like to assume or fall back on the safety of the idea that time is our most powerful healing agent. I have been guilty of such an action-- I often assume that in time things will get better, but in reality often times it is more so the action of what you do rather than the length of the waiting period for something to happen.

I feel that Andy’s quote contributes to community change in the sense that he is enabling people to be active. We cannot sit around and assume that nature will take its course and “things will work out the way that they should”. This quote to me expresses the idea that if we do this, we will be settling for a life that is mediocre. If we want to do something extraordinary and create change that is worthwhile and admirable, we have to get up and DO SOMETHING.
This type of active change to me seems more of a second-order type of change. To motivate others to actually change things, you could sit around and write up laws and rules for a lifetime, but it won’t mean anything or do anything unless you ACT upon it. Thus, actually changing things requires the motivation of a person under second order change where we are shaping people’s outlooks and attitudes on the things that we want to change.

I know that this example doesn’t quite relate to leadership in the Greek system, but this came to mind to me when I first read this quote. I thought of relationships and how people often say “time heals all” when you’re going through a break-up. Although I do agree with this statement to some degree, I feel that the best way to truly get through something like this is when you are actively doing things like spending time with friends or focusing on school etc. This example can be applied through the Greek community or in any organization in the sense that if something goes wrong, we should not just sit around and wait for the issue to “cool over” and become obsolete; we should instead tackle the issue head on with active plans and actions to not only resolve the issue but also prevent future occurrences.

In conclusion, I agree that time changes things, but if you want to do something GREAT, you have to actually act upon it.

Blog #2: The Social Change Model in Action

After attending Something of Value, I feel more motivated than ever to do some CP blog work. :) This event was the third time that the presidents of PHA chapters were all together to discuss community wide issues and to work toward solutions and new ideas for positive change. By now, we are all so close that it feels like we've known eachother for years. From this, we are able to have more indepth and personal conversations to truly get to the root of each issue at hand. During our break out session, we mostly voiced concern over the fact that we need to get all of our chapters on the same page; we all meet atleast three times a month and have been able to grasp the same concepts together, but our next obstacle is to bring those views and values home to the chapter. A part of "social change" that I feel has beenr taking place is the simple fact that we all get along so well-- I feel as though in the past chapters weren't as open and interactive with one another as we all are. A part of social change is working together for one major goal, and by coming together and bonding we have taken the first step of moving toward a more unified community. With this unity that we share, we can now work to promote positive relationships among all chapters by using our collective relationships with one another as an example. We, as 16 united PHA presidents, are promoting social change through our action of positive interaction with one another. We plan to bring this to our chapters and want to do this by traveling around to other chapter houses to lead some discussions about things that our members may not recognize as an issue for other chapters too. From my experience working with all of the chapter presidents, I have learned that we are all much more alike than we are different, and together we can truly make a difference. We, as leaders in this community, have worked to bring the communtiy together by starting with ourselves and then branching out to others. I have always believed in community unity and constantly express to my chapter the importance of collaboration with other houses and organizations on campus. I feel that through persistent education and exposure to members to branch out into the community, we can reach our goal of ultimate unity. Once we are all on the same page, we can use our friendships to do some big things in our community!