Category Archives: values

Mar 02 2011
Leave a comment
leadership, purpose of fraternity, ritual, values, values-based leadership

Founders’ Intent: How Ritual Binds Us Together

By Austin Landry (Louisiana Lafayette/Birmingham Southern)

There are Rituals and there are rituals. A ritual for some men is that, when they shave, they start on the same side of the face every day, more like a habit than anything else. However, a Ritual is something totally different. A Ritual is a formal, well thought out ceremony that is meant to be something more than a habit. Some Rituals go back thousands of years.  Some are new and some are yet to be established.

The Sigma Nu Ritual began in 1869 when three young cadets at the Virginia Military Institute decided to form a new organization opposed to hazing, which, at the time was rampant at the Institute. On the edge of the Institute parade ground, three cadets, James Frank Hopkins, Greenfield Quarles and James McIlvaine Riley met and committed to each  other to form an organization opposed to hazing, with Love , Truth, and Honor as a foundation. Thus, the Legion of Honor was formed, an organization now known as the Sigma Nu Fraternity.

Now, more than 140 years later, Sigma Nu continues to hold true the basis of the foundation of Love, Truth, and Honor set by the founders. As with any organization, some form of Ritual was needed to induct new members into the Fraternity. In the beginning, like many organizations, the ceremony was new and resulted in some later changes. In Sigma Nu, in those early days, there was not a formal candidate or pledge process or ceremony. Young men were observed and, by their actions and honorable behavior, were determined to be worthy of wearing the badge of Sigma Nu.

Later, when a formal pledge or candidate process was deemed necessary, an addition to the Sigma Nu Ritual was made to include a meaningful and memorable ceremony for those desiring to be members of the Sigma Nu Fraternity. However, this ceremony did not yet make them full members of the Fraternity.

In many Rituals, the candidate for membership does not really know what to expect from the ceremony. As a result, if the ritual has any substance and meaning, the individual going through the ceremony is nervous about the process and may not remember all that happened in the ceremony. Therefore, it is important for the Ritual to be informative and memorable. The Sigma Nu Ritual is both. Every member remembers the place, setting, and process, both during the candidate and the initiation ceremony. This is one of the things that binds together every Sigma Nu from the first Ritual which was passed word to mouth and was memorized, to the current hard bound Ritual. The Ritual is the symbolic glue that includes the words and actions to which we can all relate, whether in a large chapter of 100 Brothers that is over 120 years old or a newly chartered chapter. Each of our meetings begins and ends with the Ritual for meetings, during which, we are reminded of the commitment we made during our Initiation.

In the same fashion, Greek fraternities and sororities become bound together by means of each of their unique, but related Rituals, creating a common bond of members, both undergraduate and alumni. Without Rituals, we would only be clubs, rather than fraternities and sororities. How many alumni would be willing to go back to the college or university campus to have a reunion of one of the clubs? In fraternities and sororities, all of us are ready to stay in touch with our Brothers and Sisters, whether they live down the block or in Thailand. The Ritual helped provide the foundation of that common bond.

Mar 01 2011
Leave a comment
Honor, purpose of fraternity, ritual, values, values-based leadership

How Did You Live the Ritual Today?

By Leadership Consultant Daniel Hallgren

What did you do today to live your Ritual?

Rereading The Secret Thoughts of a Ritual prompted me to consider how I live the Ritual each day. It is a thought provoking piece that talks about how Ritual should not be so secret that it becomes a mystery to us and our members.

The Ritual should be read, studied, and used as a road map to live a good life.

It should be openly discussed between brothers and taught to our new members once they are initiated.

The meanings of The Ritual should be examined closely and argued passionately.

I encourage you to read both The Ritual and  The Secret Thoughts of a Ritual, and to reflect on their teachings and meaning.

Or to share a passage from each at an upcoming chapter meeting, discussing its current relevance with the membership.

As I write this, I am reflecting on how I am currently living and doing what The Ritual prescribes.

Am I living up to the Oath I made five years ago when I became an initiated brother in Sigma Nu?

Am I living the values and precepts set forth by my founders?

I challenge you to ask these very same questions of yourself and others.

It is only upon reflection and discussion that we can reach an understanding of The Ritual and how well each of us lives up to our knightly vows.

I challenge you to consider where you stand and to help others do the same.

Once you have learned The Ritual, taught it to others, and lived by it, I challenge you to expect the same from our brothers.

Mar 01 2011
Leave a comment
candidate education, Honor, leadership, new member education, ritual, values, values-based leadership

Your Initiation Ceremony is Only the Beginning

By Drew Logsdon (Western Kentucky)

This was it. Twelve long weeks had culminated into this exact moment. I had passed the tests. I knew the history. I was familiar with risk reduction, time management, community service, and leadership concepts. I was also still very naïve.

I knew I was about to go through a ritual that had been passed down through the years but I didn’t really understand the significance of the event until much later.

I remember that morning very distinctly. My candidate brothers and I were waiting with strong anticipation for this moment. However, internally, I was thinking of so much more.

I was about to become a member of not just a chapter with over 40 years of history on campus but also a fraternity of international membership.

I remembered what my father had told me during a phone conversation the night before. “Don’t waste this experience. Don’t be an empty seat. The easy part is over, now the hard part begins. You have nothing to prove to anyone else but you do have something to prove to yourself. Prove to yourself that this commitment wasn’t a half-assed one. Prove to yourself that you’re going to actually do something.”

Honor candidate ritual robe.

He was absolutely right.

When I finally walked into the room for the ceremony I remember feeling extremely excited. So excited I wanted to almost skip the ceremony and go straight to my first meeting. That’s when it dawned on me: This wasn’t the culmination of twelve weeks. This was the beginning of change. I now had a voice. I now had an obligation. There were no more “but I’m just a candidate” excuses. Now I had an obligation to stand for the values of the Fraternity. When the door shut behind us I felt the weight of the silence in the room. In roughly one hour I would be an initiate.

To this day I can’t accurately recreate in my memory what followed because it seemed to happen so fast (it didn’t). But I will never forget those first few moments and my father’s words to me the night before. I believe it is a charge we are all obligated to uphold.

As initiates we have nothing to prove to anyone else, but we do have to prove something to ourselves.

We all have to prove that we will carry through with the vows we took. We all have to prove that our decisions were not made in vain and that we will all leave our active chapters better than when we came into them.

So throughout this week of celebration for our Ritual I encourage every active member and candidate alike to think about what they have done or plan to do. Don’t be an empty seat. Do something.

Nov 19 2010
Leave a comment
Honor, integrity, stereotypes, values

One Good Turn, and One Broken Stereotype, Leads to Another

When Dave Talley, a Tempe homeless man, found a backpack this month at the light-rail station near Rural Road and University Drive, his first thought was to look through the bag for the owner’s identification or contact information. Instead, he found an envelope containing about $3,300 in cash.

The temptation to keep the money was almost overwhelming, he said. Then, his conscience kicked in.

Read the full story.  And a lighthearted account of a another homeless person who returned a credit card.
Jun 02 2010
Leave a comment
complacency, goal setting, leadership, purpose of fraternity, strategic planning, values, values-based leadership

Creativity: The Unsung Leadership Quality

Our Founders and early members were prescient in choosing the Rock and the Rose as enduring symbols of The Legion of Honor.  Our fundamental purpose to produce ethical leaders for society will never change (Rock); however, the strategies and tactics we use to accomplish our mission are changing constantly as we adapt to our surroundings (Rose).

Similarly, most enduring companies maintain a fundamental purpose through the years.  Strategies and even products and services may change, but the core mission remains.  And as Fast Company magazine reports, finding the right strategies and tactics often requires an under-appreciated leadership quality:

For CEOs, creativity is now the most important leadership quality for success in business, outweighing even integrity and global thinking, according to a new study by IBM. The study is the largest known sample of one-on-one CEO interviews, with over 1,500 corporate heads and public sector leaders across 60 nations and 33 industries polled on what drives them in managing their companies in today’s world.

The Rose can manifest itself it many different leadership qualities, and least among them is creativity.  Take some time this summer to ponder how you will lead your chapter through innovation and creativity this coming year.  It could be something as simple as changing the time and location of chapter meetings.  Or maybe it’s time to bring creativity to your LEAD Program in the form of some new and energizing guest facilitators (see how Fresno State is bringing creativity to LEAD in the spring 2010 issue of The Delta) .

Change, renewal and purity of purpose–as represented by the Rose–is necessary to the long-term success of any organization, especially the college fraternity.

May 14 2010
1 Comment
drinking age, drinking laws, group culture, risk reduction, stereotypes, stop being an idiot, underage drinking, values

Where Stereotypes Come From

Out of respect for the sorority and educational institution these students misrepresented, I’ve intentionally removed the organizations’  names.

The following is  a letter of complaint from the venue hosting the sorority’s formal:

Immediately upon their arrival we were informed by the bus drivers that the students were acting belligerent during the ride down and demanded for them to pull over to let them urinate on the side of the road.  When the bus drivers did pull over, they were then stopped by a Butler County sheriff.

When the students arrived around 8:00pm most were already heavily intoxicated and some could barely manage to walk inside the facility. Upon arrival, a male student asked the Lake Lyndsay staff member Yvonne if she had a washer and dryer in the building because he had vomited on his shirt and pants.

A male student apparently became angry and decided to flip the entire appetizer table over. Red meatball sauce splattered all over the carpeted area, along with cheese and other foods that the students proceeded to walk through and ground into the carpet. When Yvonne and Elizabeth ran over to see what had happened, everyone in the area was laughing and would not tell them who the person was that flipped the table, only that it was “some guy.” This resulted in my cleaning crew having to rent a rug cleaner at 12:00am in order to have the carpet clean and ready for the wedding reception we had the next day.

Two male students started to remove their clothing and decided they were going to go swimming in the lake. Yvonne had to threaten to call the police before they agreed to put their clothing back on and go inside the building.

We let the students use our table decorations for free. And they repaid us by taking two of our crystal vases outside and throwing them off of the porch to shatter on the concrete patio below. We now have to inform the brides that are scheduled to use these vases later this summer, that we do not have enough for them to use now due to the fact that they do not make this particular vase any longer.

Elizabeth saw a group of male students on the side of the building laughing, and when both Yvonne and Elizabeth went back later to see what they had done, they found a pile of human feces on the side of the building. There is a huge ornamental concrete lion statue that sits at the front entrance of the building. Someone knocked this over and broke part of the mane off of the lion.

Yvonne found two students in the caterer’s closet having intercourse on top of the stacked tables. Yvonne turned the lights on and told them to “get out now.” The male student proceeded to curse at her and turn the light off. Yvonne turned the light back on and stayed there while they dressed themselves and left the closet.

I also found two students in our Beach House (another rental building on the property) having intercourse. I yelled into the building and told them to get out before I called the police. I then went over to Lake Lyndsay Lodge to tell Yvonne and Courtney. This is when I realized that Courtney was too intoxicated to talk to and there were no adult chaperones representing ______ University whom I could inform. A male and a female student missed the buses, and when we asked them where they were and why they were not able to see the buses pull in and out…they told us that they were picking up trash on the premises.

Thirty seven 30-packs of Natural Light beer was left behind in the building. We had a non-alcoholic wedding reception the next day that gained access to the building at 8:00am…so it was up to us to dispose of this large amount of alcohol.

I have had 13 calls for lost items from this event. This is the most lost item calls I have ever had at any party in twelve years.

We are appalled at the student’s behavior. My husband and I are graduates of _____ University, and we both agree that college students can drink and have a good time, but last Friday was not just a bunch of college students drinking and having a good time. It was a bunch of college students getting totally obliterated and behaving like immature children.

We are tempted to send this story to the newspapers in the surrounding areas to inform parents of future _____  University students just how sororities and fraternities really behave when they think no one school related is watching.

I seriously cannot believe what happened last Friday night. It saddens me to think that this generation of students conduct themselves in this way while in public.

I spoke to a mother of one of the girls in the sorority and told her all that had happened. Needless to say she was also disgusted and very apologetic.

They had a total lack of respect for my family’s business and for this reason among many others; no sorority or fraternity from _____ University is welcome back to Lake Lyndsay ever again. Please inform this chapter they will have to find a new venue for their formal next year.

We obviously are keeping the $500.00 security deposit that was paid for this event. We are not seeking any further payment for the damages, even though the security deposit does not cover repairs made to the building and extra cleaning fees that were incurred.

Don’t want the media to perpetuate fraternity/sorority stereotypes?  Then stop giving them the material.

Apr 29 2010
Leave a comment
candidate education, hazing, Honor, integrity, leadership, new member education, purpose of fraternity, risk reduction, ritual, stereotypes, stop being an idiot, values, values-based leadership, values-based recruitment

Random Thoughts

If fraternities are supposed to stand for such values as honor, integrity and respect then why must every national office employ a full-time Director of Risk Reduction?

Why are marketing campaigns to eliminate hazing almost always directed at our our own members rather than the general public?  Isn’t it pathetic that we should have to convince our own members that the mission of our organization is in fact good?

The few chapters that are either too cool or too dysfunctional to attend Grand Chapter will inevitably complain the most about the new bylaws and policies they didn’t bother to vote for.

If chapters are so proud of their diversity, loosely defined, then why do pledge programs insist on making everyone the same (“our #1 goal is to mold a united pledge class”)?

If hazers are so confident that arbitrary harassment builds brotherhood then why not advertise every activity and expectation during recruitment?

And if hazers are so confident that hazing has an ounce of relevance to real life then why don’t they list “endured hazing pledgeship” on their resume?  Or do they understand that no employer would take them seriously?

Why do some chapters spend more time developing marketing campaigns to make themselves look good rather than actually being good in the first place?

Why do chapters spend so much time trying to motivate members for recruitment rather than just recruiting people who don’t need to be motivated?

If hazing is supposed to teach respect then why are the loudest proponents of hazing always the least respected members in the chapter?

Apr 22 2010
1 Comment
candidate education, community service, greek advisors, hazing, new member education, personal servitude, pledging, purpose of fraternity, risk reduction, values

How Econ 101 Teaches us to Eliminate Hazing

With the best of intentions, Greek life professionals are quick to cite that tragic example as chief justification for eliminating hazing.  But does this actually work?

Tragic examples of hazing-related deaths provide compelling reasons to eliminate pernicious hazing.  Unfortunately, however, these tragic examples based on emotion alone only have a fleeting effect.  When the tragic memory fades, it’s back to business as usual.  What’s more, eliminating only the life-threatening activities isn’t good enough, for the seemingly harmless “boys being boys” hazing inevitably escalates over time.

In other words, referencing the tragic hazing death does not motivate most people to eliminate, for example, house chores or running errands for brothers.  The personal servitude model of candidate education seems harmless on the surface but it sows the seeds for more dangerous hazing later down the road.

So how can Greek life professionals effectively reason against the arbitrary activities that many people regard as harmless?  One possible answer lies in one of the tenets of basic economics: opportunity cost.

The opportunity cost of hazing

If you’ve ever taken an intro to economics course, your first lecture was probably about opportunity cost–the relationship between scarcity and choice.  The cost of a choice is everything else we could have done with that time or money.  We face trade offs in our choices every single day:

By attending college we forgo the money we could have earned working full time.

By attending Thursday’s happy hour we forgo the time we could have spent studying for Friday’s midterm.

By playing video games for hours we forgo the time we could have spent writing a family member or calling an old friend.

Like individuals, fraternities also make decisions on allocating scarce resources.  In essence, opportunity cost helps us identify the best use of our most valuable resource: time.

Aside from freak accidents, house chores and other forms of personal servitude don’t pose much risk for personal injury or death.  But there’s an equally compelling reason to eliminate the arbitrary activities along with the more dangerous ones: they’re an utter waste of time.

Think of all the time-wasters many chapters accept as given:

All that time wasted memorizing Sigma Nu history (most of which is forgotten after initiation) could have been spent studying for midterms or participating in another campus organization.  (No, memorizing Sigma Nu history isn’t necessarily a waste of time.  See “Sigma Nu History Isn’t Just for Candidates“)

All that time wasted cleaning the house after brothers trashed it the night before could have been spent participating in community service projects, studying, calling home, etc.

And the examples could go on forever…

Sigma Nu was founded and still exists today for a specific purpose: To prepare ethical leaders for society.  The aforementioned activities may not be dangerous but they’re just as ill-advised.  Why?  Because they rob our candidates of precious time that could have been spent more productively.

Apr 21 2010
Leave a comment
integrity, purpose of fraternity, situational forces, values, values-based leadership

Integrity Means Having Self-Respect

Br. Jim Thomas’ column on integrity in the most recent issue of The Delta is a must read.  Here are a few of my favorite parts:

In the abstract, however, the virtue is puzzling. Often quoted—the word crops up everywhere—but rarely defined, it is frequently interchanged with the cardinal virtues of courage and honesty of which it is neither. Ask for definition; a dozen are forthcoming. Moreover, in this frantic age, few pause to reflect on integrity and its value in everyday life.

…

What unseen forces motivate a person to practice this virtue? It has many motivations, including pride, individualism, the insistence on independent thought and action. All, however, are outranked by one imperishable inducement–a determination to maintain one’s self-respect.

…

The quest for integrity is neither an easy nor an ending task. Sometimes the price for self-respect is higher than many will pay. However, the benefits are enormous. For integrity leads inevitably to the priceless assets of trustworthiness, good reputation, reliability, fairness, square dealing, truthfulness, and forthrightness. Among the brotherhood, at the fraternity house, on campus and beyond, such assets are of value beyond measure.

Apr 21 2010
Leave a comment
hazing, Honor, integrity, personal servitude, pledging, risk reduction, stereotypes, stop being an idiot, values, values-based leadership

The Shocking Reality of Irony

Irony can oftentimes be humorous, but in many other instances it can be disappointing or downright sad.

How would you feel if you opened up your local newspaper and read the following headline:

“Anti-hazing fraternity closed due to hazing.”

‘Living our Values’ isn’t just a catchy phrase or some arbitrary title for a LEAD session.  It’s what we’re supposed to do on a daily basis.  To live our values, we must understand them, lest we’re forced to swallow the bitter pill of irony.

← Older posts
Newer posts →