The Apathy Myth

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2010-03-30T20:54:00.004-06:00

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Make them show their work along the way

2010-03-16T21:27:00.006-06:00

Think back to high school when you had your first big paper due. Remember how the teacher wanted you to turn in a preliminary outline, then a draft, then another draft, then your bibliography, and then finally your final paper?

If you were like me, you probably found the whole process annoying. I hated all the steps – showing my work along the way. I wanted to do the damn paper hardcore, right at the deadline, counting on the pressure of the due date to inspire me.

That's how I worked dammit! I worked better on deadline!

But, the teacher wasn't having it. She wanted to make sure I was thinking the thing through instead of simply pulling it out of my butt six hours before the paper was due.

As a student leader, it's now your turn to be the annoying teacher.

Do you have officers with big projects? How do you know your officer or committee chair is thinking it through and planning things out well? How do you know she isn't just going to pull a half-baked effort out of her butt at the last minute? Is it smart to simply trust that everything will work out OK?

No, not really.

Smart leadership, like smart teaching, sometimes means asking people to show their work.

Several weeks out, ask your officer to show you his plans, his list of deadlines, his to-do lists. Have him give a complete, exhaustive presentation to your executive committee about 3-4 weeks out. Ask lots of questions. Are we on budget? What are some of the trouble spots? Where can others pitch in to help? Are lots of good ideas being brought to the table, or is everything riding on one person?

Applying this pressure along the way causes your officer to "show his work" before procrastination turns into excuses. More importantly, it gives you a chance to spot a leader who is slacking on the job.

Be warned: some people will hate this. They will say you are micromanaging. They will ask why you don't trust them. They will assure you that everything's under control, and they will be eager to assure you they have everything well in hand. A lot of people simply hate to be managed.

Well, too bad.

Bring it to the table. Show us what you've done so far. We have a lot riding on this, so it's important that we all feel confident about the planning and the thoughtful implementation. What's working, and where are the struggle points? Plus, it gives us a chance to get excited and contribute to the project.

And, if your officer or chairperson can't produce some demonstration of progress, remove them from the project now before they completely screw it up. Or, make them sit with you and other leaders to get things on track.

Your teacher was pissing you off for a reason. She was trying to teach you that a thoughtful well-done product comes from a developmental process. It's time to pass that lesson along to your officers and chairs.

In defense of old-school Greek Weeks

2010-03-15T10:28:00.005-06:00

Greek Weeks have been with us for a very long time. Whether the tradition is viewed as good or harmful depends largely on your campus, the local history of the event, and on the attitude of your fraternity/sorority advising professional.

For many decades, Greek Week was a big party excuse, and a chance for chapters to compete. It was a marquis event on campus. In the afternoons, there were contests. In the evenings, there was beer. Lots of it. Admittedly, it was a very male dominated tradition. IFC fraternities loved the opportunity to inflict as much pain and shame on each other as possible, then drink until the bruises felt like badges of honor.

In the last two decades, however, Greek Week has changed dramatically. The games and sporting competitions were supplanted with other events: speakers, service, blood drives, award banquets, etc. The alcohol was discouraged, or eliminated entirely.

It's easy to understand why this happened.

The competitions had gotten ugly and out of hand in many places. Greek Week became a massive expenditure of money and effort that many believed could be better focused toward more positive community service activities. Poorly managed events were a giant headache for all involved, particularly the Student Life professionals who escorted fraternity men to hospitals with concussions.

Some argued that a competitive Greek Week was also exclusionary to smaller historically-black and culturally-based fraternities and sororities who had neither the person-power nor the interest in competitive events. In the minds of most campus advisors, eliminating old-school Greek Week became a moral imperative. If the event wasn't inclusive of everyone, it needed to change.

This week, the AFLV organization posted a blog about Greek Week which pretty much reflects the prevailing attitude among those professionals who shape the interfraternal mindset. The dominant conventional wisdom tells us that Greek Week is a big pain in the butt, emphasizes all the wrong things, and doesn't reflect the values of our organizations.

Because these days, everything needs to be about values.

So while many fraternity and sorority advisors nod their head in agreement, I offer a different point of view. We've moved pretty far one direction, and now it might be time to move back toward the center a bit. Including service and education in Greek Weeks is a positive evolution, but it's time to bring back some of the fun that made old-school Greek Week a beloved campus tradition.

Many of the things that motivate young people were present in the old-school model. People were having FUN together. They were spending time with their FRIENDS. There was COMPETITION. There was a strong social element, food, prizes. Love it or hate it, Greek Week was among the most motivational of all things our members did all year.

I only took part in one Greek Week at Indiana University, but I can tell you, mine was a lot of fun. It gave my brothers and me the chance to "play" together. We lost miserably at every competition, but it was a fun time for bonding. I still have my t-shirt. I loved that damn t-shirt. Wore it non-stop.

It's important for fraternity and sorority communities to do some things simply because they're fun and bring people together. That's not a bad thing. Student leaders – properly advised and given resources – can find positive ways to accomplish this without concussions and alcohol poisonings.

Could we not find ways to inject some of the motivational things – the prizes, the games, the bonding, the bragging rights – with some of the newer stuff? Could we not play games and do community service? How about a social event with food and music after the speaker? Can competition serve a positive purpose in our communities?

If building interfraternal spirit is the underlying idea, then fun needs to be part of the equation. And, ladies and gentlemen, there are few things more entertaining in this world than a sorority tug-of-war.

It might not demonstrate our values, necessarily, but it's a hell of a fun way to spend an afternoon.

There are a number of campuses that have done a good job of preserving the games alongside the other positive events. There are several that have de-emphasized winning in favor of simply having fun together. Let's celebrate those who have found the right balance.

Because enjoying your friends while having some good, clean fun is a value I find exceptionally fraternal.

When you meet with someone, bring something to the table

2010-03-10T11:54:00.006-07:00

One of my most valuable leadership lessons came from Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.). It was a humbling and humiliating lesson, but one I still carry with me.

In the Nineties, I made my living speaking about HIV/AIDS prevention with my good friend, Joel Goldman. By the mid-part of the decade, we were getting lots of attention. We were speaking at about 100 campuses a year, and we had gotten a fair amount of national and local press coverage. We were doing good work that many admired, and we were getting lots of validation for it. People all over the country were opening doors for us. We were winning awards and meeting lots of celebrities. Truthfully, we were getting pretty big heads about the whole thing.

A friend of Joel's was a staff member on Capitol Hill, and he offered to set up a bunch of meetings with Senators and Representatives for us. We jumped at the chance, because we both had strong interests in politics, and it was a chance to rub elbows with a bunch of cool names. I was particularly interested in meeting Rep. Pat Schroeder, the legendary Colorado Democrat.

We went to Capitol Hill and began our day of visiting famous lawmakers. Schroeder was awesome. I remember New Jersey Senator Frank Lautenberg being incredibly pleasant (probably because he knew Joel's dad). We were impressed with the offices, and people were very welcoming. Our meetings were short, but pleasant, and we were floating on air.

Then, we went to Barney Frank's office.

He's a busy guy – lots of aides running in and out. He's a work horse in a stable full of show horses. More than any other office we visited that day, we knew that lots of important activity was going on around us.

We were ushered into his private office, shook his hand, and we took seats on the other side of his desk. He's an intimidating presence –gruff, badly dressed, twitchy. I felt like we were meeting with Jim Henson's grouchiest Muppet.

We proceeded to tell him about our travels, what we were doing, and how little college students seemed to know about safer sex at the time. He listened politely. After we had been speaking to him for about three minutes, he said the words to me that I will never forget.

"Great, but what do you want?"

Joel and I quickly looked at each other. We didn't want anything. I stammered and answered that we were just there to share our story, to meet him, to let him know what we were learning as we traveled the college circuit. We thought that as an openly gay Congressman, he shared our interest in the issues surrounding HIV awareness.

He pretty much cut me off, thanked us for coming, and ended our visit. He wasn't mean, but he made it pretty clear that if we were not there asking for something, he didn't really have time for a social visit. We realized that he was bombarded all day long with people lobbying him, and we had claimed a 15-minute appointment time with absolutely no real purpose in mind. At least,no purpose that served his needs.

We definitely felt stupid for wasting his time, and needless to say, our big fat heads were deflated a little bit.

"Great, but what do you want?"

For a while, I was pissed. I thought he was a jerk. I told everyone I knew how rude he was to us. But of course, eventually I put it into perspective and extracted an important lesson.

Thanks to Mr. Frank of Massachusetts, I always make sure I go into every appointment with a few goals in mind. What information do I want to share? How can this person contribute to an outcome?

I don't just meet people so I can say I did. I treat every person I meet with as if he or she was a very important, busy person. I respect his or her time, and I make sure there's a reason for me being there. I don't just meet people to meet them.

As a student leader, you will probably get lots of face time with VIP's in your college community. When you get time with someone who is busy (your university president, a member of the Board of Trustees, a visiting VIP), you need to bring something to the table. Ask some relevant questions. Share some information. Let them know how they could contribute to a goal or need.

Before you go in there, have a few ideas in mind. Go in there with something.

Busy people aren't interested in killing time with you, particularly when their to-do list is 100 items long and growing longer. Even someone much friendlier than Barney Frank wants their time to be used respectfully.

If they invite you to visit, and they want to sit and chat about nothing in particular, that's a different thing.

You may never have the benefit of the direct, blunt lesson Representative Frank gave me. When you ask for a person's time, give him or her something – information, a need, a challenge – that makes that time worthwhile for them. Make that meeting count.

Don't be a bystander, but don't be a pain in the ass, either

2010-03-06T14:52:00.006-07:00

Everyone's telling you not to be a bystander. I've been talking about it for years in my confrontation program, and one of our newer speakers, Mike Dilbeck, is becoming an anti-bystander crusader. It's a good and timely message. In a world of detached, communicate-only-by-text-message citizens, we need to be reminded that seeing a problem, stepping up, and saying something is a worthwhile thing to do.

It's important not to be a bystander. Hear me loud and clear.

But – like most things – refusing to be a bystander and confronting others should be done in moderation and with the use of your good judgment. If you confront absolutely everything you see that worries you, you will officially become your organization's biggest pain in the ass.

And nobody likes a pain in the ass.

People go out of their way to avoid a pain in the ass.

When you see someone smacking around his girlfriend, getting ready to drive drunk, skipping a week of class, doing drugs, not paying her dues, stealing your professor's Adderall, sporting a culturally or racially-insensitive Halloween costume, urinating on the chancellor's Mercedes, hooking up with a serial killer, or wearing polka dots with stripes – OK, confront right now. Seriously bad decisions require immediate confrontation.

When there's danger – when your gut tells you it's a crisis situation – you need to act.

Somewhere in all this talk of bystander behavior, though, some have begun to suggest that immediate confrontation, regardless of the circumstances, is always the right thing to do. Confront every single thing you see that you think is wrong, they say. Your conscience and your mouth must simultaneously engage. I respectfully disagree.

Don't become that person who confronts anything and everything, all the time, on a moment's notice. Ask yourself, at what point does becoming a superhero in the fight against bystander behavior make you a pariah? At what point are you rendering yourself completely useless as a leader because no one wants to be within 100 feet of you, lest they be confronted about something?

Pick your battles. You can't confront absolutely everything, and nor should you. Plain and simple. If you've gotten to this point as a student leader, then I hope you have some measure of good judgement. Use it.

If something is scary or terribly wrong, act immediately. If it's an annoying pattern, you might want to pick your moment, and it might be after you've spent a little time strategizing about the best way to approach things.

Most of the time, confrontation as a leadership skill is not an impulse behavior.

Do not misunderstand me. I'm all for confronting the smaller things, too: continuous silly lies, missed deadlines, burping at the dinner table, voting Republican. I had an intern who yawned with an uncovered mouth while I was talking to her at least once a day, and something finally needed to be said.

But you don't go off half cocked every time something annoys you.

Oh, and definitely don't become one of those people who feels the need to turn every difference of opinion into a huge confrontation. Delivering a self-righteous lecture about values every time you don't agree with a group decision makes you annoying. Demanding to know why you weren't invited to someone's birthday party – in the name of "refusing to be a bystander" – makes you pathetic.

Learning to confront, and refusing to be a bystander, is an important leadership lesson. Knowing how to use good judgment, however, is an even more important one.

You are always wearing your letters

2010-03-03T05:53:00.003-07:00

You're interested in joining our fraternity? We'd love to have you. You're the type of person we look for: committed, enthusiastic, a leader. We think you'll do great things here, and we hope that we'll open some doors for you. You will make lifelong friendships, and hopefully, you'll be the type of person whose positive impact will be felt here for many years.

This is the start of something really cool.

We know you have your reasons for joining, and we also know that the reasons you'll stay will be entirely different. Trust us on that one. People tend to join for the image, the props, and the social stuff. They stay around for the friendships and because they find a place where they can impact the lives of others. It's a family. We know this. Soon, you will, too.

Soon, these letters will be yours. But, there's one lesson that we need to impress upon you before you sign your name on the dotted line, pay that first fee, and get that first t-shirt. It's the single most important thing we're going to ask of you, so you need to listen and understand it, now, before you say "yes."

It's the one most important thing that any fraternity or sorority can impress upon its new members. It's the one lesson that every group must impress upon its newest members. Truly, our survival as an organization on this campus, and nationwide, depends on you understanding this one simple lesson and taking it to heart.

It's more important than our history, our traditions, our structure, or our rules. Because, if you don't understand this most fundamental lesson, then none of the other stuff will matter. If you don't get this one "golden rule of fraternity," then your son or daughter won't have this kind of organization to join someday, and all of this will just be a fuzzy memory.

Here it is. Ready?

From the moment you say yes to this organization, you are always wearing your letters.

I'm going to repeat it.

From the moment you say yes to this organization, you are always wearing your letters.

We're not talking about t-shirts, or sweatshirts, or hats made in the colors of the group. We're not talking about a tattoo on your ankle, some party favor, or a badge you wear on your dress shirt.

What we mean is that when you say yes to lifetime membership in this group, everything you say, do and represent from that moment forward is a direct reflection on this group, your brothers, and the thousands of members who have come before you. Everything you put out to the world is a direct reflection of this fraternity. Every decision, every achievement, every mistake you make happens to all of us from this point forward.

When you go to the grocery store, you represent us. If you fall asleep in class or earn a weak grade, you represent us. When you drive down the road and slow down so a pedestrian can cross the street, you represent us.

When you turn 21 and hit the town, you represent us. When you become a leader of another campus organization, you represent us. When you insult someone or talk badly about another fraternity, you represent us. When you break up with someone and make decisions about how you behave during that difficult time, you represent us. When you go on Spring Break, you represent us.

When you go home and sit at your mother's dining room table, you represent us. When you get a job and go to work for a company or organization, you represent us. When you commit your life to that special person, someday, you represent us.

You are always wearing your letters.

From this day forward, always. Every day, in every situation. They never come off.

As surely as if you tattooed these letters on your forehead. It doesn't matter if you're wearing a jersey with our name on it, or a business suit at an interview. You have to assume that every person you meet will form a permanent opinion about fraternities – good or bad – based on how you interact with them. Every good thing you do builds us up. Every dumb thing you do tears us down.

We live in a time when the actions of one man or one woman can kill a group like ours. One person who acts in a way that is inconsistent with our shared values can end a hundred years of tradition and pride. One choice you make on a Friday night can take away everything that generations of men have worked to build.

All the stuff you see that belongs to us can be boxed up or thrown out, because of the choices you make.

If this seems a little intense, that's good. Because it's serious. If it sounds like too much responsibility, or if you don't think you can behave in a way that reflects well on us at all times, then walk away now. Do us the favor. We won't think less of you. In fact, we'll thank you. This sort of commitment isn't for everybody.

But, don't say yes unless you understand.

We're not asking you to give up anything. We aren't asking you to become something you aren't. We're asking you to become something more. We're inviting you to become part of a group of men who make a promise to take care of each other, every day. We're asking you to become the very best version of you that you can be.

We're asking you to take a leap of maturity and to go to that place where you're the same, honorable, dignified person on Saturday night as you are on Tuesday morning.

It's a big deal, and not everyone can do it. Forget everything you've heard up to this point. Forget how much you might desire this, or how much we might want to bring you into the group. Just clear your mind and ask yourself one question.

Are you ready to never take them off?

Because when you say yes, you're not just putting letters on a sweatshirt. You're putting them in your heart. You're forever stamping your identity with them. Everything you are, from this point on, becomes who we are.

You will make mistakes, and brothers will remind you of your commitment. There will be times where you will see other brothers forgetting their promise, and you'll need to remind them. That's part of this whole "fraternity" thing. We work together to make ourselves better men who stand for something. We carry each other. We matter to one another.

If we're doing fraternity right, then we'll make you a better man. If you're doing everything right, then you will make us a better organization.

So, please think about it. Take it seriously.

Because if you say yes, these letters belong to you as surely as they belonged to our founders. If you say yes, these letters become your responsibility forever.

That's the promise.

Bouncing back from a blunder

2010-02-18T21:40:00.004-07:00

We all make mistakes. If you're a high profile student leader, there is a solid chance that something will happen that will knock you squarely on your ass. Your ego will be in tatters. Everyone will be angry at you, or at least delighting in your misstep. You'll be sure that everyone is out to get you.

In our culture, there's a certain twisted sweetness to watching the mighty fall. Look no further than the demonization of Kanye West, or the critical trashing of Jay Leno. You can practically hear the giggles from Detroit as Toyota gets ripped apart in the press. The higher you sit, the higher you fall. When the leader screws up, it's news.

Initially, you will get angry. You will lash out. You will plot revenge. You will whine incessantly to your inner circle. You will resolve to fight back, because damn it, "It's not fair!" People don't understand the truth. No one has asked for your side of the story. The public doesn't understand the details. They don't know the truth about how evil the other person is.

Whether you're the world's greatest golfer (Tiger), a top-earning actor (Hugh), or a struggling President of the United States (Barry), you are going to need to quit the whining at some point and accept the reality that you screwed up. Fair or not, you have a decision to make. Are you going act immediately to try to repair things, dig the hole deeper with excuses and denials, or hide?

If repairing things is your choice, here are some things I suggest.

Take your lumps, and openly admit your mistakes.

Our culture is big on redemption. The cycle – build 'em up, rip 'em down, and build 'em up again – is a worn cliche. If you're going to repair your image, make the necessary public apologies, admit your mistakes, and ask people to forgive you. Take responsibility for your role in the debacle, even if you feel that you've been handed more than your fair share of the blame.

Look like you learned something.

After the apology, people will still be watching you, and if they see more of the same behavior, there will be hell to pay. Let people watch you do the exact opposite of the behavior that got you in trouble. You can bet you won't be seeing Tiger Woods out at any strip clubs anytime soon. You'll see lots of pictures of him with his mother and child, helping people in need, etc. If he's ever going to regain his pre- sex scandal status, he's going to have to look like Mother Teresa for a while.

Drop the arrogance.

Watch how Toyota promotes itself in the coming year. Television ads won't be trumpeting their sales prowess. You won't hear Toyota calling itself the best, the most trusted, or the coolest. That's what you'll hear from Ford or Honda perhaps, but not Toyota. Toyota is going to be promoting safety, a resurgence of quality – all aimed at rebuilding trust. To regain what they lost, they need to look solid, not flashy.

Reach out and rebuild relationships.

If you, or the situation, has yielded negative feelings and burned bridges, the first steps to rebuild those relationships need to come from you. You can't expect much. You can't expect embraces and giggles. But, if you show some sincere effort to reach out, make amends, and support those you might have alienated, something good might return. Remember to expect nothing, and give freely. When you demonstrate a sincere attempt to get things moving in the right direction, without an expectation for anything selfish, forgiveness and trust have a greater chance to return.

Acknowledge your real friends.

There's a temptation to look for ways to hurt those who hurt you, but it's better for the soul to turn the other direction. Make time for the friends who stood by you, who helped, who listened. Thank them sincerely, and spend time with them. Let them know that their loyalty and unconditional support was not taken for granted and that you stand ready to support them if they ever need the same. Anyone who has ever been through a debilitating injury, a divorce, the death of a child, a bankruptcy, etc., will tell you that the low points are when you find out who your real friends are. Take that as a gift and appreciate it.

Watch your mouth.

John Mayer got in trouble this week for a Vanity Fair interview in which he said some pretty arrogant and insensitive things. John will likely be keeping his mouth shut for a while, and so should you. All that anger you still feel? Find a benign way to get it out that doesn't involve you shooting your mouth off to others. People talk, and many are looking for any hint of negativity from you.

Put on a happy face.

No one feels sorry for you.

Do good work.

It's the most important element of redemption. Demonstrate that the talent you brought in the first place was real and that the initial praise was deserved. You have to earn that high place again. Let your good work speak louder than your damaged image.

Kanye West probably will again release a great CD again. Jay Leno will go back to producing mildly entertaining late night television, his core fans will tune back in, and he'll be back on top of Letterman within a year. I'm betting Barry has strong approval ratings by 2012.

Only a few short months after coming clean about his steroid use, Mark McGwire begins his new job as the hitting coach for the Cardinals this week in St. Louis.

Bouncing back from the blunder is possible, but the only person who can get things moving toward that goal, is you.

Never confront a group

2010-02-17T09:17:00.003-07:00

Let's say there are a group of people in your organization who are the root of a problem. Maybe it's a group of critical former officers, or a couple of friends who band together to cause drama at social functions. Maybe it's all the juniors who feel disconnected from the rest of the group, or perhaps it's the last class of initiated new members, or the women who live on that end of the residence hall.

The best course of action might seem to pull the group members into a room for a strong discussion about their behavior. Although it might appear to be an efficient solution, you could end up reinforcing their behavior instead of interrupting it.

Fraternity and sorority chapters frequently have the "pledge meeting" where they chastise the neophytes for a certain lack of enthusiasm, lack of progress, or incorrect behavior. These meetings feel effective to the members because the pledges snap into shape, but it is not exactly developmental. The pledges bond in a defensive way against the active members, creating long-term chapter unity issues.

The coaching staff of a sports team might use the same method: calling a team meeting and letting the players have it. A short term fix, that could have negative long-term morale implications.

If you confront a group of women who live at the end of the hall, it will likely reinforce the "us versus them" attitude. The women might sit and listen quietly, or they might flare defensively. In either case, they will quickly group up somewhere (probably in one person's room) and process the event as another justification for their negative attitude. When confronted, groups tend to adhere.

The answer is to do several, smaller confrontations aimed at the opinion leaders of the group.

Every group has leaders, formal or informal – people whose ideas shape the actions of the group. Calm, isolated talks with these individuals – from a place of mutual respect – is a better approach. From these conversations, you might learn some of the root causes of the conflict which will better illuminate a path forward. You can't solve an underlying problem if you don't understand it.

Your goal is that these individuals work with you to help create resolution. You can surely yell at their group members. Or, you could affect the opinions of influence leaders and send them back to their group with some collaborative ideas. It doesn't mean there will be a group hug right away, but small steps can move things along. Find common ground. Look for small bits of progress. Demonstrate a willingness to listen and get back to a good, positive place.

Humility and a willingness to listen are the best tools in resolving a conflict with a group. Usually the conflict originates from a group of people bonding over their sense of disconnect from the main group. That disconnect might be for a perfectly legitimate reason ("We don't have a voice!") to something more ridiculous ("We used to be really fratty and now we suck!").

Regardless, your only real option is to get things out in the open, to get people talking to each other, and to bring leaders to a place where the conflict can be resolved. Do this individual to individual – leader to leader.

Groups don't solve emotional issues. Individual leaders who care about the big picture do.

Congress, are you listening?

The Situation: which students are getting attention on your campus?

2010-02-13T15:21:00.003-07:00

There's a great article in this week's Time about the longevity and impact of reality TV. It's difficult, honestly, to find someone who isn't a fan of at least one show. Your mother loves The Amazing Race. Your aunt has strong opinions about The Celebrity Apprentice. Your niece can't wait until she's old enough to audition for America's Next Top Model. Reality programming, apparently, is here to stay.

Becoming a reality TV star is actually a profession now. Back when my friend, Ethan Zohn, was eating bugs on the African savannah, he was joining a pretty small niche of quasi-celebrities. No one quite knew how to classify them. They fell somewhere on the spectrum of celebrity between "real actors" and porn stars. Today, according to the article, there are more than 1,000 people participating this year in some sort of TV reality show.

Twenty years after the debut of The Real World, and 10 years after the first season of Survivor, there are too many reality TV alums to count. They are part of Hollywood actor unions, now. They have conventions where they get together and discuss business strategies. They have clothing lines, agents for personal appearances, book deals, and consulting contracts with non-profit organizations needing a dose of cool. One will be coming soon to a blood drive near you.

Whether you love reality TV, or loathe it, it's hard to argue the impact it's had. We find ourselves living in a culture where stardom is measured by attention. Getting punched by a boy at the beach in the presence of your camera crew gets you more attention than earning an Oscar. You don't have to win anything, or be particularly good at anything (Heidi Montag, anyone?) to become a brand. Kate Gosselin gets more press and online chatter than our current Secretary of State.

We might not admire orange-skinned Sookie from The Jersey Shore, but just about everyone under 30 in this country knows exactly who she is. A parody bit of her on the venerable Saturday Night Live is a recurring bit. She and her abtastic little buddy, The Situation, are interesting, and today's students have grown up in a culture where being interesting rules. It is just as accepted – and probably more profitable – as being accomplished at something.

Why write about reality TV in a blog about student leadership?

Which students on your campus get the attention? At most, student athletes (of certain teams) and high profile student leaders are still the ones who claim the limelight. There will always be students whose ambition takes them the accomplishment route – who become important on campus for what they do. Right now, they're the ones who make the campus paper.

But, could that soon change? If status and attention come from outrageous attention grabs in our popular culture, how long will it be before some ambitious students take the outrageousness route on your campus?

It's not a new idea. Forty years ago, the students of note were protest leaders. But, that's so old fashioned.

If Heidi Montag can become famous for a sex tape, how long before a student on your campus gets the idea? A viral sex video circulating around campus could make some student a star. Are you ready to handle that? It might not earn them a dinner invitation at the president's house, but it will sure get them into all the right parties.

Perez Hilton has become a national celebrity by pedaling sexualized gossip on his website. How long before some student starts a website where students can share their sexual conquests from the weekend? How about a site where people post pictures, snapped with cell phone cameras, of their friends exposing themselves at various sites around campus? Look! I flashed my breasts at the main circulation desk of the library! There's Mike showing his junk at convocation! Isn't he hysterical?

If you can become legendary on your campus for doing something outrageous, some students will find that a perfectly fine option. Infamy is alluring, and for some, it beats the hell out of spending three years in meetings about risk management, running for elected office, and having to suck up to the Student Life staff.

And if it makes a certain portion of the campus population look down on you, who cares? You'll be gone in a couple of years, and you can reinvent yourself. Scott Brown, the newest Senator from Massachusetts and the new darling of the Republican Party, posed nude in a magazine once upon a time. If he can do it, why can't I?

Maybe I'm sounding a slightly ridiculous alarm. But, if a battle looms on the horizon between "status by accomplishment" and "status by notoreity," then we might be wise to go on offense now, rather than on defense later.

Am I suggesting that you put banners in your student center with the photos of your best student leaders? Am I suggesting that you put ads in your student newspaper celebrating their accomplishments? Do I suggest that we make them into campus rock stars? Am I asking you to give them scholarships, awards, and generally pump up their heads?

Yes, I am.

If celebrity is the cultural goal, then we better consciously make the right students the celebrities. We need to make sure that doing good things on campus continues to be the golden ticket to opportunity, admiration and appreciation.

Do the student leaders on your campus feel important? Do students on your campus know them and admire them? If not, it's something worth talking about.

As for me? I've preordered the first season of The Jersey Shore. It releases on February 23, and who am I to argue with the appeal of oversexed boys with tanned abs and hairdos of steel?

By the way, the current Secretary of State is Hillary Clinton.

Learn to leave a decent voice mail message

2010-01-28T17:30:00.006-07:00

This morning, I arrived at the office, and there were six voice mail messages waiting for me. One in particular blew my mind.

"Hi. Yeah. (3 second pause...) I'm calling about some speakers and want to find out how much they cost and what days they could come here. So call me back. Later."

Really?

No name, no phone number. I don't even know what school she is from. I suppose that she's so used to calling her friends' cell phones that she assumes that anyone she's calling automatically has her number on caller ID. Needless to say, she didn't achieve her objective with that phone message because there was no way possible for me to reach her back.

Today, dear student leaders, we are going to talk about some tips on leaving a voice message. As a student leader, you can stand out by leaving intelligent voice mails. Trust me... an intelligent voice mail makes you seem much more intelligent.

• Always leave your full name, your phone number, the time you called, and some sort of action oriented message.

• Why tell them when you called? Because when they are jotting down your message, they'll probably write down the day/time when you say it. That makes it less likely that your message will sit there a long time. When you note the time, they are more likely to note it, and return the message in a timely manner. Doesn't always work, but it sure increases your chances.

• Please don't just leave your first name and assume I can recognize your voice and know immediately who you are. Give your last name, every time. If you simply say, "It's David," I have no idea which one you are. I know 42 Davids. And, for heaven's sake, don't say, "It's me."

• Don't assume I have your number. Leave it every time. I suggest you say your number slowly and clearly twice in every voice mail message. I leave the number for people who call me every day, even though I know they have it.

• When giving your phone number, leave your area code. Yes, people leave me phone messages all the time with no area code.

• If you are calling a place of business, make the effort to sound professional. Say your name clearly, state where you are from, say your phone number slowly and clearly. A voice mail you leave at a business location, with a professor, or some other non-friend person should sound different than the voice mails you leave for your best friend on a Friday night.

• Never leave a voice mail that is longer than a minute. People who leave "flow of consciousness" voice mails are the devil.

• Try not to call from a loud place. All that noise in the student center food court makes it almost impossible to understand you. Plus, you're yelling, and that's unpleasant.

• Slow down, dammit. Nothing more annoying than having to replay a message three times because the person spoke too fast.

• If there's a good time to reach you, let the person know.

• Sound pleasant. If I'm deciding between going to the break room to get my next cup of coffee and returning a call to a dreadfully boring caller, I'm picking the coffee.

I recorded myself leaving a voice mail message today, and here's what I said. I think it's a decent example of a useful voice mail message.

"Hi Katie. This is T.J. Sullivan from CAMPUSPEAK in Denver, 303-745-5545. I'm calling at around 2 pm our time here in Denver, about 1 pm your time. I wanted to let you know that Rick Barnes is available on the date you requested. If you're ready to book that date, please give me a call at 303-745-5545, and we'll get right on it. I'm going to be in the office for another two hours today, and all day tomorrow. Also, feel free to email me at (spelling out my email) if that's more convenient. Have a terrific day, and thanks for getting back to me. I look forward to connecting with you soon."

F-I-R-E is the key to an overwhelmed membership

2010-01-24T15:34:00.005-07:00

Is your calendar getting a little crazy with too many meetings and events? Does it feel like your members are overwhelmed? Are you having to make everything mandatory, or financial penalize members if they don't attend events?

If your members seem overwhelmed, it's because they are. As their leader, what are you doing to address this serious problem?

Student organizations are great about adding events. Every year, new officers create new events. Unfortunately, they are not so good about cleaning the schedule from time to time. When you add, add, add, and you never delete, you end up with an insane calendar that burns everyone out.

Sit your officers and key influential leaders down for a couple of hours, and fix it.

Get a giant piece of paper – one that runs the length of a large table. Draw horizontal line across the center of the paper. At one end of the line, put a big happy face. On the other end, put an unhappy face.

Then, think of everything your members have an opportunity to attend, and place them along the continuum. Everything – intramural games, meetings, social events, committee meetings, recruitment, ritual, campus events, Homecoming, Parents Weekend, educational speakers. (It might help if people bring their calendars from the last year.) Try to think of every single obligation you, your university, or your governing councils ever place upon your members. This will probably take a while to do. Be exhaustive.

Place each obligation on the continuum based on its popularity. Place the events that everyone loves further on the continuum near the happy face. Place the events that everyone dreads toward the unhappy face. Obligations that some people like and others dislike will probably end up toward the middle. People might love formal, and it sits high on the continuum, but if parties have gotten a little lame, they might sit a bit south of the middle mark. Be honest.

Every group will be different. A fraternity might have more social events toward the happy face. Club sports teams might rank home games higher than away games. If your group is a professionally oriented group, you might see that your members love the networking and learning events, but don't really love your social events. In any case, as you look at your continuum, ask if it truly reflects the current attitudes and priorities of your members.

Once you have everything plotted, discuss it. Are there any trends? Are all the social things popular? Are service events unpopular? Do your members enjoy any of your meetings?

Next, start labeling the entries. I like to use F-I-R-E. Put an "F" by the events that are fine, fulfilling, fantastic. Put an "I" by the events that need improvement because they are important but need some reworking to make your members enjoy them more. Put an "R" by the events that need to be replaced – the goals of the event are valid, but the event needs to be completely reworked. Put an "E" by the events that need to simple be ELIMINATED.

You'll probably discover in doing this process that much of your conversation centers around whether an event deserves an "I" (for needs to be improved) or an "R" (for needs to be replaced with something entirely different). This is a very valuable conversation. Encourage it.

Discuss where combinations can be made. Combine your alumni event with your community service event, for example. If one event can fulfill three purposes, that beats the heck out of single-purpose event.

It's been my experience that this F-I-R-E process can reduce an organization's calendar by at least a third. Remember, morale is positively affected by having fewer events that are higher quality, more fun, and more beneficial.

Some people want to see you fail

2010-01-06T15:55:00.003-07:00

There are people rooting against you. That's one of the unattractive realities of holding a leadership position. No matter how well-liked you are, how hard you work, how qualified you might be for your job – there will always be people who just aren't pulling for you.

Some of these people will be indifferent to your efforts. Nothing you do will impress them. Others will roll their eyes when you suggest an idea or show initiative. Some will trash you behind your back when talking to other members. Some will take a more active role and will attempt to undermine you in small or large ways.

Your detractors will come in all shapes and sizes. Some are people you thought were close friends once upon a time. Some are people you've clashed with before and never really liked. Others dislike you in spite of the fact that they've never actually had a conversation with you.

Their motivations are numerous. They might be jealous of you, or they might simply get enjoyment out of messing with you. Perhaps they have actual problems with your leadership style. Maybe they feel that there was someone better suited for the position. Maybe you offended them with a joke you told two years ago, and they can't get over it. They might hate the way you dress, or the tone of your voice. This can be very visceral, unexplainable stuff, and it often defies logic. They just don't like you, and they never will.

You can analyze it, agonize over it, complain about it, cry and scream at the unfairness of it all. Or, you can just get over it and move on to doing your damn job. Whether you were elected or appointed to your position, there will always be people who celebrate your shortcomings and errors.

Right after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, then-President Bush had approval ratings around 80-percent. These were historic highs. By and large, Americans rallied behind their president at a time of national crisis. But even at that amazing moment of national consensus, 20-percent – a fifth of Americans in opinion polls – still didn't like the president.

Even when they don't like you, they still are members of your constituency, and you have to do your best job to lead them. If you ran for office hoping for 100-percent approval and support, then it's time to bid farewell to the delusion. There's nothing you can do to control it, change it, or avoid it. You can lead them, you can do great things for your organization, in spite of them.

Do your job the best you can. Include everyone at the table. Make ethical decisions with the well-being of your organization front and center in your mind. Expect and admit your mistakes, and always keep your mind open for better ways to do things.

Learn to separate honest criticism from the silly, nasty stuff based in negativity. If you're looking for a dependable gauge of the quality of your efforts, find four or five fair-minded people in the organization (not your friends!) and check in with them regularly for feedback. Give these people permission to point out your areas for improvement, and respect them by demonstrating a willingness to fix mistakes along the way.

If you work hard and do the right thing, a beautiful moment awaits you about a year after you get done with your position. Someone you thought HATED you during your leadership term will come to you and thank you for all you did. It will blow you away when it happens. That feeling, at that moment, makes up for all the crap you tolerate from the detractors during your term.

Trust me.

10 great things to do during this down time

2009-12-27T19:44:00.003-07:00

Hey, Student Leader. Bored yet?

You've opened your gifts, and you've seen three movies at the theaters since you got home. Saturday night with your high school friends proved that one night with them is sufficient. What are you going to do this week other than watch Anderson Cooper and Kathy Griffin on CNN Thursday night?

Here are 10 useful ideas.

10. Connect with your mentors. You know... those people you always turn to when you're in the ditch but who get very little love from you when everything's going well? Yeah, those people. How about sending them a note, letting you know what's going on in your life and wishing them a happy new year. Maybe you could thank them for always being there for you.

9. Read something that isn't a text book. Get thyself to the library or to Barnes and Noble, and pick up something engrossing that you can spend a little time with this week. Maybe a biography of someone who's been successful in your chosen field? Or perhaps just a fun, trashy book. Just because you don't have to read, doesn't mean you shouldn't.

8. Set some goals for the second half of the academic year. This quiet time, away from the daily pressures, is a great time to evaluate the progress of your year and make some midstream adjustments.

7. Spend some time with a loved one. Take grandma out for breakfast. So sale shopping at Bass Pro Shops with your dad. Spend some time with the people in your life who willingly take a back seat 96-percent of the time. We'll be dead soon, and you'll wish you'd paid attention to us instead of texting 2,000 times with your college friends.

6. Brush up the resume. Before you know it, you'll be looking for that summer job or internship. Work on the resume now, while you have time to do it thoughtfully.

5. Choose three charities and send them each a tiny donation. This is something many of us out here in the real world with real world taxes do the last week of each year. Even if it's only $5 or $10 each, pick three charities that deserve your support, and write them a little check. It's a good habit to get into now, and charities are having a rough year. Every little bit helps. Here are three that I gave to this year, if you need some ideas: here, here, and here.

4. Make a dental appointment. Seriously, when's the last time you had those things cleaned? Your mom and dad will be impressed, too.

3. Clean your car. That thing is disgusting. You can go to the car wash to clean the exterior, but do the interior yourself. Change out the CD's in there. Clean out the junk in your glove box. Use some glass cleaner on those windows. Starting the new year with a clean car is good for the soul.

2. Box up high school. It's time to put the past where it belongs... in boxes in the basement or in the trash can. OK, you can save the pictures, but really... that stupid glass from 10th grade Homecoming? Time to go. If you carry more than 2 boxes of junk from high school with you past college graduation, you've got problems. Plus, Mom would probably really like to start using your room as a guest room anyway, and that Gnarls Barkley poster ain't helpin'.

1. Go to the gym, every day until you have to go back to school. Personal health is found in the establishment of routines. Maybe if you go every day between now and the drive back to school you'll be a bit more motivated to make time for the gym when the semester starts. The gym is a great escape from the stresses of daily life, and you could probably use more of those opportunities in the course of your hectic semester. Take this week to remind yourself of how good it feels to run for 30 minutes, swim a lap, or play basketball with strangers.

And yes, I know, I need to do #1 myself. Yes, I know.

Have a terrific new year.

Avoiding dump trucks

2009-12-21T15:01:00.005-07:00

I am an answers guy. I like to solve problems. Like many of you, I'm the guy who steps up with solutions. I have gotten to where I am by being the guy who takes a challenge and meets it. When someone complains, my first instinct is to brainstorm possibilities.

No problem is unsolvable! Cue the Superman music.

The bad part of being that kind of person, however, is that people love to lay their problems at your feet. The complainers, the whiners, the helpless incompetents – you are their best friend. When their love life is a disaster, you provide good ideas for fixing things. When they haven't done an adequate job on a task, you pull a last-minute solution that saves their ass. When things are hard, you are willing to get in there and help them manage.

These "dump trucks" come to you to fix things. They come because you kick them into gear. They come to you because "you always know just what to do."

And, it's exhausting.

If you don't figure out a way to repel some of this problem dumping behavior, you're going to spend the rest of your life solving other people's issues, taking on their stress, and sharing responsibility for their failures. One of the toughest things I've had to learn to do is to simply hold back on the impulse to help the dump trucks in my life. The minute someone complains about something, my brain goes into turbo autopilot. Left to my natural devices, I would start developing an action plan with them before they finish their sentence.

It takes all of my willpower to keep my mouth shut and simply say...

Hmm. I don't know. What do you think you should do?

As an experiment, try it for a week (or a month!). When a dump truck complains, or is worried about something, or has her weekly crisis, ask her a bunch of questions.

What ideas have you thought of?
What solutions have you ruled out?
So, what choices does that leave you?
What do you think should be done first?
What's your best idea for how to move forward?

When you try this out, you will find that people fall into a couple of different categories.

There are those dump trucks who can keep control of their payload. These are the ones who actually have an idea they want to knock around and who probably just need validation. They have ideas, and they're just afraid to be wrong. Or, they are missing something, and they feel unsure. When you ask them "What do you think?" they will venture a tentative answer. We like these people because they actually have put some thought into a problem before dropping it at our toes. For these people, a little encouragement, validation, or a conversation to flush out a solution is all they need.

It's the second group of dump trucks you need to worry about – those who give you a blank stare. These people are dumping their payload at your feet before you even know what's in the truck. Their idea of searching for a solution is to simply dump it on you and make you a party to the problem. They throw their hands in the air and act like the whole world is hopeless.

Just say, "Hmm. I don't know. What do you think?"

And that's all you give them. No dumping here, damn it! The really persistent ones will reply with, "I don't know what to think. That's why I came to you."

Hold your ground, even though your problem-solving brain is throwing a million good ideas at the inside of your mouth. Hold back. Don't solve their problem. They won't love you more for solving their problem.

"I have no idea either. That's a tough one," you'll say. "I'll think about it. Let me know when you get some ideas and we'll bat them around."

The person will probably be annoyed, ask why you aren't being helpful, and then they'll drive their dump truck to someone else's house. Worst case scenario: they stop dumping their problems on you and dump them on others. Best case scenario: they take more responsibility for solving their own problems.

When people are asked to take responsibility for solving problems themselves (with you just offering some encouragement), then they stop making their problems your problems. When you can help people do that, you've truly achieved a student leadership milestone.

The wrong and right things to say when a friend suffers a loss

2009-12-18T06:19:00.002-07:00

Grief is a perfectly natural and healthy emotion. All of us will suffer losses in our lives – deaths, loss of jobs, relationship breakups, ends of addictions, and more. Yet, we live in a culture that is profoundly uncomfortable with grief, and we Americans hate feeling uncomfortable. When we have someone near us devastated by a loss, most of us look for the exit. We don't know what to say, or what to do, so we retreat.

For Millennials that ends relationships by text messages, avoiding uncomfortable contact is a generational norm. The sad part is that a Tweet that says, "Sorry your father died. Let me know if I can help" just doesn't cut it when you have a friend in real emotional pain.

I want to give you some ideas of the wrong things to say. Then at the end, I'll tell you the right thing to do. As usual, the correct answer is quite simple.

When we see someone suffering from a loss, our impulse is to say something that will help make the pain go away. We try to say something to cheer them up, divert their attention to something more hopeful, turn them away from the acute pain they feel. We do everything but validate the fact that they are suffering, because suffering makes us uncomfortable. Some examples of wrong things to say when someone is grieving:

"He's in a better place now..."
A favorite of the religious, but not very helpful. Even if the grieving person believes in heaven, he or she can simultaneously believe that their loved one is in a better place and feel horrible about losing the person in this world.

"At least her pain has ended..."
That's like telling someone who lost a finger that they still have nine. Yeah, duh... but I still lost a finger! No one wants their loved one to suffer, but that doesn't mean that the death of that person is any less of a loss.

"Thank God you're both young and can have other children..."
The most hideous thing you can say to someone who has lost a child or suffered a miscarriage. The person is grieving what they lost, and the promise of some future opportunity doesn't change the fact that he/she just lost something incredibly important right now. What you're saying might be true, but it's not helpful.

"You'll bounce back..."
Optimism is wonderful, but when someone has lost a job or has watched their house burn down, they are feeling loss in the moment. Looking forward is a good strategy for later, but for now, they are feeling sad and defeated. You need to honor today's emotion.

"We'll go to the store and get you a new puppy this weekend..."
You don't address a person's loss by offering them an immediate replacement. You wouldn't tell someone whose grandmother just died that you're going to take them to a nursing home and find them a new old lady. Then why would you tell a friend who just broke up with her boyfriend that you're going to take her out to meet hot guys at the bar this weekend? Let the person mourn the loss they just suffered. Finding an immediate replacement for what was lost is not productive for anyone. In fact, it's actually detrimental. Thinking someone will bond with a new puppy when they are acutely missing the pet they just lost is counter-productive.

"I know how you feel..."
No, you don't. I don't care if you went through a similar loss a week ago – every person's loss is unique because it involves the loss of a unique emotional relationship. Two siblings who just lost their father can feel it in completely different ways, based on the emotional relationship each had with their father. How can you know how the person feels when they are struggling to understand how they feel?

So, what's the right thing to say?

The key to helping a friend who is suffering a loss is to simply give him a safe place to express how he feels, no matter how sad, ugly, angry, immature, or hopeless that emotion might be. Let the person feel whatever they need to feel at the moment, and just listen. Comfort them by being there and caring. Most of the time you don't need to say much at all.

When someone near me suffers a death of someone close, I usually just ask them to tell me about the person. Or, I'll simply ask, "What happened?" Then I shut up and let them talk. I let them feel sad and upset. That's the natural emotion to feel when you lose someone, so I let them feel it. I've had several friends in recent years lose their jobs, or get seriously bad medical diagnoses. I just ask them how they feel. I let them vent. I let them tell me what fears dominate their minds at the moment. I don't worry about turning their attention to job search techniques or advances in chemotherapy in that moment... I just let them be pissed, scared, or angry.

Shut up and listen. Don't try to do anything. Don't feel compelled to cheer them up. Just listen and be there for them. That's what you do in the short term.

In the long term, after the initial loss, you want to help your friend "recover." I strongly recommend a very small, easy read called The Grief Recovery Handbook by John W. James and Russell Friedman. It's an amazing book that I've read a dozen times and have given to friends suffering with unresolved grief many times over the years. They just came out with a 20th anniversary updated edition, and it's wonderful.

The "post risk management era" for fraternities and sororities, Part One

2009-12-16T06:32:00.004-07:00

I entered the fraternity and sorority world about the time that the risk management mania began. I joined my fraternity in 1987, and I went to work at the fraternity headquarters in 1988. These were the years when kegs were banned, FIPG came about, and undergraduate members of fraternities and sororities began paying steep annual insurance premiums.

My second job out of college was as the national coordinator of GAMMA, Greeks Advocating Mature Management of Alcohol, and I was kept very busy helping Greek communities respond to risk management policies. Most Greek communities had speakers visit to promote risk management practices. For quite a while, most men's national fraternities hired lawyers as their executive directors. Publications like Fraternal Law became must reads for campus advisors.

The last 20 years of fraternity and sorority life can be aptly called "the risk management era." The emphasis was on rules and policy adherence. It dominated everything: chapter services strategies, fraternity education, volunteer training and duties, consultant training, board meetings, etc.

Someone a lot smarter than I will write a book about this, and I'm sure opinions will vary on whether or not it was a good, important era, or a harmful one. Was there any net benefit? Some will say that fraternities and sororities grew stronger during this time. The values congruence crowd will continue to crow about how risk management draws us closer to the values we were founded upon (a weak argument, I'd say). Others will say fraternities and sororities lost their fun, their innocence, and their relevance. One thing for sure, lawyers and insurance agents made a lot of money. Yet, students are still dying from alcohol poisoning and hazing on a regular basis.

In any case, I believe everyone is ready to move on. FIPG is now older than most of the student leaders taking the reins of our chapters. Most fraternity and sorority advising professionals have never known anything different – as professionals, or as students. Just about everything that can be said or created around the idea of risk management has been done.

Risk management isn't going away, for sure. As long as there are people falling out of windows at fraternity parties, risk management will be in the picture.

But, things are changing. I can feel it. I can see it as I visit campuses and attend leadership conferences. As I sat with some fraternity staff members at a luncheon last week, they asked me what I thought was on the horizon for the nation's fraternities and sororities. I told them that I wasn't sure, but that I thought that whatever is next is going to come from the students, not from the national organizations.

I believe that after nearly two decades of being told how fraternities and sororities should operate, should look, and what values they should seek to represent, students are ready to innovate.

To be continued...

Stop desecrating your composites

2009-12-12T13:15:00.004-07:00

I was recently hosted by a very nice, very impressive sorority chapter. They were wonderful hosts. Prior to my presentation, I had dinner at their sorority house, and leaning against a living room wall was a fraternity composite.

The composite was from one of the local fraternities, dated 1993-1994. I got up to take a look at the old clothes and hairstyles. I noticed that the glass had a gigantic crack in it, and the frame was heavily scratched and banged up.

"What's this doing here," I asked?

"Oh, we steal theirs, they steal ours. They're all over the house," replied one woman. "I bet we have one from almost every fraternity on campus."

I noted that the sorority's current composite was enclosed in a very large, locked container lit by lights in their foyer. "Why is it that you take such great care of your current composite, but you could care less about the old ones?"

The woman looked at me strangely. "We need them for recruitment, I guess," was her best answer. "The guys don't care about their old composites, and we have so many of our own, we don't have anywhere to put them anyway."

For many students, they're a joke. Funny names, odd hair. Old. They break them, throw them in closets, steal them from other chapters. I am willing to bet that many find their way to the dumpster every year from damage caused by neglect.

Undergraduates at many campuses should be ashamed of the way they treat old composites.

First thing, these things are incredibly expensive. Thousands of dollars. Those who came before you paid a steep price for those, and they expected you to care for them. Second, they are incredibly sentimental to your alumni. I love walking into my fraternity house at Indiana and looking at the composites from my years, remembering the names, faces and bad haircuts. While they might seem ridiculous to you, they are awesome to me.

I was devastated a few years ago when I visited my own chapter and no one knew what had become of the composite my fellow founding fathers and I had made in 1987. That's right – the founding composite! Missing in action. Nothing but shrugged shoulders when I asked.

Councils across the country should immediately ban the desecration of composites, and the young men and women who are currently the stewards of their chapters should start acting with a bit more respect toward them. They are your history. Those faces mean something to those of us who made it possible for you to be in the chapter today.

I wish every alumni IFC or Panhellenic across the country would immediately rent a huge storage unit, confiscate all the old composites from the undergraduate chapters, and keep them under lock and key. Where alumni councils don't exist, the university should ask for them. There are services available for composite restoration, by the way. Then, when it was time for class reunions or significant anniversaries, we could pull them out and display them.

Perhaps then, undergraduates would respect them more.

Take the has-been high road

2009-12-11T05:09:00.005-07:00

You finished your term in office. You passed the gavel, and the pressure is off. All those crazy problems are no longer yours. If you've done your job, you made sure the transition was an effective one with lots of inside advice and an offer to be available for questions. With a wink of good luck and a small dose of empathy, you handed over the monster to the new officer.

You're free! Congrats. You can now head home – or wherever – for some true down time. Less stress, no more complaints, more free time.

For some of you, you'll be moving on to another leadership position. Perhaps you've signed on to lead a council or another student organization that has nothing to do with your previous leadership position. New challenges await.

But for others, you'll come back in January with no specific student leadership responsibilities. You'll just be "Joe Member" of your organization. A has-been. That can either be really great, or it can be really confusing. A few bits of advice.

Please, please, please... do not be an obstructionist former officer. The last thing the new leaders need is your open criticism of everything they try to do. Keep your mouth shut and let them try their new ideas, make their mistakes, and face their struggles. It's tough being a student leader, and your meddling can make it worse. If you can't say anything nice, then just shut up. Yes, you might be right. Yes, you might have made a better choice. But, it's not your turn.

If you choose to hang around, then lend a hand on a project or area of the organization that desperately needs some attention. Raise some money, work with the alumni, do some public relations, paint the basement, clean up the constitution and bylaws. You're not in charge any longer, but you can still be useful. Make a contribution without getting in the way of the new leaders. Set an example for other members that membership means stewardship of the organization, whether or not you're in a leadership seat.

Show up to things. Your year as a leader doesn't give you a pass to skip everything from here forward. Take an interest in the youngest members of your organization, and help shape their experience in a positive way. Again, you're setting an example.

Support the new person even when it hurts. When people in your organization dislike something the new officer does, the first thing they will do is look at you. Don't roll the eyes, don't make clever criticisms. Even if you disagree, your most critical response should be something like, "If you guys don't like what he's doing, then go talk to him and work with him for a better solution." Don't add fuel to a fire by encouraging dissent. It doesn't make you look smarter or cooler to stir the pot – it just makes you look like a pain in the ass.

Go find another place to be useful. Join another student organization. Volunteer. Make some new friends. Sometimes, former officers become a negative, toxic presence in their organizations because they are bored, under-utilized, and are struggling with a lack of validation. When that happens, you start becoming the in-house critic of everything. Don't go down that path.

Former presidents of the United States are good role models for how you should act. They reserve criticism. They help if they are called upon, even if they aren't particularly fond of their replacement. They work on their own projects (their libraries, for instance) without getting in the way of the new leader. When encouraged to criticize by the press, they pinch their lips.

Like them, be classy about being a former leader. It's the has-been high road.

Don't just meet to meet

2009-12-01T07:31:00.002-07:00

I'm headed to a very important professional conference next week. I am literally designing my own spreadsheet schedule because I have so many appointments. I might have to schedule pee breaks.

Needless to say that there will be a lot of meetings. Like many people, I am fine with meetings when there is a purpose and some progress, and I hate them when they are utterly useless. I am the king of excusing myself and leaving if there's not some progress after about 15 minutes.

If you can't get things moving in a valuable direction after 15 minutes, I'll excuse myself and find a better way to be productive. I know it sounds harsh, but ladies and gentlemen, time is money.

As a student leader, you probably attend a lot of meetings – some that you are responsible for and many others that you are simply expected to attend. Take an inventory of your current schedule of meetings and evaluate if they are worthy uses of your time.

I reject the idea that all meetings are necessary. They're not. If the person in charge of a meeting doesn't respect your time enough to make the meeting productive, you don't owe your attendance. Rather than make excuses for skipping the meetings, or sitting there in a haze wasting your time week after week, confront the person holding the meetings and make suggestions for how the meeting could be changed.

Be part of the solution.

Can the meeting be shorter? It's amazing how many people default to an hour meeting, because that just seems like the right amount of time. Let's make it 30 minutes and see what that does.

Can it be held less often or on a non-regular schedule? Why weekly? Let's change it to once a month, or maybe just twice in October. Schedule these meetings with purpose and justification.

Can fewer people be invited so that it's only key decision makers? Maybe we need two meetings: one for those who make decisions and one general meeting each month to just keep the membership in the loop.

If the meeting is mostly for political purposes (i.e., making the Dean of Students feel "in the loop"), can that be accomplished another way?

Can the agenda be restructured?

If the host of the meeting never starts on time, confront that also. Assist the host of the meeting by publicly making a request to participants that they show up on time, and then be a role model by making sure you're on time.

Suggest to the host that he/she sends out an email 48 hours prior to the meeting to focus participants on three key issues for the meeting.

I'm not a fan of meetings that try to be both social and business. Choose. If you want me to conduct business, then have a meeting and make it productive. If you want to serve a social purpose, then have a social event, advertise it that way, and I'll show up with bells on my toes. Meetings that try to blend the two usually end up being neither fun nor productive – they just feel disorganized and unfocused. Yes, meetings can be fun and light, and people can enjoy being around each other and interacting, but if you're calling a meeting it needs to yield something.

And, most of all, make sure that you never attend a meeting unless the host specifies an end time. Demand it. An end time allows you and the other participants to structure your day or evening more effectively.

I need to also suggest to you that you evaluate the meetings that YOU host. Are you wasting people's time? Are you starting and ending on time? Are you accomplishing anything, or just meeting to meet? Are your meetings interactive, or is it just people sitting and listening? Before you can ask others to improve their meetings, you need to step up and set the example.

If you haven't discovered it yet, time is one of your most valuable resources. When people waste your time, they hurt your morale, and that hurts your organization. Take charge.

For a good article on "Making Meetings Matter" go here.

The easiest way to make someone feel important

2009-11-25T06:24:00.003-07:00

I have a teenage son, and navigating the ever-changing norms of that relationship is a constant challenge. Can I ask about the girlfriend, or can't I? Do I praise the B on the test, or ask if he is disappointed? It never ends, and I seldom get things just right.

When you have a teenager, the most precious resource is his undivided attention, and you never get it. The iPod, the PSP, the cell phone – they all outrank me.

Yesterday, I drove him to school. He normally takes public transportation, so this was an unusual morning where we had 15 minutes together in the car for some real conversation. It didn't have to be anything serious or deeply meaningful, but I was excited about it.

We were barely out of the driveway when he began texting his girlfriend. I'd ask him a question, and he wouldn't hear me. I finally asked if he would put the phone away so we could talk. Competing for attention with a teenage boy's girlfriend is a sad and desperate battle, but I loaded my guns.

"What's so important?" he asked with a tone. "Nothing in particular," I said. "It would just be nice if you could put the phone away and focus on me for the next 15 minutes. You can focus on her the rest of the day."

He did well for almost a mile, but the vibrating in his pocket was too much to bear. "Don't do it," I said to him as I saw his hand move toward his pocket. He resisted, and resisted, and then had to look. "Two seconds, Dad," he said as his fingers began their task.

Then, I did something very mature. I just shut down and didn't talk to him the rest of the way to school. I was annoyed because he had made me feel unimportant. All I wanted was his undivided attention for a couple of minutes, and he absolutely could not provide it.

Why am I writing about this on my student leadership blog? Because I believe that giving someone your undivided attention has become the most rare and glorious form of respect. Have you ever been talking to someone at a bar or party, thinking you're making a connection, and they are busy looking over your shoulder at everyone else? You know how crappy that makes you feel? Don't be that person. Focus on who's in front of you.

And, let me be clear... it's not just the young people with their constant addiction to glancing at their phones. Us "old folks" are getting just as bad.

The other day, I was on a short phone call with a colleague who works in a busy student affairs office. He called me to set up a speaker, but about 20 seconds after we started talking, he said, "Hold on." I could then hear him shouting to someone in his office and laughing. I can't recount exactly what he said, but as I sat on the other side of the line ignored, I remember thinking, "Wow, that sounded critical." Remember – he called me. For a good 15 seconds, I'm sitting there, waiting for him to focus on the call that he just made.

Put the phone in your pocket. Close the door. Draw the blinds. Put the barriers up so that your cluttered, over-active, attention deficit disordered brain can give the person in front of you your undivided attention for two minutes. Or ten, or 15. Whatever's appropriate.

This holiday, you will probably be home with your family. Lay off the Facebook. Put the cell phone in your room instead of your pocket. Make a conscious decision to give your family and friends the one gift that will truly make them feel special... your undivided attention.

The answer to Greek morale and unity lies in supporting small events

2009-11-23T12:31:00.008-07:00

If you find your fraternity and sorority community continually struggling with member morale, junior and senior attrition, and a lack of Greek unity, there is something you can do. But, it's going to require a major change in how your community does business.

Many fraternity and sorority chapters, and their council communities, remain focused on doing huge events targeted to all of their members – large scale service events, big step shows, "sing" competitions, Greek Weeks. While these appeal to many (and in many cases can be a lot of fun), they don't appeal to all members, particularly for upperclassmen who have already done them more than once.

These people who don't get all jazzed up by a third year of "Greek Sing" wander away from your Greek community in search of something that fits them.

Here's what I suggest you do. This year, take a portion of your budget and invite small interest groups to apply for funding for special interest activities that will be open to all fraternity and sorority members. Maybe some Greeks will be interested in planning a small live music coffeehouse event for those members who love acoustic music. Perhaps a group will want to do an interfraternal rock-climbing trip for the outdoor enthusiasts. Whatever your members get excited about, invite them to create an avenue within your Greek community – everything from ice carving to environmentalism to book clubs.

But wait... all of this is available on our campus through other organizations. Why should we fund these niche interests within our Greek community? Because fraternity and sorority members who find these special connections within your community will STAY in your community and increase their commitment to it.

I recently came across an example of how enabling smaller, niche interests can have a powerful impact on a Greek community.

Many fraternity and sorority members at Gannon University in Northwest Pennsylvania desired a stronger connection with other Greeks who shared a strong commitment to their Christian faith. Some of these leaders recently started "LETtERS," a group open to all fraternity and sorority members seeking Christian fellowship.

It's not a Bible study, said Jackie Oesmann, a member of Alpha Sigma Tau and the Panhellenic Vice President of Public Relations. It's more of a discussion group. Recently, the members watched a clip from the movie "Elf" and used it as a discussion starter about finding your place in a group where you sometimes don't feel like you belong. It usually winds back to some relevant scripture readings. Sometimes, they even sing. Mostly, it's about giving fraternity and sorority members a safe place to share and enjoy their Christian interests.

"I think that overall, even though we've only had a few meetings, the group is a great new thing for the community and has a lot of potential," Jackie said. "Our councils ahve been working hard to promote Greek unity this year, and having people come together in a group like this definitely helps that."

Her campus offers six other faith-sharing groups, but the Greeks weren't participating, she said. "The solution was to create our own group where we could discuss things relating specifically to issues we deal with as Greeks."

Six other faith-based groups in their small campus community should have been enough, you might think. But, when an opportunity was created within their own Greek community, these fraternity and sorority members at Gannon became energized.

Imagine a dozen or so special interest "clubs" existing within your Greek community. Imagine four dozen. Imagine Greeks from all different sorts of chapters building relationships across chapter boundaries around shared interests. Imagine your members placing a higher value on their memberships because their personal needs are being met in a more meaningful way.

Imagine all the good that could come from that.

A Tale of Five Dinners

2009-11-05T15:22:00.005-07:00

As a professional campus speaker, I am frequently asked to a dinner before or after my keynotes. Sometimes these are fun, rewarding experiences, with lots of laughs and good ideas shared. Other times, I want to take the fork off the table and jam it in my eye.

Here are five very common dinners that I experience on a regular basis.

The Dinner I Like

The advisor asks if I want to go grab a beer or a bite to eat after the program. We sit there and have a really great conversation about Student Life, families, kids, football, Chris Brown vs. Rhianna, whatever. It doesn't matter what we eat, and it feels great to make a lasting connection with a campus professional. I've had awesome dinners like this recently, one with my friend Kaye in LaCrosse, Wisconsin, and another with my pal Kelly Jo in Iowa City. It feels great to make a new friend or reconnect with an old one when you're spending a long stretch on the road.

The Other Dinner I Like

A couple of students (and sometimes an advisor) who have worked to bring me to campus want to go out for a meal before or after the program at a quiet restaurant. Since there isn't music blaring, we can hear each other as we spend time discussing issues they are facing. They know a little (or a lot) about me, and they ask my opinions. It's a small group, and I ask them about their challenges. They share honest stories from their experiences, and I give them some ideas I've come across from other campuses. Everyone is at this dinner because they want to be. I get some information that will help me in the keynote that night, or at the keynote tomorrow night at the next school.

The "Speaker as a Free Meal Ticket" Dinner

The sponsor says, "Some of the students want to take you out to eat before the program." About 14 of them show up, and they don't know a thing about me or what I'm speaking about. Then, throughout the meal, they talk among themselves about their plans for the weekend, that crazy thing that happened at the Greek Week event last night, or about who's dating whom. Everyone at the table orders the big meal because their organization is paying the bill, and most of them also order an alcoholic beverage. I sit there for the first 20 minutes trying to make a connection, even though no one is actually talking to me, and then I excuse myself to go make a phone call. I return to the dining area to see that no one is missing me, so I sit at the bar and have a conversation with the bartender. After the $400 bill is paid, half the students tell me it was nice to meet me, but they can't come to the program. They have other things to do.

The Surprise Program Dinner

I show up to a student dinner (usually at the Student Union) and find out that the staff member has actually gathered a rather large group together for a dinner program. I thought we were just eating and having casual conversation, but no. The advisor is expecting a dinner speech, and I suddenly have to pull something out of the air. And, since these students will likely be in my keynote two hours later, I have to talk about something different than what's in the main talk. Sometimes at these dinners, the students are attending because they were told they had to, and the advisor sits there and says things like, "What questions do you guys have for T.J.?" The students stare blankly at their plates. Feeling like the unwanted elderly aunt at Sunday night dinner, I lamely ask, "What are some of the biggest issues you've faced so far this academic year?" More plate staring.

The "Come Eat at Our Fraternity House" Dinner

I'm invited for dinner at a fraternity or sorority house prior to the program. I show up at the door, and the brother who answers has no idea who I am. I ask for the person I'm meeting and the young man in sweatpants and a wife-beater slurping cereal from a bowl tells me to wait in the foyer. Other brothers walk past me while I'm waiting and don't say anything to me. My host finally comes down and warmly invites me to the dining room. Six brothers are sitting at one of the tables. When we come in, they shoot us looks and finish up so they won't have to engage with us. My young host apologizes but says tonight was pot pie night and everything is gone. Would I like some cereal?

----

Honestly, the dinner is part of being a campus speaker, and it's usually a positive experience. One look at me, and you'll know that I don't turn down many dinner invitations. There are many campus visits where the dinner is an absolute blast.

But, it's a lot more rewarding for everyone when the participants actually WANT to be there. An awkward dinner with stone-faced student prisoners is a soul-sucking experience.

At this time of stretched budgets, advisors want to get the most out of a speaker's time on campus, and that makes perfect sense. Asking the speaker to have dinner to get a little bit more benefit for your students makes sense.

Whether it's a quiet dinner with staffers, or a meal with highly-engaged and interested student leaders, just make sure that you're using the time for some true benefit. Give the speaker some idea of who will be there and what's expected. Don't set up a dinner unless someone genuinely wants the extra time with the speaker.

An excellent video about how to confront

2009-11-04T08:31:00.001-07:00

I really love this video. Makes such a good point about keeping confrontations about "what they did" and not "who they are," using race as the example.

Wanted to share it. Thanks to Steve Whitby for bringing this to my attention.

Time to be thankful

2009-10-30T09:20:00.003-06:00

At your next meeting, start off with something different. Go around the room, and ask each member to share something for which they are thankful. Whether it's a friendship in the room, something your group has achieved this year, something in their personal life, the approach of basketball season, whatever.

Have your officers go first to set the tone. Sure, there will be a couple of sarcastic, maybe even inappropriate answers as you go around the room, but that's OK. The idea is to focus on the good stuff your members get from being a part of your organization.

If people don't know what to say, they can simply be thankful for being a member, or being alive, or for the opportunity to attend college, or for our men and women serving overseas. Let people know that they can be as personal as they want to be, or not personal at all.

Want to make it even better? After going around the room, have everyone write the thing they are thankful for on an index card, and then post those cards somewhere visible. If your group is a housed fraternity or sorority, post them by the front door. If you're a student government, post them in the student activities office. Athletic teams might post them in the locker room, or perhaps post their own card on the outside of their locker. If you're a student life staff member, post them in your break area or on your office doors. Keep that positive energy of thanks and appreciation going.

Today, our intern, Ryan, took a bulletin board and cut out a bunch of turkeys, putting the name of a staff member on each one. He then distributed five paper "feathers" to each staff member and asked them to write something they were thankful for on each feather. Staff members are busy right now putting their feathers on their birds. It was a really nice way to end our week here.

Sometimes, we get so bogged down by the challenges in our organization or in our workplace that we forget to note the simple things that make being in college and being a student leader wonderful. Give your members the opportunity to express what your organization means to them, and how the relationships they make there affect them.

Time to deliver

2009-10-28T10:08:00.003-06:00

Someone emailed me a question this week: "What is the best advice you can give to student organizations and student life people during this time of recession, slashed budgets, and depressing economics." My first reaction was to advise that people should keep their chins up and be optimistic. But, after more thought, here's my answer.

"It's time to deliver."

No one cares about what you meant to do. No one wants to hear excuses. No one has any patience for people who whine, and under-perform.

Shut up, put in the work, and deliver something. In a current economic climate where people are three months behind on house payments, no one cares about tiny, whiny problems.

I heard this morning on the news that satisfaction with Congress is at a 12-year low in the polls right now. I'm of the opinion (and you may disagree, that's fine) that Congress is actually getting quite a bit done this session. But, I understand why the poll is showing dissatisfaction among regular Americans. When the public is pissed, worried and impatient for progress, the regular machinations of debate and deal-making annoy the public more.

When the environment is worrisome, it's also impatient and demanding. It's time to deliver.

Same thing when it comes to your organization. People (your members and your constituents) are looking for results. They don't want politics, posturing, excuses or lengthy explanations of why you can't get something done. They don't care if it's hard, or if your budget is slashed, or if you're having to work more hours. They don't want big, flashy impressive events. They want you to do your job and produce something of value.

My best advice to student organizations right now? Buckle down, and produce. Don't aim to impress. Don't take on wild new projects. Fix what's broken, focus on getting the job done. Get rid of leaders who aren't stepping up and doing their jobs. Make sure your finances are in order, and make sure you have a plan in case your dollars decline. Find economies, and say goodbye to the partnerships, the events, and the processes that drain away resources.

To student life people: appreciate the fact that you have a job, make yourself invaluable to everyone counting on you, and guide people to the other side of this mess. You need to deliver, also. Make sure your time is spent on efforts that yield visible results.

Right now, three strong achievements beat the hell out of wild plans and promises.

When you can't get anyone to run

2009-10-22T14:16:00.003-06:00

If you hold an election, and no one runs for anything, does it make a noise?

It's not uncommon for student organizations to struggle getting qualified candidates to run for offices. Perhaps your group's morale is low. Perhaps you don't have enough members to fill the positions. Maybe this year's officers alienated everyone. Or, maybe the position is perceived by your members as a thankless one.

Here are a couple of steps for coping with the "empty chair" situation. First, the option I like the least...
• Coerce someone into taking the position. This is my least favorite solution, because someone who you beg to do a position is unlikely to take a strong personal interest in the position. If you go this route, you're better off going to someone who was an officer a year ago and is still around.

All of the following options are better, in my opinion...

• Remove all prerequisites. If your organization has counter-productive requirements – such as "all officers must have been a member of the organization for two years" – drop them. Recruit in a young, eager leader looking for a way to prove himself.

• Recruit a new member for the specific purpose of assuming the role. It's kind of fun to become a member and an officer the same day. Go out and find someone who has the skills and motivation and who is looking for a place to use them.

• Consider making it a jointly held position. Why can't you have two people serving as secretary and alternating tasks? Not ideal, but if you have members who worry about the time commitment, this might be an option.

• Eliminate the position. Divide the tasks among other officers and committee chairs.

• Let the position sit empty for a while. Maybe someone will step up a little later, and you can fill the position by appointment.

• Beef up the position. Maybe no one wants the position because it's seen as lame. Un-lame it by adding some additional responsibilities and powers.

If you're having trouble filling offices, you have options. Don't be afraid to try something new and unexpected. It could liven things up.

"Approaches to Creating a Veteran-Friendly Campus"

2009-10-19T14:04:00.004-06:00

Following up on my posting last week about programs for veterans on your campus...

Here is a webinar called "Approaches to Creating a Veteran-Friendly Campus."

http://www.naspa.org/programs/veterans.cfm

In my mind, this is a critical issue for student affairs professionals. I know no one involved in the webinar. It's $79 for students and $179 for professionals who are members of NASPA, ASCA, or ACUHO-I.

A Powerful Lesson

2009-10-16T09:32:00.004-06:00

Mark Sterner is not a guy you would immediately peg as one of the busiest college speakers in the country. He never set out to be a speaker, and given the choice to roll back time and change his history, he'd probably rather be selling insurance like his brother.

But, that's not the way his history unfolded. He ended up with a tragic story that has taken him to more than 1,200 colleges, universities and high schools since I first met him in 1999.

Several years ago, Mark was getting ready to graduate college. It was his senior year, and like many kids from blue-collar circumstances, he was about to become the first person in his family to graduate college. It was a time of celebration. Graduation was in sight. Mark and four of his fraternity brothers made plans to spend their Spring Break in Sanibel Island, Florida, where one of their parents had a condo.

Sanibel Island wasn't much of a Spring Break location, so each night they'd pile into the Lincoln Town Car they had rented and they would drive to the nearest bar, looking for a little fun. Each night, they'd designate a sober driver, and for the first five nights, the system worked fine.

Their Spring Break was fairly typical – maybe even a little dull compared to those of their friends who had gone to Daytona or Panama City Beach. They drank too much in the evenings, and they got sunburned from falling asleep in the sun during the days. Personal video cameras were the new, cool thing at the time, and the men taped their exploits – from shots on the condo patio to lame dancing at half-empty bars. They were all incredibly bad dancers, and the alcohol didn't help.

This story plays out every year for thousands of young college students. They safely return to the final weeks of college, their livers recovering, with memories that will last a lifetime. That's not how the story ended for Mark and his brothers.

The final night of Spring Break, no one wanted to be the designated driver a second time. It was the final night, after all, and they wanted it to be memorable. Unwisely, they decided that the least drunk among them would take the wheel on the way home. That person was Mark.

After taping their exploits in a local bar, they headed home along the dark, two-lane Florida roads that led back to their condo. The alcohol and the young male bravado took over. Mark drove too fast, eager to see what the Town Car could do.

The next thing Mark remembers is waking up in a hospital, several days later. His body was badly damaged. Three of his fraternity brothers were dead. Police waited outside his hospital room to charge him with three counts of felony manslaughter. Instead of being the first in his family to graduate college, he would be the first in his family to go to prison.

Mark's story is the ultimate example of how one bad decision can alter the entire course of a person's life. Now a felon, Mark found himself grieving his friends, coping with guilt, and pondering his destroyed life from the sterile surroundings of a minimum security prison in Florida.

For many of us, we hear Mark's story and realize that it could have happened as easily to us. But for the grace of God...

Approximately 45 nights each semester, Mark gets up in front of audiences nationwide and shares his story. I've watched from the back of the room at least a dozen times. He shows video the men took during their trip. He shows pictures of the mangled Town Car and pictures of the brothers he lost. He doesn't preach, he doesn't give motivational messages like many who have picked up the shattered pieces of their lives. He simply tells students that they need to stay vigilant and consistently make good decisions. It's a simple, straightforward message. This happened to me, and there's no reason it couldn't happen to you if you aren't smart.

Each year, we get the most passionate emails and letters from students who have been touched by Mark's story. They talk about friends they have lost to impaired driving. They tell Mark that later that year they had a night where they thought about getting behind the wheel impaired, remembered his program, and made a better decision.

It's been a long, weird journey for Mark. Frankly, I don't know how he manages to get up each evening and share the worst experience of his life. I don't know how he deals with the occasional crazy who asks him how it felt to kill his friends. I don't know why he hasn't retired his suitcases and moved on to some other, more normal way of making a living. He certainly has other opportunities. It's not as if looking at the pictures of his dead friends every night is his only option. Most in his position would have done everything possible to distance themselves.

This coming week begins National Collegiate Alcohol Awareness Week (NCAAW). I thought of writing something about why you, as a student leader, should still care about promoting awareness and prevention of alcohol abuse. The tragedies caused by alcohol and poor judgment are real.

Instead, I decided to celebrate Mark. After a decade, he's still our busiest speaker, and probably the one on our roster I admire the most. The number of lives he's saved is countless.

He will be busy this NCAAW speaking to audiences in Texas, D.C., Alabama, Pennsylvania, and New York. Like Mark, we need to stay vigilant in helping young people understand the power of good personal choices. History need not repeat itself.

Make changes now to avoid endless elections

2009-10-14T14:17:00.003-06:00

If you are that rare and beautiful student organization that has an efficient and effective elections process, then skip this entry. If you're one of the majority of student organizations that has an elections process that's as much fun as a root canal, this is for you.

If it takes you longer than a 2-hour meeting to elect new officers, you should start working now to implement some changes to improve your process. Some people love a long and drawn-out election meeting, but the rest of us (with a life) think it's dreadful. Dreadful. Dreadful.

First, a note. I hate the concept of "slating" officers. I think it's unfair and suggests that a small group of people know better than the entire group being led. I am a fan, however, of having qualifications for those running for office (grade point averages, first and foremost), and having a process by which people become candidates. But, if four people want to run for Treasurer, I think all four should be given a chance to throw their hats in.

Here are my suggestions. Your advisor might have many more.

1. Make people register their candidacy at least two weeks in advance. Knowing who is running for offices allows the necessary conversations to happen before the election meeting. A little campaigning is a good thing. Maybe even offer some informal gatherings where people can ask the candidates questions. The two-week registration forces people to be thoughtful about running, but it also allows people to approach each candidate to ask questions. Better that they do that informally, person-to-person, than during an 8 hour elections marathon meeting. I think a group organically vetting its candidates is more fair than a slating process which is almost always biased.

2. If people want to run for multiple offices, let them file candidacies for all of those positions. Chances are, someone who puts his name in the hat for multiple offices won't be elected to any of them. You'll need to decide on a process for how you'll handle it if a person wins more than one office. For example, letting the person choose which office she wants then having a run-off for the other office she won. This might require a bylaw change, so think it through.

3. Allow the candidates to submit a written statement (200 words or less) that outlines their qualifications, their motivations for running, and their priorities if elected. Or, do it as a 3-5 point questionnaire that each candidate can fill out with brief answers. Then, distribute these to all members via website or some other means at least a week in advance of the meeting.

4. At the elections meeting, allow each candidate to nominate someone to speak on their behalf for 2 minutes. Or, allow the candidate him/herself to speak for 2 minutes. You do not need to allow time for people to speak "against" candidates. That's counter-productive. All the negatives will have circulated informally in the two weeks proceeding. Your elections should not be a vehicle for ripping people down or discrediting their leadership talents or motives.

5. If you have more than 8 officers, elect them in two batches: your top four officers at the first elections meeting, then the others at the subsequent meeting. This beats one long, draining meeting.

6. Knowing your candidates in advance allows you to do ballots which can be done at the conclusion of your elections meeting. You don't need to do voting for each office independently – that's a giant time suck.

There are probably lots of other ideas people have on how to streamline elections. If you have one, email it to me, and I'll feature it in a future posting.

My main point, however, is that if your elections are a draining, monotonous, exhausting process, then you need to start laying some groundwork NOW to make it better. If you need to make changes to your constitution or bylaws to improve the process, now is the time to do it.

Elections for many organizations are a month or so away, so take the initiative immediately to improve your process.

Soldier Send-offs, a great program idea

2009-10-10T16:27:00.004-06:00

While at the University of Wisconsin Stevens Point last week, I had the opportunity to speak to the president of their Veterans Club. I haven't come across many of these groups, but I imagine that after nearly a decade of wars in both Iraq and Afganistan, we're going to be seeing many more on campuses across the country.

I asked him what sort of events his group does, and he told me that their most successful event of the year was a Soldier Send-off. Basically, they gathered a bunch of the men and women who were soon to ship off for the Middle East and they did a big celebration event for them. They invited local veterans, families with loved ones serving, and the families of those about to be deployed. Then, they invited other groups on campus to come support their student soldiers. He said that turn-out was fantastic.

As part of the event, they also gave out lists of students who were currently serving in the military and several organizations "adopted" a student soldier. Presumably, the groups would then send care packages and notes of encouragement and support to their fellow students serving overseas.

I know an amazing idea when I hear one. How wonderful it would be if campuses all around the country held similar events to honor the men and women in their student body who have served, are preparing to serve, and who are away from campus, serving currently. It's an event that every organization on campus could get behind.

Wednesday, November 11 is Veterans Day, and a perfect opportunity to plan something of this nature. You might also check with your athletic department to see if they will be doing any sort of veteran-focused half-time observance the Saturday before or after Veterans Day (many do) and see if you can add something to that event.

Merging student organizations?

2009-10-06T09:06:00.003-06:00

Do you follow business news? Consolidations and mergers are commonplace. Delta Airlines absorbs Northwest. Whole Foods digests Wild Oats. Television's WB and UPN networks merge to become the CW.

It's not an easy game, merging cultures from different companies. The big goal is to form one larger, more powerful company that can make more money and achieve more in the marketplace. It's not easy, and success is not guaranteed, but the potential is enormous.

Does consolidation make sense sometimes in the world of student organizations?

I was at one campus recently that had four tiny organizations, all trying to serve international students. All four groups had tiny budgets and were cannibalizing each other with competing events aimed at the same small, specific campus population. I asked them why they didn't just merge into one bigger International Student Organization and streamline their leadership, events, and meetings. By merging their budgets and becoming the singular organization representing international students on their campus, they'd have more clout when lobbying for campus activity funding.

As we discussed it, they were skeptical. The Asian students don't necessarily mix with the Latin students, they said. When I suggested that the new organization could have different groups within the same umbrella (still have events for the Asian students, other events for the Latin students, and new events for the African students, etc.), they seemed puzzled. We've somehow accepted that every mission in student activities calls for an independent student organization. This is not the only option.

I recently chatted with an acquaintance about how two struggling fraternities could merge on his campus. The two small fraternities in question got along well, and were very similar in make-up and values. But the groups were struggling because they had a hard time maintaining their respective houses. Why not merge, I asked? Either have two groups sharing one house, or do a true merger and give up one of the charters. Wouldn't it be better to have one fraternity that is able to compete than two that are constantly hovering near demise?

Certainly, merging groups can be a challenge. Some members will never endorse such a move, and they will drop off. There will be leadership challenges. Whose traditions and events survive? How do we put past differences behind us? Do we retain one of the groups' name, or do we come up with something entirely new?

The only way to figure out if it would work would be to begin the "what if" conversation. It can happen confidentially, and it should include key leaders and their advisors. It's important during these discussions to focus on the new possibilities the merger presents. More money, more members, a chance to build a new, stronger organization that can do exciting things.

For advisors reading this blog: is consolidation something we should be encouraging more often? Would it be more productive (and easier?) to advise one effective group rather than four ineffective ones? As advisors, why don't we suggest this idea to struggling groups, then help them figure out how to do it?

It's time to check your progress and momentum

2009-10-02T19:45:00.004-06:00

Welcome to Week Five. Ladies and Gentlemen, it's the end of the honeymoon.

This is typically the week when everyone's academic reality comes crashing down after a brutal set of exams. The freshmen start missing home and those boyfriends and girlfriends they left there. The student activities folks are exhausted from the last month and a half of constant work.

Maybe, if you're lucky, you have Homecoming or some other fall festival weekend to ease the pain, but the weather is turning colder, sunset is coming earlier, and all that beautiful "start of the year momentum" has waned.

By now, you have a pretty good idea how your football team is doing, and the majority of you realize that your record is going to be pretty much like last year's. You'll probably notice people starting to blow off the games this weekend or next.

I don't mean to be depressing, but dear student leaders, now is when you need to start cranking up the motivation machine. You've coasted as far as the start of the year will take you, and now you should be getting some real work done. Your group should be knee deep in projects, events and the routines of achieving your mission.

Check in with your fellow officers. See how they are doing – or if they are actually DOING anything. It's a good time to gather opinions, check back on those goals you set at your retreat. Have plans been finalized? Have some first steps been taken? Any early successes we can celebrate? Any leaders not stepping up?

It's a good time to have that executive board meeting around a few plates of sliders at the local Denny's. Leave the agenda behind and just talk. What can we realistically accomplish in the next two months before we elect new officers? What's working, and what isn't?

Name three things that your members can be looking forward to. If you can't think of three obvious things, do something about it.

When NOT to send an email

2009-09-26T08:58:00.002-06:00

In a college world where break-ups happen by Facebook message, it's valuable to acknowledge that there are still some situations when an email is not the best way to communicate. If you're one of those student leaders who does everything by email, text message or wall post, take a moment to consider 10 situations when you should find a better way to communicate.

1. You want to send a heartfelt thanks or apology. Sincerity is the key in both situations, and an email or a "thanks, you rock" text message doesn't convey much. If you want to really, sincerely thank someone, say it to their face, write a short note, send a small gift, or stand up at a meeting and say something nice about the person. If you need to apologize, be a big person and do it face to face. "I'm sorry I slept with your roommate. Forgive me" on a text message isn't going to get the job done.

2. You haven't spoken in a long time. If you've fallen out of touch with someone and then you suddenly send an email asking for something, it speaks volumes about the nature of your relationship. Picking up the phone and having a real conversation that conveys your sincerity will make all the difference, plus it gives you a chance to re-establish the relationship.

3. Your request isn't crucial to the recipient. Guess what? Your important email isn't the most important thing the Vice President of Student Affairs has to deal with today! It's important to you, but it's just one of 80 messages she has received today, and while she likes you, it's not the thing on the top of her to-do list. She read your FB message on a 5-minute break from a meeting and will forget it completely an hour from now. If you need a response badly, then put it in front of the person in a more urgent way.

4. You have enormous files to send. Only send big files via email if the person asks you to. That gigantic attachment could clog their account, end up in a spam filter, or tie up his iPhone for 10 minutes downloading.

5. You want to keep something confidential. If you haven't learned this one yet, you will, eventually. What seems like a private conversation now can become a public mess with the purposeful or accidental click of the "forward" button. Email lasts forever. Your status with the recipient of that email might not. Be careful.

6. You need an immediate reply. Texting helps with this, because right now, people feel like they are more urgent. That won't last forever. People used to pounce on emails the moment they came in. Some still do, but others barley check email at all. If you need an immediate response, find the person, or have a Plan B.

7. You're trying to build consensus among leaders. There are some subjects that simply should be discussed in a group setting – where people can bounce ideas around, play off each other, and yes, argue a bit. Email is not a good place to build consensus on a subject because people read emails at different times. It's not a conversation where everyone gets to participate equally or simultaneously. It's OK to put out the information necessary for a discussion ahead of time, but have the discussion in person, or on a conference call. You need to recognize when an email string has moved into the realm of a meeting agenda item.

8. The subject is complicated. If it seems too complicated to write in an email, then it is. Emails are not meant to be intense and intricate. Talk it out in person so the topic gets the explanation it deserves.

9. Things could get tense. Emotion and attitude are very difficult to convey in an email, or heaven forbid, in a text. If you're writing when you're emotional, you could say things you don't mean, without the benefit of body language and non verbal cues. Feelings get bent out shape quickly when fiery messages fly around. Just avoid it.

10. Email caused the problem in the first place. If your message or someone else's has caused a stir, move it off the Internet. You'll just make matters worse by firing back a response, inappropriately sharing their message, etc.

This blog post is based off material I gathered from Margaret McDonald, a wonderful writer, trainer and consultant whose blog can be found at www.MissCommunications.com. If you're looking for someone to train your group on the do's and don'ts of electronic communication, check out her website at www.SmartPeopleAtWork.com. Margaret gave me permission to tweak her material for my blog. Thanks, Margaret.

Act your age

2009-09-25T08:27:00.006-06:00

This one is for the alumni out there.

I want to tell you about a little journey I've been taking. When you're a professional speaker, you go through a sort of progression. In my 20's, I was all about "being one of them" to the students. I wanted to dress like them, look their age, and speak on their level. I could talk about sex and dating, for example, and the students were right there with me.

It got harder as I neared 30, but fortunately, I was usually able to pull it off most of the time. A well-placed reference to that summer's big teenage movie (I specifically remember forcing myself to watch "Road Trip") worked wonders. Even as my life started to move toward more mature, adult things like financial planning, buying a house, and having a kid – I worked hard to make sure I didn't lose touch with the student set. It was definitely an act, though. I couldn't keep up with their musical tastes, and I didn't want to. I didn't think getting drunk three nights a week was normal, anymore, and I wasn't laughing along with the stories of idiotic behavior. I was getting a little "judgey."

Another funny thing – I had to stop talking about sex and dating altogether. I couldn't even make casual references. College students are repulsed by the idea that anyone over 35 has sex, ever. Take my word for it – students groan and squirm in their seats at the slightest suggestion.

Now, I'm 40, and it's over. I'm their dad. As a professional speaker in my 40's raising a teenager of my own, I've had to morph into something much different than I was 15 years ago. In 15 years, I went from being one of them, to being their cool older brother, to being an ancient relic. When I tell fraternity audiences that I was initiated in 1987, before they were born, they look at me like I'm one of their founders.

I had to embrace the fact that students were seeing me differently, and I needed to stop trying to be their cool buddy. I had to rewrite my programs and change all my jokes. I had to speak to them as what I was – a smart adult with something to say. I had something to teach them. I stopped trying to speak at their level, because I was somewhere higher. I had to embrace that.

I write about this, today, because a colleague suggested I write about those alumni who simply haven't learned this lesson yet. They come to events and try to be cool by acting like they are still 22. I cringe when I see them – men in their 40's at campus or leadership events who are trying hard to be "one of the boys."

Dude, you're not 22 anymore. You're not fooling anyone. Enabling the "boys will be boys" crap is counter productive. Oh, and by the way, everyone over 30 in the room thinks you're being a tool.

I've seen a past national president of a fraternity act this way recently. He was ogling young sorority women and saying the most embarrassing things to the younger men as he bought them beer and encouraged their worst behavior. Funny thing was, he thought he was being cool with the young men. I could tell they were laughing at him, not with him. The staff members of his fraternity were in visible pain watching him, unable to stop him.

It was humiliating.

Here's what I wanted to say to him. "You have a lot to offer. Be a role model. Show these young men what they can grow up to be. Stop acting like you stopped maturing around age 24. Show them what manhood looks like."

I'm not saying you have to launch into lectures. I'm not saying you have to be their father.

Just be yourself, and embrace the fact that you can be relevant without being one of them. College students have their own buddies, their own age. They don't need you to fill that gap for them. You can't do it, anyway.

What many students crave are role models and mentors to whom they can relate. Try it. You might like it.

Why I didn't join a fraternity, at first

2009-09-19T09:11:00.005-06:00

When I arrived at Indiana University, I fell in love with a house. A physical structure.

Across from the law school on Third Avenue sat the Acacia fraternity house. It was three stories tall with a gray stone facade. About a dozen two-story white columns dominated the front of the mansion, and a beautiful green lawn stretched out to Third. It was breath taking.

I had no idea what Acacia was. I knew nothing about fraternities. As I passed the house those first few days, I would just stare at the building and the young men going in and out. I was fascinated. I couldn't believe that undergraduates like me could live there. If a young man from that fraternity had approached me those first few days, I would have been hooked.

My love affair ended soon enough. I found out it was a fraternity, and my friends at the residence hall told me that pledges there were made to do all sorts of humiliating things. I have no idea if it was actually true. True or false, I believed what they said that evil things lurked behind the doors of Acacia and the other fraternities I passed each day.

Having just turned 16 (I went to college very early), I was petrified of older guys ordering me around and humiliating me. I heard stories of fraternity pledges doing naked, sexually-oriented activities. I had flashbacks to fourth grade when a neighborhood bully would routinely humiliate me in front of other kids at the bus stop, and I shuddered at the idea of putting myself in that situation again. Nothing was worth that.

I didn't even have a word for "hazing" at the time, but I knew I didn't want to be mistreated. I didn't have the self esteem for that. I didn't want anyone yelling at me. I wasn't interested in mopping floors at 2 a.m., or doing pushups. So, I didn't join Acacia, and I didn't consider joining any other fraternity. I found other things to do, like writing for the student newspaper, which I loved.

In the coming year, I would watch pledges from Beta Theta Pi across the street from my residence hall being harassed. From the Journalism building, we could watch the Sigma Chi pledges marching and dressed alike. If those young men were having fun or enjoying themselves, I couldn't see it. I felt good about my decision to avoid the fraternities at Indiana. I didn't see anything I liked.

Of course, I did end up being a fraternity man. A pretty active one, in fact. I joined a group that was chartering a couple of years later, in part because I knew that I wouldn't be hazed. I would have a chance to make friends and do important things, without any of the garbage that other new members routinely endured on my campus in the late Eighties.

As we begin National Hazing Prevention Week, I offer this story, humbly. I have every reason to believe that the groups I've mentioned here are now amazing chapters who treat their new members better than they did in 1988.

But, I wonder how many other young men walk on our campuses, and view fraternities from a place of fear. I wonder how many, like me, see the beautiful houses and the excited young men walking in and out the doors, and decide that fraternities aren't for them. So many bright and hard-working young men who could make amazing contributions to fraternities, but hazing scares them away. They just can't sign up for humiliation.

Some who read this might be fine with that. Perhaps, you think, I wasn't strong enough to be a fraternity man. If I wasn't willing to suffer a bit, then I wasn't fraternity material. I would argue the other side. Just as you disrespect a man who couldn't tolerate hazing, I found myself (and still find myself) disrespecting anyone who would.

For years after joining the fraternity movement, professionally, I would seek out the men who ran Acacia. I wanted to know them, because in the back of my mind, I remembered that initial infatuation with their beautiful house on Third Avenue. I found them to be good and honorable men.

"I almost joined Acacia at Indiana," I would tell them. "You should have," they'd tell me. "Why didn't you?" I didn't explain, because by then it felt silly. I was older, more confident, less fearful. I would simply think to myself that had hazing not existed at Indiana back then, I might be one of their brothers.

It's not enough to stop hazing in our chapters. That's the first step. After we have found better ways to build our brotherhoods, we have to reach out to the young men arriving on campus and let them know that brotherhood isn't about hurting people. It's not about servitude and being humiliated. It's about something better. It's a place where a young man, unsure of himself, can gain confidence and a place to belong.

Once we have turned our undergraduate chapters into something admirable, we need to put the truth in front of them and fight back against decades of cautionary tales.

I love fraternity, and I hate that I almost missed out on it. Let's get rid of hazing, re-educate our communities, and make sure we never miss out on a good guy again.

Encourage dissent, but stay on offense

2009-09-15T09:57:00.004-06:00

There will come a time when you, dear student leader, will promote something that is not entirely popular. Maybe it will be a dues increase, or a decision to cosponsor something with a controversial group on campus. Perhaps you will have to cancel an event, take a stand against a group of your own members, or go head-to-head with the college administration.

If you are doing meaningful, meaty things, then dissent is part of the deal. You'd be smart to simply expect it, plan for it, and encourage it. I've been reminding myself of this as I watch the folks protesting President Obama this past weekend in D.C.. I think they're nuts, but I also understand that any good fight has to have sides.

Notice that President Obama is on the offense. Like him or not, he's out there aggressively selling his ideas. He's getting in front of people. He's demanding that the conversation take place. He's not sitting at the White House nursing a bruised ego, crying that people aren't loving his every idea. He's out there throwing punches.

If you're going to do something controversial as a student leader, you had better be ready to play the same game. Be ready to sit down for that newspaper interview. Be ready to stand up for your point of view in small meetings in coffee shops and in people's apartments. Make your argument to key leaders and opinion shapers. Be ready to have someone call you a nasty name, or insult your leadership. Smile as a few punches land squarely on your chin.

If you simply sit around and whine that your opponents are wrongheaded and unfair, you're going to lose, or you're going to have to concede a lot more than you want to. Don't be annoyed that people are arguing with you. Go out there and win over the hearts and minds. Throw punches of your own.

While your opponents are getting emotional and hysterical, listen to their concerns, address them, and validate any good points they bring up. At the same time, offer the facts, promote your ideas, and give people the context of the issue. You won't necessarily change the minds of your vocal opponents, but you might win over the folks in the middle, and that's who matters.

Stay in control. Direct the conversation. Stay on offense.

In a basketball game, there's the guy with the ball in his hand, and there's the guy waving his arms around hoping for a block. Be the guy with the ball.

Add a little sizzle to your service

2009-09-11T08:25:00.005-06:00

In a perfect world, everybody would love volunteering – getting their hands dirty, so to speak, by helping others. In a perfect world, our service projects would be our most popular events. Our members and other students would pick up trash, spend time with seniors, paint the local Boys and Girls Club, and walk pets waiting to be adopted. We all know that service makes you feel good, and it helps others. Should be the biggest no-brainer in the history of the Earth.

But anyone who has organized a service event knows that it's not so simple. People treat community service like tax planning and eating right – we know we should do it, we know it would be good for us, but it's not something we necessarily want to do right now.

As a student leader charged with organizing a service activity, you have two choices. You can either stomp around, pout about the apathy of your members, guilt people into showing up, and plead for them to see the good they can do in the world. Or, you can make service projects more fun and appeal to other motivations. I assert that the latter works a lot better.

For several years, I worked for Push America, the national service project of my fraternity. One of the first lessons I learned was that young men had the capacity to care deeply about serving children with disabilities, but sometimes you had to get them in the door another way. Today, Push America runs three summer-long bike trips with hundreds of young fraternity men riding their bikes coast to coast. Along the way, they interact and serve people with disabilities. I believe it's the most amazing example of collegiate service in the country, and the men who participate emerge profoundly affected by the experience and the people they serve along the way.

But, the people at Push America will readily admit that the "sizzle" of spending your summer biking across the country is what gets most of the guys in the door. They are drawn in by the challenge, by the achievement, by the cool uniforms, by the once-in-a-lifetime experience. They are drawn in by 20 years of photos like the one above of my friend and fraternity brother Patrick hoisting his bike above his head in front of the U.S. Capitol. The service "high" is what they take away, but the sizzle brings many of them to the table.

There are countless other examples. You may be raising money for the amazing work of St. Jude's Children's Research Hospital, but the idea of being "Up Til Dawn" having fun with your friends is part of the motivation. You might be helping end leukemia or breast cancer, but the challenge of running that mini-marathon is the fuel in the engine.

You have to find the sizzle! People like to work out, but there's a reason why they sign up at the shiny new 24Hour Super Mega Fitness that just opened. It looks so cool, doesn't it? You could work out at the rec center, but that wouldn't be half as fun would it?

If you want to boost participation and interest in your community service events, consider these suggestions:

• Consider giveaways to people who participate. Everyone who shows up gets a coupon for a free burrito from the place down the street who agreed to cosponsor the service event. What about tshirts, or water bottles, or even ribbons the participants can wear the rest of the day?

• Make your service event a coed event, if it isn't already. It's terrific that your men's basketball team is going to visit the residents at the local seniors center. But why not involve the cheerleaders, and the women's hockey team? Adding a social element makes it more fun for everyone.

• End your event with some sort of meal or a gathering at a local watering hole. Again, adding a social element is very motivating, as is promise of food and drink. Especially if it's free. Go out and get that co-sponsorship from the local joint that would love to be full of students eating and drinking at 4 pm.

• Make sure there is a goal and a sense of achievement at the end of the project. By the time those cyclists ride up to the Capitol, they are in ecstacy! All those miles totally feel worth it for that amazing final moment. How does your service event end? Is it with cheering children outside a freshly painted facility or with a lame fizzle? When you're planning your service event, you need to know how the event will culminate. Make the ending exciting. Very important.

• If you can, involve the people you are serving in the project. Painting the Boys and Girls Club is so much more fun and rewarding when you're painting it with the kids who go there.

• Add games and an element of competition. Have contests throughout the service event. Spontaneous dance contests during breaks. Awards for groups who turn out dressed in costumes. Use the uneaten donuts from the morning in a donut toss contest.

• Make it seem like a party. Why is it that you hire photographers to walk around snapping pictures at parties, but you don't hire a photographer to walk around snapping pictures during your cool service event? Always have a music. Hell, hire a DJ!

These are just a few ideas. Leading service projects is one of the coolest student leadership opportunities available, particularly when you understand that there is a large degree of salesmanship in the job done right. You need to get people in the door with the sizzle, give them a fantastic feeling while they are participating, and send them home excited about the next opportunity to serve.

Be smart when delegating tasks

2009-09-10T08:45:00.004-06:00

You're trying to be a proactive leader, and you delegate an important task. You ask one of your fellow officers to go to the Student Activities Office before Friday and fill out an important form to register your annual fundraising event. Without this form, you cannot reserve the one space on campus that will work for the event. This officer has done these forms a couple of times before, so you don't consider this a high risk delegation.

Fast forward to next Tuesday. You find out that not only did the officer fail to get the form in by Friday, he didn't fill the form out properly, didn't get a required signature, and now the space you desperately needed for the event has been snatched up by another group on campus.

Damn it. Another case of delegation gone wrong. If you had just done it yourself, everything would have been fine. As you shift into crisis mode, you swear that you're never going to delegate an important task to him or anyone else for the rest of your term.

As much as your advisor and guys like me urge you to delegate tasks, the truth is that sometimes it goes well, and sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes you delegate (or "hand over") something complex, and the person does an amazing job. Sometimes you delegate something seemingly minor, and it blows up in your face. It all contributes to that most destructive syndrome of student leadership: the "it's easier if I do it myself" syndrome. We all know that just leads to burnout, falling grades, failed relationships, and stress.

Here are a few ideas that might (and I stress, might) lower your risk of delegation failure.

• Follow up a day or two later with the person, thank them for taking on the task, and ask him or her if they have any questions about the task. Use phrases like, "It's so great to have people like you I can count on."

• Only delegate to people who ask for something to do. Handing that form to a young, eager leader instead of your overworked and easily-distracted secretary might have yielded better results. Before you delegate, ask yourself, "Does this person stand to gain anything from doing this well?" If not, don't give the task to him or her.

• Ask for a confirmation, perhaps by text message, when the deadline is met. If you had asked your fellow officer to text you when the form was turned in Friday, and then you didn't receive one, you could have made a quick call to the Student Activities Office near the end of the day and scrambled, if necessary.

• Do the task with the person the first time. Don't assume that this member or fellow officer knows how to do the task. It might seem simple to you, but maybe it's intimidating to her. It's often best to do the task one time together, then trust the person to do it on her own the next time.

• Make sure the person understands why the task is important. If you had told the officer, "If we don't get this form correct and in by Friday, we might lose the ability to reserve the quad lawn, and someone else will probably grab it for that Saturday," the officer might have felt the urgency a bit more keenly. Let the person know that this is important, and she is more likely to treat it as important.

• Praise the person when he does the job right. It seems silly to celebrate someone for turning in a form, but if you want him to keep doing the job right, you need to give him some positive feedback. A public thank you at your next meeting wouldn't hurt.

• Reward work well done with more work. When someone has shown initiative and an ability to responsibly perform tasks, give that person increasingly important work to do. Let the person build on his or her success with increasing responsibility. People love it when they know you trust and depend on them. If you can build this over time, then you'll have several people that you can trust to do delegated tasks correctly and efficiently.

• Be cool if it doesn't go perfectly. If you had to run in on Friday afternoon and fix something on the form, don't overreact and chastise the person. Use it as a teachable moment and spend a little time with the other person so that the mistake can be avoided in the future. If you act like the world has ended because someone made a mistake, you're not being a good, nurturing leader. People make mistakes, and you'd be smart to worry less about punishing people than helping build their knowledge and abilities.

Delegation is an imperfect science, but you are more likely to be a happy leader if you do it thoughtfully. If you're doing everything yourself, you are not doing your job as a student leader correctly.

Dogs have bellybuttons

2009-09-06T13:07:00.006-06:00

I have a 6-year-old son. Tim is at the age where the questions come non-stop, and usually, I can handle them. When I don't know an answer, I fake it admirably. However, this week he stumped me. "Do dogs have bellybuttons?" he asked.

Hmm... Dogs are mammals, and I've always assumed that all mammals had belly buttons. But, to save my life, I've never noticed a belly button on any of my dogs. I grabbed my terrier, flipped him over, and gave a good look. Dewey (pictured) enjoyed the attention, but I sure as hell didn't see a belly button on him.

I texted Cha Cha, which is what I do whenever I don't know the answer to a question (if you've never done it, text a question to 242242, and you'll be amazed). Here's what I got back:

"Although you may not see it, it's there. Dogs, like most other mammals, do indeed have bellybuttons or navels."

Well, I'll be damned.

These random events in my life are terrific fodder for blog ideas, it got me to thinking about all the "dog's bellybuttons" that help our organizations exist. You don't always see them, and they don't demand much attention, but they are there. The administrative assistant in the student activities office, the guy who sets up our A/V equipment at events, the advisor who always comes to events a few minutes early to help set up, the person at our national headquarters who processes all those initiation cards, the guy who mops up the locker room after we're done destroying the place.

These people frequently escape notice, but they play a big role. As a student leader, you should get in the habit now of reaching out to your dog's bellybuttons and saying "thanks." I'm big on saying "thanks" to the behind the scenes heroes – my mail carrier, the lady who serves my coffee in the morning, our bizarre UPS delivery guy, the secretaries at my kids' schools. It makes the world a better, friendlier place, and occasionally, these folks do something a little extra for you that makes a huge difference.

What are you or your organization doing to thanks the folks who play an important role and who get little or no recognition?

Your long term goal

2009-09-04T13:28:00.004-06:00

I occasionally go back to Indiana University and visit my home fraternity chapter. When I go back, I notice that the chapter has changed a lot. The guys are significantly better looking, more athletic, and more socially adept than we were. They definitely have better grades. They enjoy a top-notch facility, and they run the chapter like a well-oiled machine. At last check, they had around 160 members, and a budget about four times greater than ours. They hang with whatever sorority they want to (we sure didn't), and they collect awards left and right.

When I go back and visit my chapter, I look around and think, "I honestly don't think I could even get into this chapter today."

You know how that makes me feel?

Fantastic. It makes me feel like my brothers and I did something right.

As a student leader, you should be putting things in motion and recruiting new members into your organization that will take your group to new heights when you're long gone. Your goal should be that you would come back in five to 10 years and be blown away. If you do your job as president today in 2009, you should come back in a 2019 and question whether you could have been elected president of the 2019 group.

We get bogged down in the short term goals, sometimes. Every now and then, you have to do some things that will yield benefits down the road. Remember to thing big and far into the future. Don't be short sighted.

What are you doing, right now, to make your group amazing for those students who will come along five years from now? What will the future rock star leaders on your campus see in your organization?

What can you do this year so that when your son or daughter walks onto your campus in 25 years, he or she will be blown away?

Put the building blocks in place so future leaders can take things farther than you were able. Lay the groundwork. Build the organization you wish you had joined. Dream a little about the amazing places your group could go. Then, start recruiting in the young leaders with the vision to take it there.

People

2009-09-01T06:41:00.006-06:00

Dr. Lori and I were chatting yesterday, talking about the death of Senator Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts. Lori is married to a Republican, so she had to talk quietly (kidding). She said she was struck the most by the vast number of people with stories about the Senator reaching out to them personally at a time of need.

When 9/11 happened, Kennedy personally called the family members of every 9/11 victim with a tie to his state of Massachusetts. There were many. I saw a story on ABC News about how Kennedy invited one 9/11 widow and her young son to visit the Kennedy home in Hyannis Port to go sailing and talk about the husband/father they lost on that terrible day. For nearly 40 years, he called the family of every Massachusetts service member lost during war.

Kennedy was an important man who understood what was most important. People.

Lori and I talked about how some of the leaders who have shaped our lives the most did so by simply taking a personal interest and reaching out.

A couple times a year, I get a personal, handwritten card from Durward Owen. He's sort of the Ted Kennedy of our fraternity, although he would hate that comparison. Durward was our executive director for three decades, honorary fourth founder of our fraternity – the "lion" of Pi Kappa Phi. Every time I get a card from him, I save it. He doesn't just do it for me. He does it for every man who ever worked for him. People.

In my home office, on a bulletin board in front of me as I type this, are two more handwritten cards. One is from my business partner, David Stollman, in which he tells me he's proud to have built our company with me. The other is from Dr. Phil Summers, a former national president of my fraternity and a chapter brother from Indiana. In the nearly illegible handwriting of a man near 80, he tells me that my keynote was the best part of our fraternity's leadership school.

It doesn't have to be a handwritten card. Coincidentally, yesterday (before talking to Lori), I reached out to a fraternity brother who is going through a medical battle, and I asked him how he was doing. It was a Tweet, not a handwritten note, but I think it hit him on a day when he really wanted someone to care. I got an email from him yesterday evening thanking me for reaching out. He told me how much it meant to him.

Here's the leadership lesson. The things people tend to remember aren't the business decisions you make for your organization. It's not the meetings, or the power struggles, or the flashy event that was held under your watch as a leader. It's not the t-shirt, the party favor, or even the amazing legislation that you worked months to pass in your student senate. It's not how many friends you had on Facebook.

What they remember are the personal connections that you take time to foster. Dropping by to ask your advisor if her son is feeling better after having the flu. Driving your fraternity brother two hours to visit his ailing grandmother. Taking that friend out for fries at Denny's after he loses the election. Helping your girlfriend's best friend hook up her computer one night over a pitcher of margaritas.

Don't get so busy being a student leader that you forget what really matters. It's the moments you stop being a student leader and act like a real caring person.

People.

When a student leader gets sick

2009-08-23T16:43:00.003-06:00

Many of the student leaders who get the most attention are the ones who are indispensable to the daily operations of their organizations. This young man or woman is integral to every decision, every process, every event. No one can imagine how the organization would succeed if that student disappeared.

Then, that young man or woman gets sick. Everyone looks around wondering what the hell to do. Who's going to run the meeting? How do we get hold of our advisor? Who's going to fill in? Who's going to run the fundraising or service event four days from now?

Dynamic, charismatic leaders are a blessing and a curse. When they are motivating everyone, getting things done, and providing a steady guiding hand, we happily hand over the fate of our organizations. They are a curse because they don't often share their knowledge or control, so when they have a crisis of some sort, the well-being of the group is put in jeopardy.

Does your organization know how to run without its leader? Could it do it very suddenly if your key leader got sick?

There is a strong possibility that the flu (swine and other) is going to be the big health story in the next six months. Many campuses will be hit hard. With the possibility of such a significant health issue sidelining many people on your campus, now is a good time to make sure you have contingency plans. This is not a good year to have a lone individual running your organization, important events or bank accounts.

Use this as an excuse to make sure that people are sharing responsibilities and working together. Have a Plan B for every event. Make sure your committees are sharing the work and not depending on one person to get the job done.

Reduce the drama before confronting

2009-08-18T05:46:00.004-06:00

There is someone in your group (or group of friends) who needs a confrontation. They've done something to harm you, themselves of your group. You've decided that you're going to "have the talk," and you're starting to figure out the when and how.

It's important that you reduce the drama. A few tips:

Stop the electronic communication. Fiery emails, or six-page messages that pour out gobs of emotion are just going to make things worse. Move everything to the realm of face-to-face. Sometimes your "radio silence" will let people know that you're serious about dealing with the situation. Encourage others to cease the messages also. More drama is not what you need at this critical time.

Isolate the behavior. Write down the facts. What happened? Narrow the scope of your confrontation to the behaviors that were harmful. You're unlikely to change someone's style or personality, so don't try. Target the one specific thing that happened.

Talk to another friend about it. Look for that person you trust who will help you process the situation. Are you over-reacting? Are there other incidents you haven't heard about? Vocalizing your feelings and motivations for a confrontation to a caring friend FIRST can really help build your confidence. You might even do a role play, having the other person pretend to be the person you plan to confront.

Check your level of anger. Are you having trouble sleeping because your mind is racing? Are you distracted and pissed off about the situation? If so, you might be the wrong person to do the confrontation, and you might need to consider approaching another friend or member to do the confrontation. Anger and unchecked emotion will not help you achieve your goals.

Let things settle down. I'm a big fan of letting a day or two pass to let things calm down. It's amazing how a day or two of perspective can affect the situation's intensity. If fear and emotion are detriments, give them a day or two to evaporate a bit.

It is important to confront negative behavior, but there is no rule that says you have to do it within 24 hours. Confrontation mixed with drama almost never leads to change. Calming the situation down before constructively confronting someone is almost always the best way to go.

Schedule some time with the new kids

2009-08-16T07:41:00.004-06:00

My sons start back to school on Monday. My oldest is starting a new high school, and he's going in as a 10th grader. Many of the kids already know each other, and he's a little nervous about being accepted as the new guy. My youngest is going into first grade, and the only thing he's worried about is getting lost in the school. "What if I go to the bathroom and can't find my way back to my class?" he asked.

I reassure them and try to get them excited, but I know that nothing will replace a few days, a few conversations with new friends, and a few successful trips to the bathroom and back.

The new students at your college are going through the same things. They are excited, but completely uncertain if they are doing things right. So much is new. After the chaos of the first week or two, they begin to find some routines and build some confidence. Even so, the questions and the uncertainty can be overwhelming. Once the fun of orientation, sorority recruitment, or the first football games passes, a feeling lingers. Am I doing this right?

A new student looks around as the college community assumes its usual rhythm. Some fall into that rhythm fairly well. Others struggle.

One of the most important things you can do for these new folks is to seek them out a few weeks into their first semester and spend some quality time with them. Take a visible interest. Invite them along on something. See how their classes are coming, and help them deal with the ones that are kicking their butts. Ask if they are missing home or missing someone they left back home. Transitions are stressful, and people don't often realize exactly how it's affecting them until some of the madness of the first weeks has died down.

I'm taking my boys on a camping trip this weekend. We're just going to chill out, hike a bit. We'll probably have some stories around a campfire. What do you think of the new kids? How are your teachers? What still worries you? I want to give them a chance to process the first week and get their minds confidently on what lies beyond it.

For your new students, the first two week are about getting started. The third and fourth are about finding the rhythm and the routine. By the end of September, the weather starts to change, and it becomes a matter of confidence and performance. In my experience, these weeks are the ones where they need the most support.

Part of being a leader is recognizing when your people need you. An investment of your caring and listening will help you keep these young, overwhelmed members engaged. If you play it right, you can lock folks into some meaningful roles during this time, give them something to latch onto, and position yourself as a thoughtful, caring mentor.

The president's discretionary fund

2009-08-14T15:17:00.004-06:00

When you're the leader of a student organization, there are often multiple tiny expenses that come up. Sometimes when you're paying for that $3.50 cup of coffee while meeting with the student newspaper reporter, you start wondering why your organization isn't paying for the coffee. If the purpose of the meeting is "business," then why isn't the business (your organization) picking up the tab? Surely the benefit to the organization is a lot more than $3.50.

As a business owner, I have a budget line item called "business development." It's essentially the money I use for those tiny expenses that just come up. This might include lunch with a staff member who is struggling, a birthday card or cake for a valued customer, or some prize I purchase for a game at the weekly staff meeting.

If you find that you're spending a bunch of your own money (or more than you wish you were), you have three options. The first option is to stop spending the money. Stop meeting with people over lunch and coffee, and just sit – for free – somewhere and talk. Second option is to simply continue spending your own money. For student leaders who have the extra cash, this is the easiest option.

Option three is to approach your members and/or the executive board of your group, and ask if it would be appropriate to have a small "president's discretionary fund." Let them know that you can get a lot more done for the organization if you have the ability to be reimbursed for a few dollars here or there.

Groups that have no tradition of this tend to get worried that you're going to be buying yourself a bunch of perks. Usually the best way to approach this subject is to spend a month collecting your miscellaneous receipts, making note on each receipt about the nature of the expense. Then sit with your fellow officers and show them how much of your own money you've been spending in order to do your position effectively.

If they see the value in the dollars you've spent, and if the total amount isn't some crazy amount, then they are more likely to be open to the idea.

If your group goes for this idea, I advise that you keep the amount you request very small. Set a monthly limit (any amount is more than you're getting now, right?), and set it up so that you have to submit receipts with descriptions and get reimbursed. Transparency is the key to getting people to trust this idea. If your group has an advisor, be sure that person is in on the decision as well. You don't want your advisor's eyebrows going up suspiciously.

Then, of course, make sure you're only using this new ability in an ethical way. This is not meant to be your entertainment fund. Gas to drive out to visit your advisor? That's kosher. Buying a pitcher of beer for friends in a different student organization? Probably not appropriate. Make sure that you're being a vigilant steward of your organization's funds, keep the reimbursements as low as possible, and establish a positive tool for the next person in your position.

What kind of guy joins a fraternity?

2009-08-11T08:54:00.006-06:00

I thought I knew who joined fraternities. Good-looking, confident guys who knew exactly where they fit in the food chain on campus. Big drinkers, hard partiers, popular with women. Rowdy young men who played high school sports, yelled a lot, and painted their bodies for football games. Guys with expendable cash whose fathers would give them jobs when, and if, they graduated.

I was none of these things, so I had no interest in being anywhere near them.

Then, I met...

John, a guy who was dating his high school sweetheart (and would later marry her and have four kids) who wanted to have fun without feeling awkward about planning to marry the first girl he'd ever been with. Rudy, a member of the exiled royal family of Sri Lanka, who cared a lot about fitting in somewhere in spite of his wealth. Mike, a skinny, hysterical, effeminate guy from the inner city who had grown up without a dad and who could do the best Michael Jackson imitation I have ever seen.

I met Tom, an amazing artist, who dressed funny, smoked smelly cigarettes, wrote poetry, and who almost made me like classical music. There was Darrell, a kid who looked like he just climbed down off a tractor who could crack me up with one farmer's grin. Brian was from a big family and needed a certain level of chaos around him to feel safe. Aaron, the first Jewish person I ever befriended, who helped me pull a C- in Calculus that I completely didn't deserve.

There was Rick, the identical twin, who was getting his first chance to make a name for himself as an individual and not as part of a pair, because his brother went to a different school. Eric, a young man who made me walk with him to the bookstore, who bought my books for me, and who told me I could pay him back when my loan money came in.

I think about Christian, a big bear who came from a family of teachers, and who dreamed of being a football coach. Jason who sat in the lounge and cried the night a Democrat won the governor's seat because he thought it was the worst thing that had ever happened. John, his best friend and roommate, who ran to his room, put on a campaign t-shirt for the Democrat, then returned to the lounge to ask Jason why he was crying.

Brett called everyone "buddy." Mike who surprised no one five years later when he became a priest. Rob, whose parents were in the middle of a really, really ugly divorce. Dan had been abused drugs and alcohol in high school, had gotten clean, and needed a place where his friends would call him on any questionable behavior.

In the last two decades, I've met fraternity brothers from my chapter and others of every shape, background, skin color and background. I've met Democrats, Republicans, Libertarians, Socialists. I've met guys with disabilities and guys who were natural, remarkable athletes. Brothers who talked very little and ones that wouldn't shut up. Chunky fellas with bad hair and acne, and others who were hot like movie stars. I've had brothers who did things they weren't proud of, and others who brought tears to my eyes with their amazing acts of generosity. I've met guys who drank too much, guys who didn't drink at all, and guys who always made sure you had a sober ride home. Religious boys who loved Jesus, and gay boys who loved Madonna. And yes, guys who painted their bodies for football games.

The only thing I can tell you about the men who join fraternities – the only thing that they've all universally had in common – was their openness to being part of a family. Because, that's what a fraternity is. It's a family. A place where you argue, and have fun together, and get mad at each other, kill time together, and enable each other's best and worst impulses. A place where a guy you don't like that much is still your brother, and you find a way to make it work.

We've done a poor job of telling people about this. We let the images of buffoonery become the reality that people have about fraternities. It's not houses with letters on them, it's not party t-shirts, it's not pranks, or paddles, or any of that other bullshit.

Fraternity is a situation where a guy who doesn't fit in very well, who doesn't look the part, who doesn't get along with his dad, or who worries a lot can feel comfortable. It's this space where you feel valued, and cared about, and safe during a time of your life when absolutely everything feels uncertain.

If you've experienced brotherhood like that, then you understand it. If you don't, it's never too late. And, if you're thinking about it, you'd be a fool not to jump at it.

Photo: November 1987, a few days before I became an initiated brother of Pi Kappa Phi. That's me in the center.

One email is not an adequate effort

2009-08-08T15:21:00.004-06:00

The following is a reworked post from 2008. It's been one of the most frequently downloaded, so I thought I'd run it again. Enjoy. - TJS

"I sent him an email and never heard back."

I didn't respond immediately, and my intern just waited. I had asked her why there had been no progress on a simple project I had given her – lock down a contract for a hotel meeting.

I looked at her, and with my most sincere and patient voice, I asked her, "Well, did you try calling him?"

"No, I guess I'll do that." Roll of the eyes. "People are so stupid sometimes."

It's amazing how many student leaders think that issuing one email is the sum of the effort they can be expected to put forth when it comes to communication. They send one email, and then throw their hands in the air. "I tried!"

There are lots of reasons why sending out one email (or heaven forbid, one text message) is not a sufficient effort. Many people ignore emails, or check them infrequently. Some people read an email, and forget to act on it. If you hit someone with an email at a busy time, they will barely notice it.

Then, there are people like me who receive 250 emails a day and have a hard time acting on each one. Some people like email, and some don't. Some prefer other methods of communication, and when it's you that has the need, you better be prepared to try several.

I experience this phenomenon on a regular basis with our customers. I have one customer who refuses to answer a phone call, but I can text a message, and she immediately replies. I have another who simply will not reply to an email, but if I take a piece of paper and write "PLEASE CALL ME! I NEED TO TALK TO YOU FOR 2 MINUTES!" and fax it to her, I'll hear from her within 10 minutes.

I have one customer who is only reachable via Yahoo Instant Messenger. I never used it, but you can bet I downloaded it because I knew it was the best way to reach her.

Now, I could piss and moan about it, but that wouldn't achieve my goal of speaking to her about business on an occasional basis. I haven't made desktop instant messaging my dominant method of communication, but she and I communicate regularly because I know how to best reach her when I need her.

It's about finding out how your people communicate, and getting the messages to them. You need to have multiple approaches until you find what works. Some people respond better to a phone call or voice mail. Some seem to only reply to text messages. Others need a face-to-face communication, with an email reminder. Great communicators know that getting the word out requires more than one method.

A day later, my intern returned. " He didn't return my message. We're screwed," she said.

"OK, then," I replied. "Please check into the cost of hiring a single engine plane to fly over the hotel pulling a banner message. I think one or two passes should do it, but see if the pilot has some sort of minimum."

She just looked at me.

"Or you could just drive over to the hotel and ask for him at the front desk."

Imagine you want to have a committee meeting with short notice. You must reach out to people in multiple ways in order to get them there. Sending one email, then whining when you're sitting at the table alone is not a sign of unmotivated people. It's a sign that you need to work on your communication skills. It's a sign that you need to try a little harder.

Two emails, two text messages, three face-to-face requests, three handwritten notes, 10 phone calls, six carrier pigeons, and one singing telegram. Then, we'll talk.

In the meantime, get me the number of that airplane pilot.

Sleeping with your brother, part two

2009-08-08T08:18:00.004-06:00

When two brothers, sisters, or same-gender members enter into a romantic relationship of any sort within the context of their organization, I believe it is the organization's obligation to treat them fairly. These relationships are going to happen – it's to be expected. Though it might make some other members uncomfortable, those two members have the same right as anyone else to enter into a positive, consenting relationship.

It really only becomes a problem when those two people start making the dynamics of their personal relationship everyone else's problem (see part one). With that said, it's time now to speak directly to the individuals involved in the relationship. For purposes of simplicity, I'm going to write this to two hypothetical fraternity men from the same chapter. I trust you can extrapolate to other similar situations.

Dear Brothers Sleeping Together,

Are you sure you can handle this? There's no such thing as a casual relationship in the context of an established group. This is going to be the most complicated relationship you've ever been a part of. The "difficulty rating" is high, and if this thing is going to turn out well, you are both going to have to be smart about it.

Here's some advice...

Be Understanding. Think how long it's taken you to come to a place where you're comfortable with your sexuality... now be sensitive to the fact that this might be the very first time many of your brothers have been anywhere near a gay relationship. Give them some time to adjust. They have fears and concerns, and that doesn't mean they are necessarily homophobic. If you expect everyone to embrace your relationship immediately, you're delusional. Some brothers will support and encourage you, some will be quietly uncertain, and some will visibly dislike the idea. You deserve to be treated respectfully, but your brothers don't owe you an endorsement. Don't ask for it. Seek validation from each other, not from your brothers.

Set a positive example. You didn't enter into this thing intending to give a big group lesson on gay relationships, but you have to understand that you've brought this issue into the family context of your fraternity. People are going to want to talk about it, in front of you and behind your back. You have to be OK with that. How you two behave will have a big impact on how brothers view future gay relationships they encounter. When others see that your relationship is no different from theirs, you make it better for the brothers who find themselves in this situation next year, or the year after. Perhaps this little bit of extra pressure is a good thing, because it gives you the additional motivation to approach your relationship carefully and respectfully.

Be in it for each other. In a relationship, you need to focus on the other person. That's where your attention should be. Enjoy each other. Spend time together. All the fun stuff about being with someone new will be better when it's shared privately. Get away from the watching eyes of your brothers as much as you can, not because you have to, but because you want the time to focus on each other. I would give this same advice to heterosexuals, by the way. Too many brothers enjoy putting their romance on display for their brothers, which cheapens their relationship in my opinion.

Be discreet. You don't need to live out every little drama in front of everyone. Your relationship isn't an official chapter function, so don't treat it like one. That includes what you post on social networking sites. If you feel compelled to change your relationship status on Facebook, that's one thing, but I don't recommend you putting "Jason rocked my world all night last night" on your status update. You don't need to lie about your relationship, but it doesn't need to be an embarrassing reality show either. Discretion is a dying art, and believe me, a little bit in this situation will go a long way. By the same token...

Demand privacy. If you're being discreet and private, you have a fair expectation that your relationship is not an agenda item at this week's chapter meeting. If brothers are acting inappropriately by making jokes or making your relationship chapter business, you should confront that. You should remind them that your relationship is a private matter and that if they have concerns, they should speak with you directly in a private setting. If you're being harassed at any point, stand up for yourself and demand that the leaders of your chapter step in to stop the foolishness.

Get on the same page. What are the rules going to be? Are you going to the formal together at some point? Who's sleeping where? Talk about these things now. If you're putting your fraternity brother roommate in an awkward situation, that's not a good idea. It would also be very smart to discuss an "exit strategy" if things don't end up well. Can you both agree to return to the status of just brothers in a respectful way if things don't work out? This isn't just some guy you're dating – the last thing you want is a bunch of bitterness tarnishing the remainder of your college fraternity experience.

Respect some barriers. If you serve in a leadership position in your chapter, you need to do your job and not let this relationship affect your duties. If your feelings for your partner affect your ability to be a good, contributing brother, you're going to have problems. Imagine you were at a job... would you be acting all lovey-dovey in the office? Probably not. Same goes for fraternity. When you're in a fraternal context, be a brother. When you're in the context of your relationship, be a boyfriend. If you're smart, you'll know the difference.

Here's my final word. Sometimes, we don't treat each other very nicely when relationships get tough. We cheat. We say unkind things. We tear down the other person with our attitude, our actions, and our words. Try to remember that you made a promise to this man long before you became intimate.

You said that you'd be lifelong brothers, and that promise means something.

Sleeping with your brother, part one

2009-08-06T22:44:00.001-06:00

Three scenarios I've seen in the last two years.

Scenario #1: The president of a fraternity used to have a sexual relationship with one of his brothers, who is now also the chapter's secretary. They broke up at some point and were fine about things until the president's new boyfriend decided he wanted to rush and become a member. The secretary doesn't want the new boyfriend to join the fraternity.

Scenario #2: Two young women in a sorority used to be in a long-term relationship, and it ended badly. They don't like each other, won't speak to each other, and have great difficulty being in the same room. Both ran for officer positions, one winning president, one winning vice president. They still refuse to talk to each other and animosities are magnified.

Scenario #3: A male pledge educator at a co-ed professional fraternity enters into a relationship with a young woman who is joining the fraternity. The pledge educator volunteers to quit his position to avoid a conflict of interest, but there's no one interested in being the pledge educator. Instead, the members vote to remove the young woman from potential membership. Both the man (the pledge educator) and the woman (the pledge) quit the fraternity altogether rather than lose their relationship.

Out here in the post-college "real world," dating at the office is a pretty common occurrence. You spend tons of time around other available people, you get to know them pretty well, and things happen. If you've seen even a few episodes of "The Office," you know the complexities, awkwardness, and endless comic possibilities of office romance.

We should not be surprised that dating within student organizations is fairly common, also. Coed groups have dealt with this uncomfortably for years. Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) students are becoming more empowered and accepted in same-sex organizations like sports teams, fraternities, sororities, etc., and the relationships are starting to happen more openly in those organizations. As a result, many of those organizations are dealing with the awkwardness for the first time, and they have no idea what to do.

Even the most accepting of members don't know what the hell to do when the sexual relationship between brothers starts going south. The founders didn't really set forth guidelines for this scenario, did they? And they sure as hell aren't doing breakouts about this topic at fraternity leadership school.

Some people say that the solution is to get rid of the homosexuals, but of course, that's not going to happen, and it's not the right thing to do. You also can't really forbid such relationships because people inevitably ignore the rule, and it's not really cool to tell people who they can and cannot spend time with.

However, I believe that it is fair to expect members to leave the drama of their relationships (or former relationships) out of the group's operations. I believe that people can have relationships with whomever they choose, and it's none of my business, until it starts affecting the organization's performance. I believe, for example, that it would be completely fair to tell those two former partners who are now president and vice president of their sorority to either find a way to work together, or resign their positions. I believe that a treasurer who would seek to prevent an otherwise eligible man from joining the fraternity because of his own jealousies or post-relationship discomfort is being unethical and unfair to the potential member.

In most cases, confronting unreasonable and unproductive behavior will do wonders. Get the two people in a room with caring brothers or sisters and talk about it. Let them know how it's affecting the chapter, the environment, and chapter morale. Tell them they are setting a bad example and endangering the ability of future gay members to be open in the chapter. Ask them what they will commit to do immediately to deal with the situation. If they are unwilling to solve the problem, they might both be suspended from membership.

You can't stop young people from wanting to be together. A progressive group would work together with their campus LGBT student group, that group's advisor, or a gay alumnus to develop a fair fraternization policy that allows people the freedom to date the people of their choice, but that also ascribes a few reasonable guidelines that protect the group's ability to function effectively. Don't be afraid that you'll be seen as homophobic for considering a fraternization policy that is fair and considerate. Ironically, it's the groups that are the most open and accepting who are probably going to confront this first.

By the way, this would be the part where I would give you a link to a perfect fraternization policy for you to modify or adopt. Unfortunately, I can't find one. If anyone has a good one, please send it to me, and I'll share it here.

In part two, I'll talk about in-chapter relationships from the perspective of the individuals involved in the romance. If you're going to do it, you'd be smart to set a few ground rules for yourself and your partner.

Make clothes out of curtains

2009-08-04T21:30:00.004-06:00

I'm watching The Sound of Music. I don't have a good reason. I just am. Actually, it made me think of a student leadership lesson, so bear with me.

You'll recall that Maria shows up at the Baron's house and meets his 14 perfect little Aryan children. They're stomping around, responding to whistles, and basically living under martial law. They all live in a lovely house, but they aren't having any fun – besides running off governesses with pocket frogs and pine cones.

Then, when the Baron goes away for a trip, that crazy ass Maria is cutting up curtains, putting on puppet shows and teaching the kids to sing songs about female deer. The kids don't know what hit them! They're having fun and hanging from trees.

Then, the Baron comes home. The drama begins! With the stick still firmly up his butt, he gets pissed that his kids are having fun, splashing around in that fake-looking lake behind his house, and acting like a bunch of hooligans in the neighboring gingerbread village. Damn the Catholic Church and their singing nuns!

In the end, fun brings the family together and song provides the avenue to their salvation. Sorry if I ruined it for you.

So, what the hell does this have to do with student leadership? I'll tell ya. Way too many presidents of student organizations are barking out orders, being harsh to their members, and acting as if their organization's survival depends on controlling everyone around them. They make everyone miserable. Members question why they are even involved. Members begin complaining and conspiring.

If this is sounding familiar, please consider that your members want to enjoy themselves and sing an occasional song about female deer. Every now and then, take a lesson from Maria and have a little bit of fun with the members of your organization. I know you have a lot to do. I know the work of your organization is extremely important. I know there are problems to solve, dollars to raise, rules to follow.

But seriously, isn't that stick making you a little sore?

Bring donuts to a meeting. Invite everyone out for a night of roller skating. Invite everyone to come over and watch the latest horror movie that just came out. Whatever. Lighten up sometimes. If you're not particularly good at motivating everyone with fun stuff, then empower someone else in the organization to do it for you, and enthusiastically support his or her ideas. Will your group crumble if 10 minutes of your next meeting is spent on a hula hoop contest? Of course not.

Find your Maria. Tear down those curtains, and make some play clothes.

Nobody likes a Nazi.

The Dalai Lama on Leadership

2009-08-03T10:45:00.003-06:00

I don't read a ton of books on leadership, because I find them incredibly redundant. But, I am enjoying one right now co-written by His Holiness The Dalai Lama called "The Leader's Way." It just came out a week or two ago, and it is written more for business leaders than students. However, it's interesting to me because it brings together the tenets of Buddhism and capitalism – a combination that requires business people to think and be more intentional about their higher purpose in business.

I wanted to share with you one section that I enjoyed in which His Holiness talks about the character of a leader.

Enjoy this excerpt.

Understanding principles and causes. Leaders with character are aware of the duties and responsibilities of their role and of the challenges they face. Leaders should be able to identify the causes of problems and the principles that should be applied to solve them.

Understanding objectives and results. Leaders know the meaning and objectives of the principles they abide by; they understand the tasks they are undertaking; they understand the reasons behind their actions. They know what may be expected in the future as a result of their actions and whether these will lead to a good or bad result. This kind of foresight is important for leaders when they are considering the long-term effects of their decisions on others.

Understanding themselves. Leaders know their strengths, aptitudes, abilities and virtues and are able to correct and improve themselves. They are also aware of their weaknesses and the weaknesses of the (group), and how the (group), in turn, affects its many stakeholder groups. They must be very eager to learn.

Understanding moderation. Leaders practice moderation in speech, work and action. They do not take unnecessary actions merely to satisfy their own egos or accomplish their own ends, but take only those actions that will benefit the organization for which they are responsible.

Understanding the occasion and efficient use of time. Leaders know the proper occasion for actions – what should be done and how – and they perform these actions efficiently. This includes knowing how to plan their time and organize it effectively. Additionally, leaders must have "discernment," the ability to identify the issues that matter most and concentrate on them. It is very important to avoid wasting time on trivial matters.

Understanding the organization. Leaders know that organizations have rules and regulations; they have a culture and traditions; people within them have individual needs that should be dealt with, helped along, and served in the proper way. Good leaders understand not only their own character, but the character of the (group) and their responsibility for developing and nurturing that character, and they should be aware if some aspect of the character needs to be changed.

Understanding people. Leaders know and comprehend differences among individuals. They know how to relate to people effectively, what can be learned from them, and how they should be praised, criticized, advised and taught.

Acronyms S.U.C.K. (seldom usefully convey knowledge)

2009-08-02T17:16:00.006-06:00

I'm an acronym hater.

That's right. I hate them. I hate that every time someone creates a new program, they need to give it some convoluted seven word name that just conveniently spells out "ACHIEVE."

I own a company that represents professional speakers, and let me tell you, we have a couple of speakers who just LOVE (lacking originality, void of effort) their acronyms. Leadership speakers are the most guilty. I bet 90-percent of their audience members can't remember a day later whether the "A" stood for attitude, action, acceptance, or aardvarks.

When professional speakers use acronyms, my skin crawls. The only thing that gets me leaving a room sooner is when someone uses the exhausted line, "Webster's defines (whatever) as (whatever)." I'm out the door before they finish the definition. I'm sure that most of those speakers don't even own a Webster's. We had one speaker who was doing a keynote and forgot what his own acronym stood for, during the speech. That's awkward.

This year, you'll be creating all kinds of new programs and projects, and I know the temptation will be to give everything a jazzy acronym name. AVOID (another variation on ineffective development) the temptation. It's old. It's tired.

Sometimes acronyms limit you. You'll give your awesome new project a clever acronym name, because it makes perfect sense now, and years later it will be completely stupid and irrelevant. Imagine back in 1995 you named a campus group "PAGER." How dumb would that be today?

Several years ago, my company created a leadership program called SALAD. Originally, it stood for "Seeking Alliances through Leadership and Diversity." Seemed great for about a year. The visuals of lettuce, tomatoes and cucumbers were a marketing delight. It took us about a year to realize that it really wasn't a "diversity" program, but more of a community building workshop. Unfortunately, we couldn't rename the program SALACB. The program is a huge success, but at least once a week, we have to explain that it's not a diversity program, per se. We've tried to downplay the whole acronym thing for that program for several years, but it's hard to shake.

Sometimes acronyms just confuse the hell out of people. I participated in a program called the Colorado Institute for Leadership Training. That's right: CILT. The leaders pretend that the name isn't problematic, but it is. When people ask me what year I graduated from "CLIT," I tell them, "Sometime during junior year of college."

Then there's the whole thing about periods. Do you use them or not? Is it NAACP, or is it N.A.A.C.P.? (Another great example, by the way, of an organization that had to decide what the hell to do about an acronym name that had become politically incorrect.)

Sometimes acronyms are hard to remember. The Midwest Greek Conference Association (MGCA, never an easy one to remember) recently changed its name to AFLV – The Association for Fraternal Leadership and Values. I love the conference and its leadership team, but I begged them to call it the Fraternal Leadership and Values Association. "FLAVA" would have been so fun to say, and remembering it wouldn't take six minutes.

As much as I hate acronyms, I love nicknames. Why not call CILT, simply "The Institute," or "Leader Camp." Maybe "The G Spot." I don't know... something original. Why couldn't MGCA have become "Greek World Expo" or maybe "Fratapalooza!"

"Where you going this weekend?"

"Fratapalooza."

That would have been super cool.

Financial transparency is critical in every student organization

2009-07-30T09:22:00.006-06:00

Embezzling from a student organization is remarkably easy. It's a shame, too, because when a dishonest officer steals from his/her organization – or uses funds in an inappropriate way – it takes away from the mission of the group and violates a very special trust.

When I traveled for my fraternity many years ago, I found stolen or misused funds in almost 20-percent of the chapters I visited. Sometimes, it was something as simple as a treasurer giving himself an unapproved loan or buying himself a new printer for his computer. In any case, the members of the chapter had no idea. If I hadn't come through and demanded a look at the books, the members would have been no wiser.

The best answer to this potential threat is transparency. Your members need to see the group's financial account, even if they don't care and aren't asking for it. At least once a month, the treasurer of your organization should give your members a printout of all financial activity for the month: what checks were written, how many people paid their dues, what money was raised or spent from that last event, etc. Most of all, your members should see the balance in their account. It's their money, right?

Ideally, your executive committee will review the statement for errors before it is presented to the members. This is also a great way to make sure your treasurer is doing his or her job properly. When more eyes are examining the books, mistakes are avoided, and the possibility of misappropriation goes down.

When you make financial stewardship everyone's business, your organization grows stronger, people pay their dues on time, and better choices are made about the use of your group's resources.

Here's my challenge... Can your members guess your group's checking account balance within $500? If not, you have a problem. Make them pay attention. Even if they roll their eyes and feign sleep when you talk about numbers, it's an important lesson to learn now when the stakes are lower. Someday when they catch an employee stealing, or prevent embezzlement from their homeowners association, they'll thank you.

Who are your ideal members?

2009-07-29T17:36:00.004-06:00

The beginning of the new school year is a big time for bringing in new members. Whether you're a sorority chapter, the marching band, a campus religious group, or a group of competitive table tennis enthusiasts, the months of August and September are prime time for picking up some new faces. You have hundreds (or thousands!) of new folks coming to campus, all looking for a place to belong.

Some of them belong in your organization.

If you've struggled with finding new members, the first thing you need to do is ask yourself this simple question: "Who are our ideal members?"

It is basic target marketing. You don't put yourself out to the entire campus if you're looking for a specific type of person. If you're recruiting for the band, you need musicians. If you're recruiting for a sorority, you might be looking at women with high GPA's and a commitment to service. If you're searching for a new player for your Tuesday night poker group, you want a terrible player with lots of cash and a drinking problem.

That's a joke... I think...

"Who is our ideal member?" It's a basic, critical discussion to have with your existing members RIGHT NOW. Start the discussion before everyone gets back to campus.

If you ask the question and no one has an answer, you've found a fundamental problem. If there's wide disagreement, that's another. Talk it out until your members can clearly describe your ideal member.

Because here's a recruitment basic: It's easier to spot a potential member if you know what you're looking for.

In the classic leadership book, Good to Great, author Jim Collins talks about "getting the right people on the bus." Once you know who the right people are, then you can begin to figure out how to find them, introduce yourself and your organization to them, and ask them to join.

How often should you meet with your advisor?

2009-07-28T17:22:00.003-06:00

Got a question today from a student. "How often, ideally, should I meet with my advisor?" This particular young man is an IFC president, and his advisor is a busy Assistant Dean of Students.

First and foremost, I strongly recommend a standing appointment. If you're trying to catch each other on a hit-and-miss basis, whenever both of you happen to have spare time, it's not going to work very well. If you only meet when there's a crisis or problem, then you're not making the most of the potential relationship.

Some students reject the idea of a standing appointment "because I'm in the student activities office all the time and see my advisor almost every day anyway." Sorry... not the same as a set time where you both focus on your mutual needs and the needs of your organization.

I recommend a standing appointment at least twice a month. If you are the leader of a particularly busy organization, then once a week is a reasonable expectation. For many student leaders and advisors, a half-hour standing appointment once a week can yield a lot of good.

Communicate with your advisor and tell him/her that you'd like to establish a standing appointment. If your advisor is an on-campus professional, ask if there's a certain time of the week that tends to be slow. Shoot for that time. It's not great if your advisor is squeezing you in between the end of a staff meeting and lunch. You won't get his/her full attention. Find a time when he/she has a clear mind and a quiet phone.

Back when I was a student, I had a standing appointment with my dean on Friday mornings at 7:30 a.m. We both happened to be morning people, and I had no competition for his attention at that time. It was also two days before my weekly meeting, and I liked being able to run ideas by him prior to our meetings and other social events planned for the weekend. It worked great for both of us.

I've seen student leaders and their advisors who worked out together, discussing group dynamics over squats at the gym. Whatever works for you.

I recommend getting away from his/her office, even if that just means the coffee shop on the corner. Expect to pay for your own coffee, and every now and then, pay for his/hers, just to say "thanks for the time." Don't expect your advisor to travel all the way across the campus to meet you. Find a convenient location near his/her home or work place.

Busy advisors will want to do the standing appointments in their office, because that's easy and convenient. If that's the case, start with that, and then try to convince him/her to get out of the office after a few appointments. Most people are happy for an excuse to escape their offices anyway.

If you need to cancel a standing appointment for any reason, be sure you're professional about it. Give your advisor notice, and don't make cancelling a habit. Advisors hate it when student leaders cancel on them constantly. It throws off their whole day, and you never know what else they cancelled to respect your appointment. You need to show the same level of respect.

It's a good idea to come with a few issues to discuss. They don't have to be huge and Earth shattering. Just some discussion starters. Your sessions with your advisor should have some unstructured time so he/she can ask you a few questions, dig a little, and suggest things you didn't even come asking for.

These appointments can also be phone appointments, if your advisor lives further away. There's nothing wrong with phone or IM appointments, if that's what works best for the two of you.

Bottom line: force yourself to commit to that advising time. By asking for a higher level of engagement, you solidify that important resource that a strong advisor provides. If your advisor rebuffs your request for a standing appointment, you need to find a better advisor. 30 minutes once a week – or twice a month – is a very reasonable request.

The 70-percent budget

2009-07-26T17:52:00.003-06:00

The new school year is about to start, and for many fraternity and sorority chapters, that means a new round of begging. Begging your members to pay their dues. At least 30-percent of your members will likely be unable to pay, unable to pay in a timely way, or just won't want to pay. No one likes to write that big check.

Assuming that you don't use one of the third-party financial providers like GreekBill or Omega Financial, this is an annual ritual that makes leaders crazy.

So, try this. Begin the year with two budgets: the 100-percent budget and the 70-percent budget. The 100% budget is the one that you will begin using when everyone has paid their dues. The 70% budget is the one you'll use until then. You can guess which budget will have more of the fun stuff in it. When people complain, let them know that they should be complaining to the brothers or sisters who haven't paid their dues.

What if only 80% of the members pay their dues? Well, then, you've got a nice savings from that extra 10% to cushion your chapter when you toss out all the losers who wouldn't support their organization the way they promised when they were initiated. Use that extra tiny bit of cash to help you recruit better, more responsible members.

Whatever you do, don't make the amateur mistake of giving your members the benefits of a 100% budget until they've earned it. That includes you, as officers. No retreats or conference registration fees until everyone has paid. Role model to your brothers and sisters the frugality that is necessary until everyone carries their weight.

The first year (or semester) of trying this usually brings some growing pains. But, the benefits down the line are tremendous. Less stress and begging on the part of future treasurers is chief among them.

Fishing for Men

2009-07-22T18:56:00.006-06:00

If your student group is one that – theoretically – has both male and female members, you might find it a continuous struggle to recruit an equal balance of men and women to your group. For years, I worked with peer education organizations that were dominated by women. They always complained that they were completely unable to recruit men despite their best efforts.

There are several reasons why a gender balance can benefit an organization. When your club or group has both men and women creating events, you're more likely to draw both men and women to participate in those events. There are obvious social benefits for the heterosexuals in the group, and that makes participating in your group more fun for those people. Your group's outreach and impact on campus can be broader when both men and women are talking it up.

When the female peer educators complained to me about the lack of men, I usually gave them this advice:

CO-SPONSOR
Partner with an organization that has a lot of men. If you struggle to draw men into your organization, then sponsor events with a male-dominated group like a fraternity, an engineering club, a sports team, etc. Maybe after you co-sponsor something with them, you'll establish some relationships and identify some men who might want to stay involved with your group.

SOCIALIZE
Have a social event where every member brings a friend of the opposite sex. Make it purely social, and then capture those names and numbers. Call them a week later and ask if they'd be willing to help out in some small way with your next event.

OPEN UP OPPORTUNITIES
People support what they create, so invite some guys to join and start some new endeavor within your group. If you have a sexual assault awareness and prevention group, for example, invite some men to start a program within your organization targeting men's groups on campus.

QUICK PROMOTIONS
Get men in leadership positions, quickly. Men might have a hard time with organizations whose leadership is entirely women. As soon as possible, elevate men into key positions. This will encourage other men who are looking at your group. Men are visual, and when they see all women in your group, they assume they aren't welcome. When you get some men to join, make sure they are visible ambassadors of your group. Give them t-shirts with your group's name on it. Better yet, invite a new male member to design a new shirt.

DO MORE BOY-FRIENDLY EVENTS
Evaluate your events. Do they lack appeal to men? Then add some new events (maybe headed by new male leaders) or ask some men to join you in reworking some old ones to have more male appeal.

INVITE MEN CLEARLY
Most guys don't want to join something that is perceived to be a women's group. Go visit groups on campus and frankly state that you are looking to increase your male leadership and involvement. Young men, in particular, are ripe targets. Get a first-year male involved in a meaningful way and perhaps he will stay involved and bring other men with him.

LEAN ON YOUR ADVISOR
Ask your advisor to help you recruit men. Have your advisor contact the campus professional in charge of orientation so your group can sponsor an event or get involved. Snag the boys as they arrive on campus.

If yours is a group with too many men and no women, the same advice applies. Go out and ask women to join, give them leadership positions, ask them how they would change events to appeal more to women.

The best way to get penguins to a party is to serve fish. So goes the saying. If you're struggling to achieve gender equity in your organization, it might be time to go fishing.

Need and Should

2009-07-15T08:29:00.007-06:00

There were two twin brothers, Need and Should, who went to the same school and shared the same classroom Teacher. The boys looked very similar, and people frequently got confused which was whom. But, the boys had strikingly different personalities.

Need was a very passionate boy. When he entered a room, people became energized. Whatever Need needed, whatever game Need wanted to play, whatever idea Need vocalized became everyone's priority. Need was a fun boy, a natural leader. The children in the class found their validation and importance according to Need's favor.

Teacher admired Need. Need was always surrounded by laughing children. When he answered a question, Teacher lavished him with praise. When Need struggled, Teacher spent time with him to the exclusion of others. When a child got out of line, Teacher would pair him with Need on a class project, hoping Need would positively direct the other child. Teacher went home most nights and slept soundly, knowing that Need and the other children were happy.

Should craved attention, too, but he simply couldn't compete with Need's charisma. Whenever another child started playing with Should, Need would do something loud and attention-grabbing, drawing the child back. Should would end up sitting alone.

Teacher felt sorry for Should, and worried about the other children ignoring him. She kept her eye on him, but Should seemed happy enough. Teacher sometimes worried that she wasn't doing enough for Should, but it was very exhausting keeping up with Need and the other children.

So the school year began. Need commanded the playground activities and dominated the classroom discussions. Need's mood determined the mood of the classroom, and Teacher encouraged the children to follow Need's lead. Children gave the best parts of their lunch to Need, and those closest to Need felt very important. Keeping Need happy made Teacher's life easier, and the classroom felt like a busy, happy place.

Should learned and grew like the other children. He never competed for attention with his demanding brother and mostly played alone. His notebook filled with drawings that became increasingly complex.

Halfway through the year, something began to change. The children in the class grew tired of Need. It happened slowly, almost imperceptibly. Children started playing in small groups in the corners of the playground to avoid Need's bossy demands. Some stayed home, missing school, resentful of Teacher's deference to Need. Some children became disruptive and argumentative looking for opportunities to undermine Need.

Need became louder and more demanding, in response, but there were fewer children now following his lead. Those children closest to Need began teasing the children who had moved away. Need would scream and have tantrums. His ideas became more radical. Some of the children who had grown tired of Need would appease him, just to quiet him down. Others began hating Need, and hating school generally.

By the time Teacher noticed the change, the classroom was in chaos. Need was unhappy and took it out on her, distracting from lessons and encouraging bad behavior from other children. Teacher had to work much harder to keep him happy and therefore keep the peace. The more she tried, the more the other children rebelled against her. She spent nights lying awake wondering why the children in her class had lost interest in Need, wishing they could simply go back to the fun days at the start of the school year.

One day, the classroom chaos peaked. Several fights erupted during the day, most encouraged by Need. It made him feel important and powerful. Many children were listless and disengaged. When Teacher tried to teach a lesson, almost no one paid attention. Those who did made noises to disrupt her. Teacher felt disrespected, and was at her wits end.

She suddenly put down her book, and cleared her throat. "What would you like to talk about?" Teacher asked the class.

The class went suddenly quiet. Children who had zoned out suddenly looked at Teacher. The children had no idea what to say.

Need's hand went up. He urgently shook it in the air. He had several discussion ideas. The children looked at Need, then at Teacher. Certainly, she would simply allow Need to answer the question.

But, Teacher ignored his hand, even as Need's face grew red. "Does anyone other than Need have any ideas?"

The children just looked around in bewilderment. They had never suggested ideas of their own. They weren't even sure they knew how. It had been so much easier to simply follow Need. As the moments passed, the children became more fearful and uncomfortable. Need was getting increasingly angry, yet Teacher still ignored him. No one knew what to do.

From the back of the room, Should slowly raised his hand.

Build a stronger campus community with the SALAD interactive workshop from CAMPUSPEAK

2009-07-06T15:56:00.003-06:00

Shertzer on Fraternal Relevance

2009-04-26T08:26:00.004-06:00

John Shertzer wrote a thought-provoking blog entry about fraternal "relevance" on his blog recently. It found it interesting, and it's worth a read.

John is a fraternity man, a former employee of the North-American Interfraternity Conference (NIC), and currently works for Leadership Ventures, a leadership training non-profit based in Indianapolis.

I'm reprinting it here in its entirety, and then I have a few discussion questions at the end. The discussion questions are mine, not John's.

Fraternal Relevancy that Matters (Part One)

via Fraternal Thoughts by John Shertzer on 4/15/09

The word “relevance” seems to be all the rage right now. I’m reading it and hearing it much more often, and I’ve spoken with many Greek Advisors who incorporate that term frequently into their discussions with undergraduates. Many Alumni programs seem to grapple with the idea of relevance as well. I have a few observations on that term and its use towards Greek-letter organizations.

When examining fraternal relevance we need to add the question, “relevant to what?” A thing cannot just be relevant on its own. It needs to be relevant to something else. Greek-letter organizations can ask if they are relevant to any of the following: host colleges/universities, individual members’ lives, and/or the growth of society as a whole. I think most people are considering colleges/universities when they speak of fraternal relevance. In other words, when asking about the relevance of college fraternities and sororities, they are questioning whether or not they are still pertinent to the host institution. That’s fine – but we shouldn’t use that as our only measure. If we determine that we are no longer relevant to host institutions, then is it over? No. We may still be VERY relevant to the lives of our individual members who will achieve great things because of their involvement. Greek-letter organizations may still be VERY relevant to the growth of our society – particularly American society and its need for leaders and organizers.
If tomorrow, all host institutions decided to cut their ties with Greek-letter organizations, would we go the way of the dodo? I doubt we would. Instead, we would adapt. For instance, we might transform into more community-oriented organizations, much like Kiwanis or Freemasons. We would find a way to carry on.
I’m not making the case that we ignore our relationship with our host institutions. In all possible ways, we need to nurture that relationship. We should be actively concerned with how we impact the academic success of our members. If we house students on a particular campus, we should ensure that we are creating safe and secure living environments. Overall, we should act as good partners to these institutions, because partners are what we are.

I understand the need to play nice with our “hosts.” I value the perspectives and call to action brought forth by the Franklin Square group. But, I fear that in philosophical and tangible ways, we are handing over our right to exist to institutions of higher education – most of which never really wanted us to exist in the first place.

In other words, the frenzy over trying to regain relevance to colleges and universities has to be tempered with the following question: were we ever meant to be relevant? Were we ever really meant to compliment the mission of the campuses where our founders happened to meet up? I admit that I am not a “Bairds Manual” aficionado that can speak to fraternity history with precision. However, my understanding of the founding of our movement is that individuals were looking for something that wasn’t provided in their college experience. They wanted shared values, camaraderie, spirited debate, and fun. I doubt they took much time wondering how these new organizations fit into the missions of their college or university. My interpretation of our beginnings is that we were borne out of defiance to the host institutions, not in seamless companionship with them. So while we should care about that relationship now, should it really define our right to exist?

Focusing on our relevancy to higher education also puts us on the defensive. We are always stuck responding to someone else’s needs. This results in a one-way relationship, with colleges and universities holding all the cards. Simply by asking the question of whether or not we are relevant to our host institutions, we are positing the possibility that we are not. We are falsely expressing that we might not matter.

We do matter. We do make a difference - ask almost any person who has had a fraternal experience. We have a story to share, and lessons to teach. Our values are timeless, and every man or woman who passes through our organizations can be better off by having learned them. If we are to dissolve, it will not be because we stopped being relevant to a university or a college – it will be because we stopped being relevant to those who are yet to join.

Discussion Questions:

1. When speaking of "relevance," should we be talking about Greek Life's relevance to individual members, to their host institutions, or to society at large? How are we doing on all three?

2. If fraternal relevance is about being relevant to our members, then why does such a small percentage of initiated members stay involved with fraternities and sororities after graduation?

3. Is John's questioning of relevancy to host institutions representative of an adversarial perspective that some say the North-American Interfraternity Conference (NIC) has taken in recent years against higher education (particularly regarding expansion, etc.)?

4. If colleges and universities eliminated Greek Life, would it adapt and survive, as John suggests? How would this impact the character of fraternities and sororities?

5. John suggests that fraternities and sororities are "partners" of the host institutions. What obligation does that imply on both sides? Who is being the better partner right now? Is "playing nice" enough?

6. In his closing statement, John talks about our future being tied to our relevance to those yet to join. What are the pros and cons of being relevant to 18-year-old incoming freshmen?

Managing the group bitch session

2009-03-23T10:20:00.003-06:00

Sisters in the chapter are in an uproar. Everyone wants to vent, and they are looking to do it at this weekend's meeting. The president's blood pressure is shooting up because she knows that a great deal of the venting will be directed at her and her fellow officers. It seems like a 2-3 hour meeting is inevitable, particularly if everyone feels the need to share. This could get really, really ugly.

Rather than deal with it, the president cancels the meeting altogether.

This was the scenario emailed to me last week. The question: what did I think of it?

There's nothing quite as dread-inducing for a president as knowing he or she is walking into a meeting where drama is going to happen. The tension is killer. It's like those days in high school when everyone knows a big fight is going to happen at the end of the day – and you're the one who's going to get your ass kicked.

If it were me, I would have allowed the meeting to go on, as scheduled. If there is a huge storm brewing in your group, ignoring it isn't going to make it go away. People will simply vent their frustration in a less controlled and filtered way, and the damage will likely be worse. Openness is almost always a better option.

I would have canceled most of the agenda items, and I would have started the meeting by saying, "We are going to start with a few critical officer reports for the first 15 minutes, but then we're going to have an open discussion about (this issue) for about 45 minutes. I'm going to put a list up here, and we will call on people to speak in the order they sign up. This isn't going to be a free-for-all that goes on all night, but everyone who has something to say will have a chance to be heard."

"Everyone is limited to 2 minutes. We will not hear rebuttals. We will not allow people to speak more than once. Speakers can ask questions during their 2 minutes, but if they do, the 2 minute time limit still applies. If someone else has said what you planned to say, then please respect the group and limit your comments to new ideas, new solutions, and new information."

I would also instruct my officers to keep their scowls and defensive comments to themselves. Sit there and take it like big boys and girls, even if you think it's unfair. As a group, you need to commit to keeping quiet and not making matters worse. People need to feel like they are heard, and sometimes feelings get hurt.

It's been my experience that after a few people say incendiary things, the wiser voices will prevail. The pissed-off people always want to go first, and they sign up quickly. This allows the wiser voices to respond to them. Let the process work itself out.

If people get up and say you suck, and then no one jumps to your defense, then you probably suck. Mistakes have been made. Time to figure out the next steps. I find that, usually, those who want to scream, yell, and call everyone out end up making themselves look immature and unreasonable. Give them the rope to hang themselves.

These bitch sessions are never fun, but if you allow them to happen in a controlled and respectful way, good things can come from them. It's important to let everyone – even the unreasonable – have their say. Shutting them down almost always causes more damage then letting them air their grievances.

Risk management strategy #1: Stop recruiting risky people

2009-03-12T17:56:00.003-06:00

This evening in Lawrence, Kansas, a memorial service was held for Jason Wren, a 19-year-old freshman who was found dead Sunday at the local Sigma Alpha Epsilon chapter house. It will be a while before the facts surrounding the death are known, but the Denver Post reports today that Wren allegedly drank margaritas with friends at dinner and then consumed more than a dozen beers and some whiskey at the SAE house. Although unconfirmed, alcohol poisoning is presumed to be the cause of death.

A paragraph at the end of the Post's article caught my attention. It reads:

Jay Wren [the boy's father] told The Denver Post that about a week before Jason moved into the SAE house, he had been kicked out of one of the KU dorms for drinking and other violations. Jason quickly found a home at the SAE house, Jay Wren added.

Which leads me to this thought... why in the world would a chapter knowingly recruit and move in a young man who had been kicked out of university housing for drinking and other violations?

For all the risk management education we've done for our fraternity and sorority undergraduates over the last two decades, perhaps we've missed one of the most obvious lessons. We need to stop affiliating young men and women who are DANGEROUS with regard to their personal behavior. Proper recruitment is, in reality, one of our most important acts of risk management.

The details of Wren's death will be revealed in the coming weeks and months. There is likely blame to spread around to numerous parties: the chapter, the restaurant that served the margaritas, the brothers who left him alone in a dangerous state of intoxication, and yes, Wren himself. Perhaps the Post's information is wrong, and he had no history of risky drinking.

But, if it ends up to be true, it begs a few critical questions for the fraternity members. Didn't you think that this kid might have a drinking problem? Why were you willing to gamble your chapter on a nice kid who posed a danger to your chapter? Why would you invite a kid with a potential drinking problem into your chapter as a member and as a resident of your facility, and then enable his worst impulses?

Maybe I'd ask the parents why they allowed their son to move into a fraternity house after he was thrown out of a residence hall for drinking.

No one knows, at this point, whether any criminal behavior occurred in this incident. We don't know, yet, if anyone could have intervened and saved this young man's life. But, there is probably a valid argument that a "criminal" lack of judgment sealed this young man's fate. If indeed this young man had issues related to high risk underage drinking, he shouldn't have been allowed near a fraternity.

We need to stop allowing our chapters to be the place where dangerous drinkers fit in.

Taming the Monster

2009-03-04T09:35:00.003-07:00

Sometimes, there is a person who drives you crazy in the office or in your organization. You find yourself cringing every time he or she approaches you or sends an email. You avoid eye contact.

This person starts taking on the role of the "Monster" in your mind. You're just sure that the Monster gleefully spends hours each day thinking of new and creative ways to piss you off, question your capabilities, undermine your ideas, and otherwise make your life a living hell.

That's almost never the case. You are the problem, just as much, if not more, than they.

This person is probably just trying to accomplish his or her tasks in a completely different style than yours, and because of communication issues, distrust, and that irrational monster living in your imagination, you've allowed a small barrier to become a mountain.

You're both building the mountain. You're both trying to accomplish goals, and honestly, you probably both want the similar things. It's just a style and communication conflict. Because you've both engaged in this stupid battle, you're both contributing to making the situation worse. As a result, you become enemies, and your non-productive relationship negatively impacts the organization.

Neither of you trusts the other, and neither will be the bigger person who tries to solve the situation. Tension builds. Sides are drawn. Angry whispers of complaint become full blown emotional outbursts.

You think that giving them a forced smile or making one attempt to work together makes you some sort of wonderful saint. Sorry, not good enough.

It doesn't need to be this way. Take a deep breath and repeat after me, "This person is not trying to piss me off."

Do it again. "This person is not trying to piss me off."

Write it up on a piece of paper above your desk. "This person is not trying to piss me off."

They aren't making you crazy. You're making yourself crazy. And, you're putting your team at risk because of it.

Here's what you need to do. Start going to this person on a regular basis when you don't need anything. Ask how she's doing. Ask if there's anything you can do to help. Remember, this person doesn't trust you, so they will look at you weirdly when you start being social. She doesn't want your help, but offer it anyway. Don't force it on her because she'll misinterpret it. Bring her a doughnut. Just be nice and non-threatening.

Then, find some basic little situation or problem that you're dealing with, and ask for her help or feedback. Give her the opportunity to weigh in, and whatever she says, validate it as a good idea (even if you had already thought of it, tried it, whatever). The key here is to validate the other person and make her feel appreciated and valued.

Third step. At your next meeting, thank the person publicly for her help. You don't need to go overboard. Your validation in front of others is going to make a big difference. Another thing you can do is to ask for his or her help in front of others in a friendly, positive way. It's hard to consider someone a Monster when they are asking for your valued help.

Rinse and repeat. Go be social and friendly. Ask for help and opinions. Praise and thank the other person.

The next time the person seems to do something that pisses you off, take a deep breath, remember "This person is not trying to piss me off" and put a smile on your face. Ask the person to sit with you to discuss the situation. Start off by asking for her perception of the problem, and just listen. When you feel the desire to be defensive or dismissive, stop yourself.

When you start to open up the communication a bit more proactively, the trust starts to build, and the mountain starts coming down. One day, you might even start seeing the Monster as an ally in helping you achieve your leadership goals.

Camp for LGBT college student leaders

2009-02-27T09:47:00.003-07:00

Campus Pride annually hosts a summer camp for LGBT student leaders and their campus allies. I've spoken with several students and advisors who have attended in the past, and they absolutely rave about the experience. One person told me that, by far, it was the most meaningful leadership experience she had ever had.

This summer's event will be held at Towson University near Baltimore, Maryland, July 21-26, 2009. It's five days of learning how to make your campus a safer, friendlier place for students of all sexual orientations and gender identities.

You will spend time learning about grassroots coalition building, working with faculty and staff, best practices for campus organizing. And, of course, you will make amazing friends and a network of student leaders facing similar challenges. My understanding is that this camp is appropriate for students from all types of campuses.

You can find more information at: www.campuspride.org/camp.asp

They are offering an early-bird registration fee for those who sign up by April 17. If only they had had something like this back in 1987! Wow!

Celebrate those who come...

2009-02-15T07:58:00.004-07:00

Imagine speaking in a beautiful auditorium with 1,200 seats. In it are 1,000 students having fun, laughing, getting the message. As you conclude to rowdy applause, the student affairs staff member in charge comes up to you, and the first thing she says is, "Sorry we didn't fill the place. There were a couple groups that weren't here, and believe me, they're going to hear about it tomorrow!"

She just had 1,000 students at an educational program, and hopefully, they learned something. But, she was focused on the 200 empty seats. Instead of feeling great about the 1,000 students who came and enjoyed themselves, she made the self-defeating choice of focusing on the 200 who stayed home to play video games.

Ladies and gentlemen, it's time to start celebrating those who come. Stop worrying so much about those who don't.

As leaders, we naturally wish that everyone valued our efforts. We want complete and total approval of what we do, and it bugs us when we get less than 100% support. You know that you're never going to please all of the people all of the time, but yet you still beat yourself up by focusing on those who don't love you.

If you have 100 members in your group, and only 15 show up for a service event, the natural tendency is to get bent out of shape about it. 85 members blew you off, or didn't see any value in the event. Do they dislike you? Are you doing a bad job? Maybe the work you do just isn't that important to the members of your organization? You judge your entire contribution to the group based on those who didn't come.

Instead, focus on the 15 who came. Give them an excellent experience. Make it such a great experience that they go back and make the 0ther 85 wish they had come. At your next meeting, have a couple of them stand up and share their cool experiences. Thank them publicly for giving their time and their effort. Have a smile on your face and exude happiness and satisfaction.

Instead of focusing your energy negatively, focus it positively. This is a choice you make, whether you're doing it consciously or not.

Next time you do a service event, plan for 15 instead of 100. If 20 show up, even better. Celebrate those who come. The next time, you'll have 30. It just works that way. People want to do things that they identify as positive. If you're complaining and feeling negative all the time, why would anyone want to join you for an afternoon of anything?

If you're the president of a student government or an IFC, for example, stop focusing on those groups who don't value your council enough to show up. Focus on those who did make the commitment. Reward them with a valuable, interesting, fun meeting. Make them want to come back next time.

The alternative is to fine and penalize the groups who didn't show up, but that's the negative leadership route. Instead, give those who came a great experience. Commit yourself to making your meetings more meaningful, positive and interesting. Reach out to those who didn't come and let them know that they were missed. Tell them the cool things you are planning for the next meeting, ask them if they have any ideas for what they'd like to see discussed, and ask them to join to make good things happen.

Be positive. Stop killing yourself and the morale of your group by focusing on what isn't there.

I'll end by telling you a secret. Sure, I like it when there is a full auditorium full of enthusiastic audience members. But, I also really enjoy a group of 20 people who chose to be there in front of me, ready to learn something. Success isn't in the numbers. It's not about getting a certain percentage of members to show up. It's about giving people something of value and celebrating those who show up, ready to learn and be challenged. Better things happen with a small number of committed and interested people than in a room full of people simply avoiding a fine or penalty. Ask any professor. Ask any boss. Ask any preacher.

Give me those who want to be there, and I'll make them glad they came.

How to Take a Day Off

2009-02-07T15:07:00.003-07:00

Sometimes, what you need more than anything, is a day off. Here are some tips.

• Go away. Get in your car and go somewhere. Doesn't really matter if it's 20 minutes away, or 2 hours away. Just go somewhere else.

• Turn off your cell phone. If that scares you to death, then decide three exact times that you will turn it on to check for texts or voice mails. Forget emails... if it was that crucial, they wouldn't send an email. Promise yourself you'll only respond to texts or voice messages that are legitimately critical (meaning something bad will happen unless you do). Do not log on to Facebook. Turn Twitter off. Disconnect from the matrix.

• Spend time with someone you enjoy. Talk about anything but school and your organization. It's not a day off if you spend the whole day processing every problem you have. Just give it a rest for a day. Force yourself to acknowledge the world outside of the little bubble you're living in.

• Go see someone from whom you've been feeling disconnected. Go see Grandma, or your friend at another school, or your cousin James in prison. Whatever. Spend some time in someone else's life instead of yours.

• Spend it alone, if you like. Just do something that you enjoy. Go fishing, go shopping, go visit that museum you've always wanted to check out. Eat a meal alone and enjoy the time to think. Talk to strangers and laugh a little.

• Treat yourself to something. Eat something really great. Buy the better seat in the basketball arena. Drink the expensive beer. It feels good to reward yourself now and then.

• At some moment of the day when you feel totally relaxed or happy, grab something that will help you remember the moment. Take a picture on your phone. Maybe it will bring a happy relaxing memory sometime when you really need it.

• When you return to campus, don't re-engage the matrix again, right away. Get a good night's sleep with the cell phone off. Don't answer knocks at the door. Let the peace of the day sink in.

Meet Steve Kardian - Expert on campus safety and sexual assault prevention

2009-02-06T14:39:00.002-07:00

Top 100 Leadership Blogs

2009-02-04T10:37:00.004-07:00

My blog was named one of the "Top 100 Leadership Blogs." How flippin' cool is that?

Here's the website that lists all of them. Check it out. Lots of good links there to other blogs dispensing advice.

From now on, I'd like to be addressed as "T.J. Sullivan, award winning blogger." (yeah, right...)

Thank you, Christina Laun (whoever you are!). I owe you a drink.

Greeks Go Bald!

2009-02-04T10:06:00.004-07:00

No, this isn't a posting about your Greek Advisor's receding hairline. It's about a really cool philanthropic effort by students at Kennesaw State University in Georgia. I love its simplicity and its direct connection to the people it helps.

Lifted from their website:

Hundreds of students and volunteers associated with various Greek organizations at Kennesaw State University and across the southeast are coming together in solidarity with children stricken with cancer. Originally started and organized by Delta Tau Delta, Greeks Go Bald! has become an annual philanthropy event among the entire Greek community at Kennesaw. Over the next two months all volunteers and participants will raise money in an effort to reach this years event goal of $20,000 to donate to the St. Baldrick's Foundation.
Several members of local fraternities and other organizations have registered with their various teams and will begin raising money from now, until the event date. Then, on the day of the event, these brave men and women will shave their heads in solidarity with children affected by cancer.

Why I'm Hopeful (by Patton Oswalt)

2009-02-02T07:41:00.005-07:00

Patton Oswalt is an actor and comedian. He wrote the following in the February 09 (the lastest issue) of GQ. I read it a couple of times and liked it so much, I wanted to pass it along. I think it's worth a minute of your time, particularly if you're tired of hearing about the doom and gloom of the American economy and choose instead to be hopeful about our future.

---

I think a lot of the problems we've been experiencing come from the fact that no one embraces the miracle and amazement of the present. So many people – steampunks, fundamentalists, hippies, neocons, anti-immigration advocates – feel like there was a better time to live in. They think the present is degraded, faded and drab. That our world has lost some sort of "spark" or "basic value system" that, if you so much as skim history, you'll find was never there. Even during the time of the Greeks, there were masses of people lamenting the passing of some sort of "golden age."

But I'd never go back and live in any other time that teetering on tomorrow; this is the greatest time to be alive. In the face of even more fear than we faced in 2004 -- our banks are collapsing, Al Qaeda has reconstituted itself, the weather's getting scarier and more random by the day -- we chose the smart guy. The fall of 2008 was perfect for the "Scare the Shit out of 'Em" playbook, but we ignored it and strode forward like gunfighters, armed with smarts, engagement, and optimism. It's not that I'm hopeful about any one thing. What makes me hopeful is that the soil we walk on has, for the first time in a long time, been beneficial to hope itself.

The importance of raising dues, calmly and consistently

2009-01-26T15:43:00.004-07:00

The cost of doing business continues to inch up. How does your student group plan for that reality?

Many organizations only raise their dues when they are suffering – when the bills suddenly can't get paid – but that's not a smart strategy.

Prices don't stay the same. They don't. Your members need to be trained to expect small dues increases each year to keep pace with inflation and to keep your organization growing in a positive direction. Even my mother's social security payment goes up a few percentage points each year. Members who expect dues to stay the same year after year after year are living in a fantasy world.

Your organization needs to implement a strategy of consistent, manageable dues increases that members can understand and plan for.

In the money game, you have two choices. You can ask your members to pay the price to do the things you want to do, or you can cut back what your group does. You can not continue trying to do a full slate of activities and services if your members are unwilling to fund the ever-increasing cost of doing business.

You should be raising dues a small amount each year rather than surprising everyone with something more dramatic when you start having short falls. Hitting members with a 4% increase in dues each year is reasonable. Waiting, waiting, waiting, and then suddenly asking everyone to pony up a 45% increase in order to pay the bills is just dumb.

When you are planning a dues increase, it's important to make your case in a clear, understandable way. Give them examples of increasing costs. Show them that you have trimmed wasteful spending. Help them understand that the organization cannot grow and serve its members without adequate resources. This is where having a grip on your budget is critical.

If you honestly look at your budget and don't see the need for a dues increase, then consider creating a "rainy day" fund. Increase your dues slightly, and then put 5-percent of your annual budget aside into a protected fund for an emergency.

Barnes warns two really big changes possible for nation's Greeks

2009-01-12T20:38:00.004-07:00

Rick Barnes and I are featured in an upcoming issue of Campus Activities Magazine sharing our ideas about "the biggest issue impacting the future of Greek Life." Rick is one of our most successful and experienced speakers, and he chose "risk management."

Little surprise there, but I thought it was very interesting when he suggested two really big changes which might be imposed on fraternities and sororities in the next five years if significant risk management progress isn't made.

Specifically, he says it's quite possible that between insurance companies and university/college presidents, Greeks might be required to make ALL events dry and eliminate all new member programs.

Rick is not some outsider looking in. He's on the board of the North American Interfraternity Conference and a former president of the Association of Fraternity Advisors. Oh, and he speaks to thousands of Greeks and organizational conventions each year.

Here's the short article. Decide for yourself. Do you think it's possible?

-----------

RICK BARNES
Risk Management is still the big issue

Risk management – reducing the potential and incidences of damage, injuries and death – continues to be the dominant issue in Fraternity and Sorority Life, said Rick Barnes. Barnes has been speaking about risk management, values, hazing elimination, and leadership to Greek audiences for more than a decade.

“It’s hard to believe that risk management is still the big issue, but it is,” Barnes said. “Many university administrators equate Greek Life with alcohol abuse, sexual assault, hazing and all the negative fallout from those problems,” he said. “We have not done a good enough job turning that around.”

Right now, Barnes says, fraternities and sororities are on a collision course with administrators and their own insurance companies. Unless significant risk management advances are made quickly, Barnes believes that all Greek events will be mandated dry and that new member education programs will be banned within five years. Either or both would be enormous game changers for fraternity and sorority communities.

What should Greeks be doing RIGHT NOW to get things moving in the right direction?

Barnes believes the vast majority of Greek student leaders understand the gap between their organization’s values and some members’ behavior. Most are trying to make things better. But, Barnes said, most of these leaders have yet to learn the skills needed to effect massive, fundamental cultural change in their groups.

“And, it’s not just about the students,” Barnes said. “If we could figure out a way to get all four groups – student leaders, administrators, national organizations and volunteers – marching in the same direction and making some critical changes in our organizations, we could steer ourselves away from these mandates.”

In his campus keynotes, Barnes is trying to help student leaders understand how critical their leadership is during this time in their organizations’ history.

“The answer, of course, is to reshape our organizations to our original purpose,” Barnes said. “Our future will be about changing the perception of Greek Life by changing our reality.”

---------------

Watch for the full article in the February issue of Campus Activities.

How to Facebook Friends With Your Advisor and Not Get In Trouble

2009-01-08T06:32:00.003-07:00

My friend, Blake Bradley from Illinois Wesleyan, wrote this incredibly helpful note. I'm reprinting it here. Read it -- good stuff. Thanks, Blake.

In this day and age, everyone uses Facebook to communicate, many times more than email or even our phones. So, establishing that "friend"ship with your campus fraternity/sorority advisor is a great way to communicate with him/her as well as to get to know him/her on a personal level.

However, many students do not want to put their chapter or themselves at risk because of something that may pop up on a news feed, tagged photo, etc. so they simply miss this opportunity. While I truly believe that the best solution is to simply not put yourself or your chapter in questionable situations or to violate policies, I understand that we are all human and entitled to make our own choices.

First to address a few myths.

1. Campus-based Advisors actively search for policy violations on Facebook.

2. Universities can pay to access anyone's FB profile regardless of the privacy settings.

So I offer this simple solution, create a friends list and add those individuals that you do not want to see your questionable items and then edit the settings to limit what they can see. Here is how to do it.

You can also do this for Status Updates and Wall Posts, but these are a little more obvious to campus professionals who have probably been on FaceBook longer than you have been able to be on FB (remember it started with college student when 90% of today’s college students were still in high school and the high school version wasn’t offered). Unless you typically talk about the party your chapter is hosting that violates University or Inter/national Headquarters policies on your wall or in status updates, you should be ok to leave these accessible to your advisor. It allows him/her to get to know you better.

As a final tip, if your chapter happens to get in trouble for something on FB, do the responsible thing and own it. Photos don't lie. Placing the blame on everyone beside your own organization or yourself doesn't help you keep from being at risk in the future. Neither does de-friending the campus Advisor. The later just make him/her more aware that your organization plans to not make any changes and continue to break policy. Take responsibility for mistakes and learn from them.

THIS IS BY NO MEANS AN ENDORSEMENT FOR VIOLATING UNIVERSITY OR INTER/NATIONAL HEADQUARTER POLICIES. IT IS SIMPLY AN ALTERNATIVE TO EASE THE MINDS OF STUDENTS THAT ARE UNEASY BEING FACEBOOK "FREINDS" WITH THEIR CAMPUS-BASED ADVISOR.

Student Leadership Widows, Part Two

2009-01-03T07:55:00.004-07:00

If you're a Student Leader lucky enough to have a really terrific person who wants to spend time with you, it's important that you find a way to strike a balance between the crushing weight of your responsibilities and the relationship maintenance that keeps that special person feeling valued. As I tried to illustrate humorously in the last posting, you can sometimes be a difficult person to date.

Trust me when I tell you that finding the balance between life at work (your leadership position) and life at home (your friendships, your relationships, your family) is one of the most common challenges young professionals face. Even old guys like me struggle with it on a pretty regular basis. Use this time in your life to force yourself to learn some of these critical skills.

Here are some random bits that might help:

- Your organization will not fall apart if you take a few hours, an evening, or an entire weekend away. You're not running NASA, and it's time for you to acknowledge that. If you have to be on 24/7, then you're running an unhealthy organization and you have an unhealthy, abusive relationship with it! Trust others to handle some stuff while you tend to the other important things in your life. Or, just let it go until Monday. The world won't stop turning.

- When you're with your special someone, don't seek to talk exclusively about your issues, your organization, your drama. Use that time as an escape. Force yourself to talk about other things. If you can't think of anything to talk about, then you need to spend more time with that person and identify some mutual interests. Make him/her feel important by taking a genuine interest in what's going on in their life. The other person might feel that they are the less interesting person in the relationship – show him/her that you don't think so! It might actually be a relief to be quiet and listen for a while.

- Turn off the cell phone. Don't look and respond to texts while you're spending time together. Demonstrate that the other person is a priority by staying away from your computer, too. When you're with someone, truly be WITH them. That says, "Nothing is more important to me than you right now."

- When you do talk about your student leadership life, ask his or her opinion. Don't just complain and vent (that gets really old). Share some funny stories. No one likes to be around someone who's negative all the time. Ask your special someone what he/she might do in a particular situation, and validate the ideas.

- When you're having time with your special someone, don't invite other people to invade that time. If people come up and start talking "business," tell them you'd love to chat another time. Let the person you're with SEE you defending your time together. Also, if your entire relationship revolves around the social events of your organization, it might be time to blow off that party and find something else to do Saturday night.

- When you make a commitment to your special someone, keep it. Some big meeting just cropped up? "Sorry guys. I'm going to a movie with my girl tonight. I'll call you in the morning and you can fill me in." You'll find that people respect your time more when they can't have it at a moment's notice.

- Make sure you and your special someone always have something you're looking forward to. A trip, a movie you're going to share, a concert, a birthday night out. Whatever. Having something you're both looking forward to gives you a "future."

It is (is, is, is, is) possible to maintain a healthy relationship while taking on a big student leadership challenge. You just have to commit yourself to doing the work and drawing the healthy boundaries necessary.

I always say that we make time for the things we really want. If you really enjoy the other person and what he/she brings to your life, then you'll make the time. If not, then you might just be using the other person as a distraction or as some sort of release valve. But when the caring is there, then demonstrate it to that special someone. No one likes to come in second.

Like that image above? Buy it as a poster here.

Student Leadership Widows, Part One

2009-01-02T08:18:00.004-07:00

I have some news for you, Student Leader.

Dating you sucks.

Sure, you're cute and all. Sometimes you get good tickets for games. It's sometimes fun to be with you when you're the center of attention.

But, let me tell you... it mostly sucks.

You're always at meetings, and you don't do a very good job of letting me know when you have them. They always go late, and it's impossible to make plans with you. Inevitably, some crisis happens. Sometimes you schedule these impromptu meetings or go to some meeting at the last minute, and I'm left hanging.

You know who I had a meeting with last night? Jay Leno. That was a blast.

When we do spend time together, all you talk about is the organization. So-and-so said this. So-and-so did this. Worry, stress, and other bullshit. I hear that other people dating each other talk about music, movies, the news. Not us.

Why is it that you have a ton of stuff planned for your student leadership position: retreats, parties, meetings, special events – but you and I don't have anything fun to look forward to. How about planning something fun with me?

Last week, we actually went out and had something to eat. It was going great until a bunch of your friends from the organization saw us and invited themselves to sit down. I tried to engage with it and be cool, but after 30 minutes, I felt hijacked. I wish you had told them to get lost.

By the way, who the hell gets six urgent text messages between midnight and 6 a.m.? What are you? The National Security Advisor? Turn the damn phone off if you want to spend the night.

You spend so much time working on leadership stuff that you're never on top of your tests, your papers, your reading for class. Jamming on a paper on my computer until 4 a.m. doesn't count as quality relationship time.

My birthday fell on a meeting night. Hey, I get it. I don't expect you to change the meeting of your organization on my account. But, a phone call would have been nice. A week later when you keep saying, "Sorry we still haven't done anything for your birthday," I just want to punch you.

I hate to complain, but you've given me a lot to complain about lately. I actually had a conversation with someone the other day, and he was really cool. Friendly, paid attention to me. Not involved in anything in a big way. Easy to hang out with. Listened to me. Made me want to change my Facebook status.

You've been warned.

Creating dialogue about slurs on campus

2008-12-15T14:28:00.007-07:00

BITCH! NIGGER! FAGGOT!

If you were walking around the Rollins College (FL) campus in early November, you would have seen words like these on flyers and on the front page of the student newspaper (above). If seeing the slurs caused the hairs on the back of your neck to rise – well, that's the point, said Mahjabeen Rafiuddin, the college's new Director of Multicultural Affairs.

The community at Rollins had experienced some incidents involving slurs and cultural insensitivity early in the semester. Additionally, Rafiuddin had noticed many women casually using the word "bitch," referring to other women. She decided that it was time to open a dialogue on campus about slurs, their impact, and their varying levels of offensiveness.

On November 11, the Office of Multicultural Affairs hosted a campus program called "Diversity Dialogue" to give students the opportunity to discuss the impact of slurs in their community. To publicize the program, the OMA and its student leaders created flyers picturing pop culture celebrities who have used slurs.

It definitely got the campus' attention.

"I have a passion for creating dialogue about these controversial issues," Rafiuddin told me. "I wanted to see if we could have a civilized conversation about a very controversial issue."

Papering a relatively conservative, mostly-white private college campus with incindiery slurs was welcomed by some who felt the conversation was overdue. Others questioned Rafiuddin's professional judgment and accused her of trying to provoke in order to boost attendance at her event.

"Our campus is about creating global citizens and leaders," she said. "I wanted to ask the question: Do responsible student leaders use slurs to demean or subjugate others? Is this what global citizens do?"

Still, it felt like a bold move for a professional who had been on campus less than six months.

Knowing that the promotional tactic might ruffle some feathers, Rafiuddin sent an email to the college faculty before the promotional flyers appeared. In the email, she let them know the program's purpose with a very "academic" description of the program's goals and desired outcomes.

Still, some on campus were unhappy when the emails (with attachments of the flyers) appeared in their campus email boxes. One staff member wrote a very angry email to Rafiuddin. This person said that any email which might cause discomfort when opened in an office setting shouldn't be sent. The writer chided Rafiuddin for her "lapse in judgment."

Given the opportunity to do it again, Rafiuddin said she would do it. While it jarred some members of the community, it brought home the importance of the discussion.

"It's hard to have an honest conversation about slurs and be politically correct," Rafiuddin said. "As a campus, we needed to talk about how slurs are commonly used, how context matters, and why it's such a big deal," Rafiuddin said.

If you'd like to learn more about Rollins College's "Diversity Dialogues," please email Mahjabeen Rafiuddin at MRAFIUDDIN@Rollins.edu.

Three ways to serve

2008-12-13T20:14:00.004-07:00

We hear a lot about "service" on today's campus. How rewarding it is. How needed it is. How consistent with our organization's values it is. But, when you or your organization decides to serve, how are you going to actually do it? How can you do it in such a way that it makes the most impact?

This might help to frame your plan. There are three kinds of service.

FUND RAISING
All organizations need funds to operate, and in this struggling economy, the needs are huge. You can help a great deal by finding ways to generate much needed money for an organization you support. It doesn't have to be a huge amount to make a big difference. You can raise funds by having events (large or small), writing letters asking for donations, or by providing services for free that businesses would pay for (stuffing envelopes, cleaning parking lots, etc.).

One of the very best fund raisers I remember from my days as a student was a "skip a meal" fund raiser. Instead of eating out or eating in the dining hall one evening, everyone would donate the money they would have spent on dinner to the designated charity. We raised a ton of cash and had zero overhead costs.

But, be careful. Many students use fund raising as an excuse for having a fun event (party for a cause, tournaments for a good cause, etc.). It seems like a good idea – let's have fun and do some good along the way. But, as a general rule, if you're not raising 10 times what you're spending on a fund raising event, then you can do better. Blowing $2,000 on a tournament that raises $500 is a joke (just give the organization the $2,000). Spending $500 on an event that raises $5,000 for a charity is awesome.

It usually helps to identify a need at the organization and then do a bunch of small fund raisers throughout the semester or year to meet the goal. For example, find out how much it will cost to renovate that playground at the local school, then set that amount as a long-range goal. Don't try to do it all in one event.

VOLUNTEERISM
Get your hands dirty. Spend time actually doing something that helps others. Examples of volunteerism can be as varied as reading to seniors in a nursing home, picking up trash along a highway, painting the local rec center, building a ramp for a person with disabilities, or handing out programs at your campus theatre production. No money is involved. You're just lending your most valuable and readily-available resource: your effort. Many people find this type of service to be the most personally rewarding. Once you find out how much it's going to cost to replace the playground equipment at the local school, figure out how much you can save in labor by rounding up a group of students to do the work themselves alongside licensed contractors. Now you're really on to something!

AWARENESS
This type of service allows for a lot of creativity without necessarily spending a ton of money. Find an issue that you care about, and then find a way to get the word out. Chalk the sidewalks. Do a ribbon campaign. Put flyers on cars. Film public service announcements or radio spots. Make presentations to classes, faculty meetings, or administrators. Write letters to your local newspaper. There are a million ways you can generate awareness on a critical issue. It's a great idea to do an awareness campaign BEFORE you do a fund raiser. This way, people are tuned into the need and the issue. Do members of your campus community know how run-down the playground equipment is at the local school? Take pictures, post them online. Get people fired up about improving schools that are struggling for dwindling public funds.

Just about anything you care about can be helped by using all three elements: fund raising, volunteerism and awareness. As you sit down with your officers or committee dedicated to service projects, make sure you develop a comprehensive plan for the year that includes all three. Tie them in together, and maximize your impact.

I've just been SO busy!

2008-12-12T17:32:00.001-07:00

How many times have you heard this in the last month? It's become the regular excuse for just about everything. Sorry I didn't call you. Sorry I didn't reply to that email. Sorry I've been out of touch. Sorry I forgot your birthday. Sorry I haven't been able to come to any of your meetings. Sorry I didn't call you after our date.

I've just been SO busy...

When you claim "being busy," you're basically saying, "It hasn't been my priority."

The people who are "so busy" (and presumably, more busy than you or I) have had time to do a million small things that are more important than satisfying you. Fair or not, you aren't their priority.

In some cases, they've been so intensely busy, they have barely had time to grab a meal here and there. But, often, it's just a convenient excuse for not prioritizing YOU. They've had time to play video games, watch television, check their Facebook.

If someone told them to stop by to pick up an apple pie, they'd find time. If that special someone made a booty call, they'd be right over. If their boss told them to work an extra hour or be fired, they would do it. If someone offered to clean their house, they'd have time to drive the key over.

We make time for the things we care about. If that person actually cared about answering your question or doing that small favor for you, they would have found time. It's that simple. When someone says, "I've been busy," what they mean is, "You haven't been my priority." But, "Things have been crazy lately!" sounds so much less offensive.

If you have someone who keeps giving you the excuse, it's time to deal with the fact that he or she is not likely to make you a priority.

And, if you're the one who is always saying it, time to stop. Instead of saying, "I'm sorry, I've just been so busy," say something more honest, such as:

"You know, I'm a jerk for not getting back to you, I'm sorry. I'll do it by tomorrow afternoon."

"I really don't have time to make that a priority. Maybe you should find someone else."

"I've been under a lot of stress lately and I have been forgetting a lot of things lately."

Or maybe even, "Yeah, don't hold your breath on that one."

Facebook is forever

2008-12-07T21:31:00.002-07:00

From CNN. Another reminder that when your friends tag you on Facebook, it's pretty much a done deal:

(CNN) — Jon Favreau, future White House director of speechwriting, has so far been at a loss for words over Facebook pictures of him at a recent party.

Pictures of Favreau, 27, at a recent party appeared on Facebook Friday. In one of the photos, Favreau, who served as President-elect Barack Obama’s chief speechwriter during the campaign season, was dancing with a life-sized cardboard cut-out of future secretary of state Hillary Clinton. In a second photo, a friend was offering the cutout a bottle of beer while Favreau stood beside the likeness with his hand on the cardboard New York senator’s chest.

The picture was reportedly up for a scant two hours or so before Favreau removed it, along with every other picture of himself beyond his profile photo — but there’s no getting the Facebook genie back in the bottle.

Favreau wasn’t talking to reporters about the incident, but transition officials said he had offered an apology to Clinton.

The Clinton camp reaction? "Sen. Clinton is pleased to learn of Jon's obvious interest in the State Department, and is currently reviewing his application," Clinton aide Philippe Reines told the Washington Post.

Amethyst Initiative, Choose Reponsibility, an update

2008-12-07T12:33:00.004-07:00

I've written before about the Amethyst Initiative, a group of 134 college and university presidents and chancellors who signed a statement that, basically, says that the 21-over drinking age isn't working. This weekend at the Association of Fraternity Advisors annual meeting in Denver, I had the opportunity to sit in on two sessions that focused on the debate over whether the federal government should dictate a drinking age. Both featured Dr. John M. McCardell Jr., President Emeritus of Middlebury College (VT).

As you can guess, there are a lot of strong opinions about whether the legal drinking age should be 18, 21, or something else. McCardell is on the board of directors of Choose Responsibility, a group who believes it should be 18. Not everyone who has supported the Amethyst Initiative necessarily believes 18 is the magic number... they just think that 21 isn't working.

People in higher education are not sure how to politically dance on this one. If you question the 21-year-old drinking age, then you run the risk of being accused of supporting alcohol abuse and the negative consequences that brings. At the sessions, I spoke to many attendees who personally think the 21-year-old drinking age is a ridiculous federal mandate but who did not feel they could ever publicly take a stance. National fraternity staff members are even less likely to invite themselves into the public relations fray – many in the public would expect fraternity folks to be all for easier drinking.

Drew Hunter of the BACCHUS Network stressed that his organization has not formed a statement on the issue, and he also acknowledged that as a recipient of federal Department of Transportation dollars, he sits in an unusually tight spot on this issue. It was interesting when Hunter said that lowering the age would, without a doubt, cause drinking rates to increase among high school age kids. McCardell agreed, but said that's why any return to a younger drinking age would have to be matched by aggressive alcohol education. McCardell even supports a license of some sort (that didn't make any sense to me whatsoever).

You get the drift of the debate...

For me, it just comes down to fairness. Choose Responsibility points out that at age 18 in this country, you can fight a war, adopt children, own property, sue or be sued, hold public office, purchase firearms, smoke, gamble, buy lottery tickets, or buy a house. But, you can't have a legal drink. As simplistic as that argument is, it has always worked for me.

The 21-year-old drinking age came about in the 70's when the Congress passed a highway bill that denied any state 10-percent of its share of federal transportation funds unless it changed its drinking age to 21. Naturally, they all did it, because none of them wanted to lose tens of millions of annual dollars for roads. A state could change their law tomorrow, if they wanted to.

In essence, this federal government blackmail took away the states' right to make up their minds based on the will of their citizens. It doesn't sit right with me. If Utah wants to make their drinking age 30 and Louisiana wants to make it 16, then I think that's a discussion for the voters of those states.

By the way, only four nations in the world dictate a 21+ drinking age: the United States, Mongolia, Indonesia and Palau. Good company, huh?

I also believe that the groups that use the emotional pull of drunk driving prevention (that's you, MADD) are completely ignoring the deaths, the sexual assaults, the injuries, and the massive irresponsibility that is resulting from the 21-year-old drinking age. Anyone who works on a campus will tell you that too much time is spent dealing with enforcing the drinking age, and too many scary injuries and deaths are occuring because students who want to drink always find a way and then do it in a dangerous way. Whenever I hear a student getting ready for his or her 21st birthday, my neck muscles tense up, and I beg them to be careful.

MADD and other organizations like theirs seem to think that the lives they save on the roads are a fair trade for these others.

In any case, I encourage you to take a few moments and consider the issue for yourself. I don't normally support too many political action-type organizations, but I sent a check today to Choose Responsibility. I'm the father of a 15-year-old son, and while I'm not eager for him to start drinking, I also would prefer that he enter a world with a lot less reckless abuse of alcohol. I have a difficult time believing that most people who work with college students would disagree with me, but maybe I'm wrong.

The federal highway bill is coming up for reauthorization in 2009, so the timing is right for this issue to be picked up by the media. With all the veterans coming back from the Middle East starting in 2009, I am sure the "can fight the Taliban, but can't have a beer" argument is going to get attention.

The bill needs to be reauthorized with the federal drinking age stipulation removed. Let's let the decisions happen at the state level, where they belong. I'm going to be writing to my Congressional delegation encouraging them to at least give this a fair argument.

Kudos, by the way, to AFA for having the courage to put this on their educational program. I was very impressed that Richard Celeste, former governor of Ohio, former U.S. Ambassador to India, and now president of Colorado College was one of the session participants. He is one of the signers of the Amethyst Initiative.

Breaking up shouldn't be so hard to do

2008-11-26T06:24:00.003-07:00

We ended our relationship with one of our speakers this week. No surprise... I'd had an icky feeling about the relationship for a while. I've been in my business long enough to know when things aren't a win-win, and this one had been circling the drain for weeks.

But, like many of us, I let it go on too long. I let it play its course until we reached a point where a toxic cloud was hanging over all of us.

I admit it. I hate the "breaking up" feeling. I'm getting better at it, but I'm not sure it's ever going to come easy for me. I'm willing to tolerate a lot of crap before I get to the point where I overcome my discomfort and have "the conversation." I feel like Sex and the City's Carrie Bradshaw when I ask:

Why does breaking up feel harder than staying in?

Sometimes in student leadership, you have break-ups that you see coming a mile away, as well. Perhaps it's that officer who started off well but has become a total drag on your organization. Perhaps it's an advisor who no longer adds anything positive. Perhaps it's that member or teammate who's making too many bad decisions. Maybe it's the student worker who has screwed up so many times that he simply needs to go.

We delay the agony of the conversation. We keep thinking that perhaps the other person is going to step up and set things right. Maybe he will just quit on his own. We think that the annoyance is tolerable, even though very little "good" is coming out of the situation at all. We procrastinate, even though we know exactly where this dysfunctional relationship is headed.

All because the potential of that 10-minute conversation is so dreadful. Or, because we worry they will lash out at us and make it our fault. They will probably hate our guts for a long, long time, and it's going to be terribly awkward when you inevitably cross paths.

Go and Google "How to Break Up With Someone." The tips there are obviously for personal relationships, but you can take a lot of those tips and apply them to business or student-leadership breakups as well.

The one I struggle with the most is "doing it in person." I like to end relationships by email, which is a terrible way to do it. Hell, I'd do these breakups (firings, whatever) by carrier pigeon, if I could. I'm working on that.

Bottom line is that when things have gotten to a dysfunctional, harmful point, it's better to bite the bullet, confront the inevitable end of the relationship, and just do it. "Man up!" as my jock friends say. Face the ugly moments of the conversation with a mind toward the better situation that lives on the other side.

Is there a relationship in your student organization that is dragging you down? Then, it's time to employ the four most useful words in the English language:

We need to talk...

Lambda 10 releases transgender and Greek resource guide – available for FREE download

2008-11-22T15:08:00.004-07:00

I just finished reviewing Lambda 10's Fraternity and Sorority Resource Guide, and I want to encourage all campus Greek advisors to get a copy and spend a little time with it. The guide was co-written by Jessica Pettitt, a member of our CAMPUSPEAK speakers team. I love that the resource guide is titled "Beginning the Conversation..." because I think it helps to accomplish just that.

As issues surrounding gender identity more readily enter the mainstream consciousness, it makes sense for those of us who work with people (young, old, whatever) to broaden our knowledge of transgender issues.

As a person with a strong personal commitment to human dignity and potential, I have been deeply touched by the stories of the transgender men and women I've met in my travels. I've seized numerous opportunities to interact with individuals working through transgender issues, and I find the whole thing fascinating. I can't think of a group that has a harder time in their struggle for rights and acceptance, so the part of me that immediately wants to fight for the underdog is drawn to the issue.

Denver has a very active trans community, and as I've become acquainted with members of that community, I've come to sympathize greatly for the struggles that many of them endure. I recently had a transgender woman come in to speak to my staff to help them better understand what it might be like to be, know, or care about a trans person.

Recently, I visited a school in the deep south, and I was approached by a fraternity president whose chapter was struggling with how to handle a member who was entering the next leg in his transgender journey. It was very emotional for all involved, rife with worries about rejection, abandonment, fear, public image, and values. It's really happening – everywhere – and the issue deserves some careful thought.

Reading the guide, you feel disheartened about how unlikely it is that a young person facing a gender identity crisis would find support and refuge in his fraternity or sorority. But, this guide is an important step toward eventual understanding.

In any case, I want to strongly urge every person who considers themselves a leader in the fraternity/sorority community to take a few minutes to get download a free copy of this guide, give it a quiet Saturday read in the coming months, and give some thought to how you will respond when a young person needs your assistance.

A word about those customized IFC polo shirts

2008-11-21T05:25:00.005-07:00

I'm always amazed when I go to the Greek regional conferences each year, and I see IFC officers walking around the hotel in their matching polos with their customized embroidered logo stitched on the left chest. Frequently, I see that each of these officer has either his name or his position stitched in the shirt as well. The shirts easily cost $50 each, and some councils give them to every officer and subordinate chair.

Some councils prefer jackets – sort of in the tradition of high school lettermen making sure everyone knows their positions on the football or baseball team.

In almost all cases, the council pays for these shirts, or at least part of them.

This week, there was outrage around the country as the executives of the Big Three automakers flew private jets (three different ones) from Detroit to Washington to beg Congress for $25 billion in taxpayer funded loans. The implication, of course, was that these executives were desperate enough to appeal for taxpayer money, but not desperate enough to jump a commercial flight to D.C. to do it.

Same thing happened with AIG. Tens of billions in bailout money, but the lavish sales functions and retreats continued.

With these items in the news and people extra sensitive about how their tax dollars (IFC dues?) are being spent, do you really think the highly customized polo shirts are necessary for your MGCA or NGLA appearance? Give it some thought before you do it. Something as silly as a polo shirt could land you in the student newspaper with a lot of criticism aimed at your council during the first few precious months of your term.

Fellas, this year, be more careful about the discretionary spending. Start with the shirts. Downgrade to some nice t-shirts or something. You can be cool without the popped collars and embroidery.

Yes, I know previous councils had them, and it's not fair. But, this year is different from last year. This year, you need to be spending council funds on things that will justifiably help and advance your Greek community. Customized polo shirts don't make the cut.

Free speech gets ugly at N.C. State

2008-11-11T20:42:00.002-07:00

By Jay Price, Raleigh News & Observer

RALEIGH - Four students who admitted spray-painting racist and threatening graffiti aimed at President-elect Barack Obama at N.C. State University won't be charged with any crime, but their work was condemned at a student rally Thursday.

About 500 people attended the rally at the NCSU Brickyard organized by the student government to demonstrate opposition to the graffiti. The graffiti appeared early Wednesday as modifications to positive messages about Obama that someone else had painted in the university's Free Expression Tunnel.

By 10 a.m., university workers had painted the entire tunnel white to erase the offensive messages, and students began replacing them with anti-hate slogans.

The U.S. Secret Service assisted in the investigation, said Jon Barnwell, spokesman for the NCSU police. The federal agency was notified immediately because of the nature of the graffiti, which said "Shoot Obama" and "Kill that n--."

What do your officers wish they had accomplished?

2008-11-10T12:15:00.004-07:00

Your term is wrapping up. You've done some great things, but many goals didn't get accomplished because of time, changing priorities, or a lack of resources.

As you approach election time, ask each current officer to make a list of 3-5 things that they wish they had been able to do. Have them describe what prevented the goals from being accomplished and why the organization would have been better had the goals been achieved.

When you are facing officer transition, one of the best things you can do is help the incoming officers avoid re-creating the wheel.

These lists could be a great discussion starter in a transition retreat. Take some time at your next exec meeting and do these together, if you're afraid that outgoing officers won't do them on their own.