Thank You! Shared Leadership Summit

Thank You!

For introductions, we answered the question what does fraternity and sorority life mean to you at Carnegie Mellon? We defined our community with a collection of single words. From looking at our word cloud our community has so much value and meaning to everyone. We hope you took the time to meet a new face during this circle activity.

Sam helped us have a deeper understanding of shared leadership by presenting a venn diagram of the intersection of “things you can control” and “things you care about.” At the intersection of the venn diagram is “what you should focus on” which is the central focus of shared leadership. It is important to put your time, treasure, and talents into things you can control. 

Panhellenic Council
Panhellenic made plans to have “Panhellenic Pairs” where two chapters are paired together to hang out and do programming together. They also discussed how to elevate the Panhellenic experience to potential new members.

Culturally Based Greek Organizations
The Multicultural Greek Council and the National Pan-Hellenic Council linked up to have lunch together. These conversations focused on building relationships and getting to know each other.

Interfraternity Council
IFC made some commitments to hosting more events for IFC chapter members to get to know each other. There is also a plan to start group messages with the same officers from each chapter.

After lunch, Taylor led us through a warm-up to fight off the post lunch nap. We had some fun trying to win some CMU seat cushions with human bingo. Who did you get to meet?

Member Engagement Huddle

“The single most important thing fraternities and sororities can do to address apathy, retention, or motivation issues is to focus more time, energy, and effort on the creation of belonging.”  (McCrery, 2017)

There was a team huddle about membership engagement through belonging. Attendees seperated into groups of eight for small group conversations. Research shows that those members who feel a sense of belonging from a chapter are more likely to be engaged. There was discussion about what constitutes an engaged member; is it someone who goes above and beyond expectations or someone who meets the minimum requirements? Each small group answered questions about belonging within a chapter.  Then groups reviewed common engagement tools to see if those tools would increase or decrease belonging. As stated in the conversation, there are many different approaches and opinions on engagement tools. 

Shared Leadership Topical Conversation

For the pinnacle activity of the Shared Leadership Summit, there were six topical shared leadership conversations led by our conversation champion. Conversation champions led a talking circle to define what success would look like for each topics and what can each person do to help achieve success within this topic. A big shoutout to our champions for leading this conversations. 

Here are some action items that were developed from these conversations:

Amplifying the Value of the Fraternity and Sorority Life Experience to Others with Sarah Chen, Taylor Ritzert and Brycen Worsham

• Promote chapter and council events to the broader CMU community
• Breaking the bubble by collaborating with other student organizations on programs
• Sharing with chapters opportunities to be involved outside of FSL
• Promote the larger community instead of your individual chapter, since the larger CMU community does not separate out chapters

Improving Neighborhood Relationships with FSL with Nihaar Gupta

• Break the bubble–meet your neighbors and start to develop a line of communication with them
• Organize events for the public or offer small gestures of kindness–trick or treat, raking leaves, etc.
• Meet with stakeholders who are doing the work within the neighborhood
• Having awareness of your actions and taking ownership when things are being a disturbance to the neighborhood

Increasing Safety at Off-Campus Parties with Gonzalo Bird-Muñoz

• Provide more support to risk managers and clarification of policies
• Contribute to better transition, so safety procedures are passed on between officers
• Health Promotion will create a poster with resource for off-campus houses that host parties to display, especially resources about amnesty

Building Trust between Chapters and Councils with Eyal Davidov and Caroline Michalow

• Chapters need to intentionally get to know each other
• Executive boards and officers need to be examples in getting know each other
• Not speaking badly about other chapters, especially in public settings or on the internet 
• We don’t know our neighbors–open doors in the Greek Quad and Row to build relationships with each other

Supporting the Mental Health of Our Members with Isabell Sheppard and Josh Schalenbrand

• Being proactive in the efforts to normalize and address mental health
• Mental health is a valid excuse–members can’t always play by the books, it’s sometimes a case by case basis for excuses
• Understand what you can do vs. what a professional can do in a mental health situation
• Regularly and with care check in on people periodically, instead of waiting for people to come to you

Increasing the ROI to Retain Our Members with Josh Braverman 

• Connecting seniors to new members is a great way for chapters to uphold traditions and welcome new members into FSL
• Having connections between classes is mainly what encourages members to be active in their chapter
• Balancing the national organization's mission with the needs and wants of the CMU chapter--we're not a big state school, so we should modify the way we operate to retain members (academics and professional careers are important)
• Asking new members why they joined your chapter and assessing chapter operations to ensure it matches what new members want

What will you do first?

Thank you again for your time and passion at the
Shared Leadership Summit! 

Please wear your new hat around campus with pride, because you are the best promotion we have for the Fraternity and Sorority Life community. We are still accepting feedback if you haven't submitted it yet. Now is your time to focus on the intersection of "things you can control" and "things you care about" as our community continues to embrace shared leadership.