Five Wishes for the 2009 AFA Annual Meeting

As we approach the Annual Meeting, I thought I'd list the 5 things I'd like to see in Jacksonville this year. Hopefully, you have a sense of humor as you read below...

1. Comedic skits by various individuals with the following shows as the premise:

• Dating in the Dark: The AFA Volunteer version
• Extreme Makeover: The Fraternity House Edition
• The Office: Showcasing the AFA Exec. Board
• The Bachelor: Rose Ceremony during Employment Exchange
• Dancing with the Stars: Starring past NPC/NIC/NPHC/AFA leadership

2. A red carpet and live feed as people walk into the Closing Banquet

• Can you imagine if there was an obnoxious interviewer asking pressing questions to our various fraternal leaders? Where is Kathy Griffin when you need her?!?

3. Live, on-time tweets during educational programming.

• Instant feedback in a 140 characters....perfect.

4. Fireside Chats in a room with an open bar.

• Honest conversations are sure to be had with a little help from Jack, Jim, and Jose.

5. Live, on-screen betting during the Closing Banquet of when the Banquet will end

• I mean, if $1000 were on the line, you bet your ass people would be into what was next on the agenda.

Those are my five wishes, what are yours? It's all in good fun people!

Disappointment: A Hidden Teaching

Disappointment: A Hidden Teaching

As fraternity/sorority professionals and educators, we observe, and are attentive to students’ emotions on a daily basis. In these daily encounters, we see students who exhibit various emotions such as being happy, sad, excited, inquisitive, as well as students who are disappointed. It is this last emotion I’d like to discuss…disappointment.

How do we deal with disappointment? Surely we have all experienced disappointment at some point in our lives. Whether it was the birthday gift we didn’t receive or those frustrating claw machines that never gave us the stuffed animal we wanted, disappointment is a part of life. So how have we been trained to deal with disappointment? Furthermore, how have we taught our students to deal with disappointment? This article looks at the emotion of disappointment and how we as professionals can aid students when the feeling of disappointment appears.

If you look online and find Merriam-Webster’s dictionary definition, disappointment’s adjective disappointed means, “defeated in expectation or hope.” Read that again…defeated in expectation or hope, not a very pleasant feeling to have at any point in life. For our student leaders, their lives are dependent on creating expectations and goals that they hope will have a positive outcome. However, positive outcomes aren’t always the reality. At some point, disappointment will appear and as educators, we need to be ready.

Addressing Disappointment:

The first step in dealing with disappointment is addressing it with our students. More often than not, students tend to think of disappointment as a bad emotion that needs to be hidden. Students don’t want to let disappointment affect them and they try to console themselves so they won’t be embarrassed in front of others. Sometimes, students won’t tell us what they’re hoping for because they don’t want to have to tell us that they failed. Disappointment can be embarrassing and humiliating.

As professionals, we need to be able to acknowledge disappointment once it has hit one of our students. This can happen in two different ways. For some students, they will acknowledge their disappointment on their own and come to you for support. It is important for you as a professional to really listen to what has upset the student, not necessarily because the issue itself is important but because you have been given an opening to teach the student how to deal with disappointment.

The other way to acknowledge disappointment is to ask open-ended questions to a student who seems disappointed. It is important to address the student in a private setting in which you try to identify what has upset them. In this role, you need to actively listen to the student as they express their disappointment while reassuring them that failing at something does not mean they are a failure.

Share Small Disappointments:

Once you or the student has acknowledged the disappointment and you have identified some of the reasons why the student is disappointed, it would be a good idea to share some of your own disappointments and how you handled them. By sharing a disappointment experience of your own with your student you let them know its okay to be disappointed and that disappointment is a part of life. Discussing how you handle your disappointment gives students a window into the reasoning process that keeps you from overreacting, which they may then craft to fit their own situations. Seeing the fraternity/sorority professional throw the NPC Manual of Information across the room when a rule has been broken teaches one lesson. Seeing the fraternity/sorority professional sit down and talk about the problem calmly and reasonably teaches another.

Teach Students to Recover and Risk Disappointment Again:

Once we have addressed disappointment and have shared genuine disappointment stories, we must then teach our students to move on from the disappointing experience. Chapter elections, relationships with a significant other, a bad grade on a test, a rejection from a potential job employer or graduate school application; each of these are potential disappointments students could face (particularly in the near future).

Recognizing that these potential disappointment “boobie traps” are coming, teaching students how to recover from potential disappointment needs to be a priority. For some students, the thought of possible disappointment stops them from stepping out and trying something new. However, we must be able to challenge their mindset by expressing the thought that if they only try for things that are guaranteed, won’t they be missing out on developing their full capacity? I’m in firm belief that you learn more from your failures than your successes and whatever way works best for you to convey that message to your student should be the focus of the discussion.

For other students, they will recognize that disappointment occurs and they will naturally try again. In that situation, we as professionals must encourage the student in their attempt but also provide critical and constructive feedback to ensure the student understands that being disappointed again is a possibility. Again, depending on the student’s personality and your advisory style, this may look different to various advisors. However at the end of the day, just because a student is willing to risk disappointment again doesn’t limit their anxiety level and fear of perceived failure anymore than a student facing disappointment for the first time. I’d venture to guess that risking disappointment a second or third time might greatly increase anxiety and have more of a lasting effect on a student’s perceived failure if they did in fact be disappointed again.

Thus, we as professionals must be ready to teach disappointment because at any moment, disappointment will rear its unpredictable face and we need to be ready to address it.

Risk Management for Dummies

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 2, 2009

Risk Management for Dummies

Risk Management for Dummies:

The Checklist – The New Policy

• You can drink every night of the week, of age or not, with the intent to get blackout drunk.

Disclaimer: By agreeing to this bullet, you cannot hold anyone accountable for any injuries, hospital visits or death claims in the event you do not wake up from one of your nights out. 


• You may haze every member, new or active, in the hopes of creating a unified force that stimulates stronger brotherhood/sisterhood.

Disclaimer: By agreeing to this bullet, you agree that you cannot use any excuse that would put blame on any member, new or old, for your actions in the court of law. Furthermore, you cannot file a lawsuit or ask for money if you are found guilty in the court of law and sent to jail for your actions. You also agree to demonstrate your hazing activities to your family, friends, and the victims family and friends as well. 


• You are more than happy to degrade members of your organization as well as members of other organizations. It will boost your self-worth.

Disclaimer: By agreeing to this bullet, you agree to showcase your actions to your friends, parents, alumni, and national headquarters. Heck, showcase it to the media and news outlets. 


• You are more than welcome to get shitfaced at philanthropies and service events. Why not serve yourself first before you give back to the community?

Disclaimer: By agreeing to this bullet, you acknowledge that philanthropic endeavors are worthless and that helping others is a waste of time. 


• Go to class only when you feel necessary. Academics are only a small portion of your collegiate experience.

Disclaimer: By agreeing to this bullet, you agree not to hold your friends, fraternity/sorority brothers, alumni, University administrators (faculty or staff), significant others, etc. accountable for your poor academic performance. 


• In your chapter, don’t worry about others, worry about yourself. It is your experience that is important.

Disclaimer: By agreeing to this bullet, you agree that you are more important than your pledge class, the chapter, and the national organization. 


• When throwing parties, don’t have any rules. Anything goes at your events. No lists, no security, no laws to follow…you are invincible. 

Disclaimer: By agreeing to this bullet, you agree to be held accountable for any policies broken, you agree to be arrested, you agree to be sued, you agree to go to jail, you agree to go to a funeral in the event of a victim’s death, you agree to speak to the media, you agree to inform news outlets of your “no rules” policy. Finally, you agree to not hold anyone else accountable except for yourself.

This policy was created to provide you as a student with what you wanted. If you agree with these bullet points & disclaimers, please sign below. 



_________________________________ 

Signature

____________
Date




*Disclaimer: This is not a real policy. This is for idiots.

Questions for my fraternal friends

Hello friends! I took me a little while to think of some compelling purpose driven reflection questions as it pertains to fraternity/sorority life but I think these questions will at least get your head thinking a little bit. In this blog, I ask a series of questions and I hope you will respond with some thoughts and answers to these questions…

1. Applied Futurist

I recently listened to Steve Farber’s (upcoming AFA keynote speaker) free email podcasts series and found them very interesting. Specifically, his simplistic view of business and ability to articulate his viewpoints were very easy to translate to the fraternal world. One podcast that stood out to me was discussing this notion of the “applied futurist.” Farber went on to describe applied futurist as follows:

a. Applied futurists looks at trends, make observations, and makes predictions about what will happen in the future. Applied futurists start acting today, creates things today that will anticipate what that future state of the company (in our case fraternity/sorority life) is.

As Farber went on to explain, he quoted a fellow business man who stated, “companies fail not because they fail to predict it, but because they fail to imagine it.” Farber went on to explain that being an applied futurist is imagining the future and actively engaging in creating that imagination and bringing that imagination into the world of reality.

So my question is who are the applied futurists’ in the fraternity/sorority world? What makes them an applied futurist? Are we, as a profession, encouraging and promoting applied futurists’ thoughts?

To learn more about Steve Farber go here (http://www.stevefarber.com/)

My second question deals with risk management…

2. Risk Management & Suduko: One in the Same?

For those that have never played Suduko, Wikipedia describes Suduko as, “logic-based, combinatorial number-placement puzzle. The objective is to fill a 9×9 grid so that each column, each row, and each of the nine 3×3 boxes (also called blocks or regions) contains the digits from 1 to 9 only one time each. The puzzle setter provides a partially completed grid.”

Is risk management, our fraternal version of Suduko? We know the problems, but yet we can’t seem to figure out the proper “arrangement” for these constant problems to go away? What do you think? I mean, we know alcohol, hazing, eating disorders, underage drinking, binge drinking, etc are the problems, but why can’t we seem to figure out the Suduko puzzle?

3. Neglected Students?

The next question is a pretty basic question that I think is often times neglected…just like I think our sophomore leaders are! Read and respond…

As it pertains to our undergraduate members, have we become so focused on our new members joining, that our sophomore members are being neglected? How are we creating “emerging” leaders and setting up our sophomores and juniors for success?

4. Are you a Seagull advisor?

The final question for today’s blog deals with management. In the February edition of Fast Company magazine, I came across an article that struck me pertaining to management. You can find the article here (http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/133/made-to-stick-time-to-aim-lower.html). My question is…

Have you ever taken a step back and ask yourself if you are a “seagull manager/advisor?” In what the Fast Company article describes as, “Managers who fly in, make a lot of noise, dump on everyone, and then fly out.”

If you’re not, is your direct supervisor or boss? If they are, have you talked to him/her about it?


I look forward to hearing some responses to one of the questions I asked. In the following days, i will be asking particular questions to some of our umbrella organizations (i.e. NPC, NPHC, NIC) so be on the lookout. They may be questions you've been wanting to ask but never have!

Are Sororities relevant anymore?

Watch the following clip and tell me...are sororities relevant anymore?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cYLjMerUD7A


What were your reactions to the youtube clip?

From "Why" to "What"

Before I provide you with another attempt at a purposeful reflection, I’d like to start with a short story. Back in the day, I had this craving to bungee jump. I had seen people do it on TV and I had heard stories from some of my friends who had done it and all they could say was that it was an amazing experience. When I would ask, “Well, why did you do it” most couldn’t articulate the reason why. Most of my friends would just say, “I just wanted the thrill” or “I just thought it would be fun.” Not getting the responses I wanted, I’d ask more pressing questions to find out why they’d risk their life for a small pleasure, “Well, what did you get out of it and how did it feel?” It was then, all the friends I asked would go into anywhere from a one minute rant to a ten minute story of the feelings they had. How those 7-10 seconds felt throughout their body and what it meant for them to take “the plunge.”

Pondering these bungee jumping thoughts, I began to think about how this relates to Greek Life. Specifically, do you ever stop and wonder why we ask this question, “Why did you join your fraternal organization?” I mean, what answer are we trying to obtain from our members…specifically our new members? Is it the response “brotherhood/sisterhood?” If so, did the new members really know what that meant at the time they were joining? Was the response “values?” If so, did the new members really understand the true meaning of the values that your organization espoused? What about the response, “a family away from home?” That my friends is a great response but not to the “why” you joined but what I think is the “what” you wanted out of your fraternal experience. Which therein lies the point of this blog; to start changing the questions we ask our members, specifically our new members, from the “why” to the “what” and “how” questions of what the fraternal experience should be about.

Think about that for a moment. What if we started to ask our potential members and our new members the following questions:
1) What do you want out of your fraternal experience?
2) What interested you to our organization?
3) What personality traits do you bring to our organization?
4) How do you plan on elevating our organization to greater heights?
5) How do you think you will be an asset to our brotherhood/sisterhood?
6) What sets you apart from all the other prospective members interested in joining our organization?
7) In your heart, how would it feel to be part of our organization?

I have come to believe that the “why” question is the walk up to the bungee jump. It provides us with helpful information but not the fundamental thrill that the “what” and “how” questions which represent the actual bungee jump provide. If you were to ask your fraternal brothers and sisters why they joined, they may be able to tell you a story but more than likely, they’d say something short like my friends did when I asked why they decided to face death in the face. However, if you were to ask your fraternal brothers and sisters the “what” and “how” questions, I think they’d paint you a beautiful picture. They’d articulate with great clarity “how” they came to their decision and “what” the deciding factors were.

To go back to an earlier example of one of the common answers I hear in reference to why someone joined their organization, individuals will respond by saying, “I wanted a family away from home.” However, I think that is “what” the individual wanted out of their fraternal experience. I’d argue that the “why” they joined is because of the feelings they had being around those brothers and sisters. Thus, how can they know the “why” before they know the “what?”

If this isn’t making sense, think of it another way in terms of relationships. You have to know “what’’ you want before you can ask the “why.” An example may be that you want to have a relationship and therefore, you will go on various dates to find that special someone. The “what” in this example is the question, “what do you want” (a relationship) and the “why” answer is “to find that special someone.” Some may argue that you could pose the “why” question first in saying that the reason you are dating is because you want to find that significant other but yet you still must know the “what” first because that is your outcome. The outcome of finding your significant other is to get married, to have babies, to enjoy one another’s company.

This leads us back to Greek Life. We have become fixated on the “why” and should be addressing what our intentional outcomes should be (i.e. the “what”). So, for prospective members, what will they bring to our organization? What can they do to take us from good to great? For new members, what can they do now that they are a part of our organization to make it better? Once you have identified the “what” questions, you can move on to the “how” questions to better serve the ways in which the outcomes will be achieved. How will the new members make us from good to great? How can we help them achieve greatness? It is basically asking the question, “what do you want and how are we going to get there.” Once you can articulate that clearly, you can then articulate why you did it.

Here is another example. Lambda Lambda Lamba wants to throw a huge philanthropy event with the profits going to the fight against breast cancer. They want to have a formal dinner and dance and have set up a philanthropy committee to ensure all logistics and needs for the event is met. With that being said, here is the what, how, and why broken down:

The “what” – Philanthropy event
The “how” – Philanthropy committee
The “why” – To fight breast cancer

Enough with the examples, let’s get down to the finale…the end of the bungee jump. If we as fraternal undergraduate and professional men and women focus on the “what” more in our discussions, our conversations will be more authentic. Our stories will be filled with more passion and emotion. Our fraternal experience will be well articulated and provide insight to those that are not Greek. Think about it…it’s not “why” did you do Ritual…it’s “what” did you get out of Ritual. Remember, the “what” is the outcome you want to achieve. It’s not “why” did you join, it’s “what” did you get and continue to get out of your fraternal organization. For those that have been in a job interview, I’m sure you were asked more “what” and “how” questions as it relates to your fraternal experience than the “why” questions.

So for those of you crazy enough to read these blogs, I encourage you to walk the plank and make the “plunge.” I have…both figuratively and literally and if you ever want to hear what it felt like for me, you can just ask. Have a good one!

Intimate Brotherhood

Working with Greek students’ day in and day out is a rewarding experience. As student affairs professionals, we are given the opportunity to challenge and support the students we work with daily in hopes that one day they will take what they have learned and put it to good use.

Well my undergraduate fraternal brothers, I have a new thought for you to reflect on…intimate brotherhood. Your first thought might be, “what is intimate brotherhood” and I’d respond with maybe a better question of, “where has intimate brotherhood gone?” Let me explain…

To put it simply, I think fraternity men have lost contact with what real, intimate brotherhood is. We have come to live in an un-intimate world where we struggle to open up to others because of what they may or may not think of us. Students, including fraternity men, have resorted to blogs and hidden journals to convey their innermost thoughts. Some of those thoughts include pain and sorrow, and even notions of self injury and suicide. So why have these outside methods of expression become fraternity students’ way of expressing themselves and not their own fraternity brothers?

To begin, I think fraternity men don’t know what true brotherhood means anymore. When a man joins a fraternity these days, he becomes part of an organization in which brotherhood means the following: holding the best party, sleeping with the hottest sorority women, and how much alcohol he can drink in one sitting. Thoughts of values, Ritual, and getting to know one another on an intimate level go to the wayside. Therefore, if a fraternity man even attempts to have a heart to heart with a brother, he becomes an outcast and starts to get described as a softy, gay, and a pussy. He is immediately labeled as weak and his masculinity is put in jeopardy. Thus, he resorts to blogs and journals to vent his frustration and prevent this type of negative judgment from occurring.

The second reason why I think fraternity men have lost sight of intimate brotherhood is because they are too caught up in their own world. Brothers don’t know one another even when they are in the same fraternity! I think part of this can be attributed to this notion of “our lives are more important than our friends’ lives.” We, as both professionals and students fall victim to this notion and it can really affect the brotherhood experience. What happens is that our lives become fixated on our problems, our successes, our school work, and our relationships and we forget about our friends and our brothers. We forget about their lives and their problems and we create this invisible barrier that takes away the ability to share with our brothers the intimate issues going on in our lives. Even when fraternity men are ready to open up to one another, they become cautious or hesitant to go first in expressing their intimate issues because of the potential ramifications of what they say or the level of intimacy shared.

The final reason I think fraternity men have lost sight of intimate brotherhood is women and alcohol. This is not to put blame on women or liquor for their existence but moreover their ability to divide a brotherhood. In regards to women, I’d say 9 out of 10 problems that occur within a fraternity brotherhood or between two fraternities is because of a woman. Think about it, one brother slept with another brother’s ex-girlfriend or one brother slept with another brother’s sister. Another example is when one brother has an interest in a woman and another brother swoops in to steal her. I guarantee these scenarios have happened in a fraternity.

As for alcohol, where do I start? Alcohol has become the way to measure brotherhood within a fraternity. If you can’t finish a twelve pack on your own, you aren’t a man; you are a disgrace according to fraternity men these days. Can’t do 21 shots on your 21st birthday? Then you better make up for it by sleeping with at least 5 different women, each in a different sorority.

Alcohol has become the driving force of what brotherhood stands for in fraternities today and it is sad. As professionals, we are seeing more alcohol related deaths than ever before. We are seeing higher BAC levels in collegiate students than ever in the past. Finally, we are seeing more alcohol related disturbances such as fights, injuries, and car accidents than I can ever remember. Plain and simple, students today don’t know how to manage their alcohol intake and fraternities are at the forefront of this evolution. Each weekend, in some fraternity house there are drinking games such as beer pong, flip cup, circle of death, bullshit, and asshole occurring and another fraternity man is pushing his life to the brink. Pushing his body to the upmost limit and if he is lucky, throwing it up in a toilet because his body finally had enough for the night.

I’m not asking for alcohol to be banned nor am I asking for students to stop drinking but I am demanding that fraternity men drink responsibly. I am asking that fraternity men stop buying alcohol for women. I am asking that for one weekend, can a fraternity do an event without alcohol that involves the whole brotherhood?

So after identifying three reasons why I think fraternities have lost their ability to have an intimate brotherhood, how about we reflect on the following questions…

If you are an undergraduate fraternity man, when was the last time you had a genuine, authentic conversation with a brother? When was the last time you cried in a brother’s arms? When was the last time you said, “no man, I don’t feel like drinking tonight because I just want to hang out and chill?”

So what now? Is intimate brotherhood possible? I think so…scratch that…I know so. I know this because I’ve seen it. What does it look like you may be asking? Intimate brotherhood is brothers going camping together with no alcohol. Intimate brotherhood is standing by your brother’s side as he watches his father fight prostate cancer. Intimate brotherhood is sitting together in a McDonalds reminiscing about a brother who just passed away. Intimate brotherhood is staying in on a Saturday night and studying for your test on Monday. Intimate brotherhood is sharing both your successes and failures with your brothers, even if that means tears are shed. Intimate brotherhood is accepting all walks of life into your fraternity (i.e. gay/straight, black/white, religious/not religious). Intimate brotherhood is remembering that no woman should get in the way of the organization. Intimate brotherhood is living the Ritual and not being ashamed to do so on a daily basis.

In the end, I think there is work to be done within our fraternal organizations. I think fraternity men need to realize it is okay to be vulnerable. It is okay to say no to drinking alcohol. It is okay to discuss your problems with your brothers. It is okay to be intimate. If more fraternities had intimate brotherhood, I think you’d see an amazing transformation within Greek communities where women wouldn’t be scared to go to fraternity houses and multiple fraternity chapters could hang out without fear of a fight. You’d see prospective men vying to be part of a fraternity and you’d see fraternity growth prosper at an alarming rate. Most of all, while you may not see it physically, I think you’d see your founders crack a smile knowing that the experience they left for you is in good hands.

Articulating Our Fraternal Arguments

Recently, I was sent the following link:

http://www.themaneater.com/stories/2009/2/16/put-down-your-beer-and-volunteer/

After reading this intriguing article, I couldn't help but chuckle. I wasn't chuckling at the fact of what was written per say (although I did like the Gamma Kung Fu name), I was more entertained on the thought of how sorority women would react.

Now before I begin this blog, I want to be clear; I believe in the fraternal movement. I believe in what fraternities and sororities stand for and their founding principles. I also believe that this blog's title, "Purpose Driven Reflection" should live up to its title. To drive a sense of reflection into the students and professionals who read this in a purposeful way. I can't promise that you will agree with what I write, but as long as you reflect on what is written, the blog will be fulfilling its purpose.

Back to the article at hand and why I laughed at the thought of how sorority women would react. Plain and simple, Greek men and women have lost their ability to articulate their purpose. I can say this because when articles such as this are written, Greeks lose sight of what has been written. Members become fixated on the negative and immediately proclaim, "this guy is an ass," "he doesn't understand," "screw him," and "lets write a counter statement detailing the facts...that will show him." This is just the Greeks reaction when something is written.

Had this writer confronted a Greek face to face with his points, I'd assume Greeks would react in one of the following ways.

a) Say "fuck you" and attempt to beat him up
b) Become defensive in an verbally aggressive manner...spouting off meaningless facts and notions.
c) Say, "you don't get it" or "you're just a GDI" and make dirty faces towards the writer.

If you are a Greek undergraduate member reading this, are you nodding your head right now saying, "yeah, we'd definitely do one of those three?" If so, I'd challenge you to read on. I will get back to those reactions in a little bit.

For now lets reflect on the key points the editor proclaims and what I think he is saying in a nutshell...

1. Cutesy moronic manner needs to go
- My summary...live your values. While the writer's approach may be a bit harsh, the main point he is trying to make is that if you preach sisterhood and values, how does getting drunk in your letters and posting those pictures on Facebook instill those values? In an odd way, he is attempting to protect you by proclaiming that if you don't drink, you may avoid sexual assaults, broken hearts, etc.

2. Your all about keg stands and beer pong tournaments
- My summary...practice what you preach. If your new member process is about the proper technique of keg stands and beer pong tournaments, then I hope you have a desire to be off-campus. However, if your new member education process is about the values and purpose of your organization...practice what you preach. If one of your values are service, then get out and do service. If one of your values is scholarship, pride yourself in doing well academically. Finally, if one of your values is friendship, then appreciate the time you have together in a respectful and desirable manner. The writer is simply asking you to hold yourself to a higher standard; not because he wants it but because you promised it when you took that oath to become a fraternity/sorority member.

3. You're idiots who don't know how to read
- My summary...speak intelligently and present yourself with class. If you don't like being labled a "gossip girl" or "cosmo queen" then make sure you are watching what you say and read in public. That doesn't mean you can't read a Cosmo magazine or watch Gossip Girl but don't justify this writer's thoughts by reading a Cosmo and then gossiping about what sister slept with what fraternity member in a public area such as Starbucks.

4. Your sluts who only talk about fraternity members private parts
- My summary...respect what you stand for both as an individual and as part of a larger organization. I love what the editor states in his summary. He is advocating for you to be a respected woman who other women would kill to be. How can you argue with what he is saying? If you say, ''well, I don't talk about fraternity members private parts or discuss the hottest boys" then I'd clap my hands for you but then I'd ask, but do you know one of your members that does? If you are being real with me, you'd list off 1-20 of your sisters that do make those comments.

This leads me back to the title of this blog, "articulating our fraternal arguments.'' As undergraduate fraternity members, we have lost the ability to debate with someone like this maneater writer. Here is why...

1. Instead of acknowledging what he stated and agreeing with some of his notions, we attempt to beat him up because our words are lost.

2. Instead of clarifying his statements in a polite and non-confrontational manner, we resort to aggressive tactics and meaningless statistics. When someone asks about fraternity/sorority statistics, Greek members resort to the ole' USA Presidents/CEO statistics. Who cares how many United States Presidents or CEO's are fraternity/sorority members? I mean really, how often do those individuals discuss their Greek experience within their position? Where did you even get those statistics? How valid are they? Until you can articulate the purpose behind those statistics...refrain from stating such worthless knowledge.

3. Instead of saying, "thanks for holding my organization and myself accountable." we resort to demeaning the person and calling them names such as dick and GDI. Why can't we acknowledge that we aren't perfect, that we have imperfect members, and that we have work to do? Is it so scary to admit that we as Greeks have weaknesses?

Ladies and gentlemen, we DO have work to do. Both as individuals and as professionals. We must learn to articulate our purpose and our rebuttal arguments. We must refrain from using meaningless facts and find a way to showcase our Ritual on a daily basis so that articles such as this maneater article become non-existent.