A Serious IFC (Part 2)

In the last post, I described 5 reasons why many IFCs are not taken seriously. This week, my goal is to provide ten steps that any IFC can take to gain more credibility. There are many more answers than the ones I will give below, and the ones I give could use more explanation than I have room to provide. If you want any further details on my ideas, feel free to ask questions in the comment section or contact me directly. Here we go…

1: Define Your Purpose
If the purpose of your IFC is in question, then your mission as a council for the next year is to define it. If you accomplish nothing as an IFC except to agree upon a purpose (sometimes conveyed as a mission statement or statement of purpose), you still will move mountains. It’s that important. I encourage you to appoint a small task force of IFC delegates and officers to take on this task. This task force should work off a 6-month timeline, and do some or all of the following:
  • Review current documents, including the constitution, for evidence of purpose and mission.
  • Interview major stakeholders, such as fraternity officers and members, campus administrators, and other governing council officers.
  • Investigate IFC mission statements from peer institutions.
  • Consult resources available from the NIC, AFLV, and other entities.
  • Draft a 1-2 page document describing the findings and proposing a new statement of purpose for the IFC. The full IFC then discusses and debates the document.
Having a defined purpose can then inform how you structure committees, officer positions, and agendas for the IFC meetings.

2: Chart the Course

I’m a big fan of retreats to start a new era. It’s a great time for trust-building and vision-casting. The retreat can focus the group on the issues that matter to the fraternity system. Develop a list of 6-8 strategic priorities for the IFC. Such priorities could include: (a) increase fraternity membership, (b) update and ratify the IFC constitution, (c) develop a stronger working relationship with other governing councils, (d) build relationships with senior administrators, (e) provide more education and resources for chapter officers, etc. Your journey as an IFC will be easier with a map.

3: Get the Right People in the Room
In my opinion, the right people to attend IFC meetings and represent their chapters are the chapter presidents. I know how busy a chapter president is, but serving as an ambassador for the chapter, representing member interests, and building stronger interfraternal relationships are all part of his job description. He is the right person for the job.

4: Set a Professional Meeting Environment
I know a serious IFC when I see one. So do your delegates and stakeholders. If they visited your meeting, what would they experience and see? The most serious IFCs among us take intentional steps to ensure a professional environment for their meetings.

This includes location. Try to avoid the dingy, chalky classroom on the 3rd floor of some random academic building. It kills creativity. Also avoid the large lecture hall or auditorium, for these spaces inhibit natural conversation. Ideally, find a big open room in a central location, in which you can set long tables in a square, so that the delegates can all see each other. Trust me, it helps.

When the first delegate arrives, the room should be set and ready to go. Ideally, IFC officers are already present, floating around the room and greeting attendees. Light refreshments can’t hurt. Provide each delegate with a name placard that lists their first and last name, and their fraternity affiliation (or IFC officer position). These guys are going to be engaged in important debates – it helps if they can call each other by name.

Finally - call me old-fashioned, but shorts, ballcaps, and sandals will give one kind of atmosphere, and shirts, ties, and badges will give you another. I like the latter.

5: Make the Meetings Valuable
Serious IFCs spend time having thoughtful discussion and debate about the biggest issues confronting the fraternity system. In order to make space for this, reduce the amount of time spent giving reports and making announcements. For instance, items that do not require discussion can be e-mailed in advance, or distributed as handouts.

Once you’ve made the time, now you can talk about what matters. However, without some structure, delegates will simply stare at each other. One idea is to take the strategic priorities you develop at the retreat, assign a small task force of IFC delegates and officers to investigate and make recommendations on each priority, and then spend each meeting addressing a different priority. Each task force can present recommendations and lead the discussion (which is a great way to share leadership).

You may need to work up to this, but I believe that 75% of each IFC meeting should be spent discussing system-wide issues and strategic direction. IFC members should come prepared to be intellectually challenged by complex and consequential questions.

6: Take a Stand
While an IFC should always strive to be proactive, there will be times when a problem or issue is forced upon you. You may need to fight. For example, what if your host campus wanted to defer recruitment until the sophomore year? Many IFCs would wallow in self-pity while the policy changes. Be stronger than that. Start by passing a resolution in the IFC meeting condemning the new policy. Send the resolution, with a cover letter by the IFC president, to relevant campus administrators. Next, set up meetings with the administrators in order to share the resolution and the IFC’s concerns. Be persistent, but courteous. Involve external entities such as alumni, national offices, and the NIC. These are defining moments for a representative group like an IFC, and you’ll be remembered most for how you handle them. Be a champion for the fraternity system. Perhaps a quote from Teddy Roosevelt is appropriate:

“The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood..."

7: Do an IFC Road Show
In order to increase visibility, send IFC officers out to chapter meetings at the start of each semester. The goal should be to share with the chapter members a few of the major IFC initiatives and issues. In addition, it’s a good time to listen to needs and concerns from the general members.

8: Learn the Power of the Written Letter
Yes, we live in an e-mail and social media culture. It’s revolutionized how we do business and communicate with each other. Fine. I encourage you to break from the norm every now and then, and learn the power of the personalized letter. Invest in a stack of IFC letterhead, IFC envelopes, and a nice blue pen. Whenever a fraternity wins a national award, send them a letter. If a chapter receives publicity for a service project, send them a letter. Founders Day for one of your chapters? Send them a letter. Consider copying the Greek Advisor and the Chapter Advisor. It doesn’t take a lot of time, and the fraternity that receives the letter will likely post it on a bulletin board. That’s where important letters from important people typically go.

9: Have More Personalized Conversations
At the start of the new IFC year (new officers and delegates), the IFC President should set aside time to meet with the president of each fraternity represented on the IFC. If possible, include other IFC officers as well. The purpose of this meeting is for the IFC President to do 2 things: (1) build rapport, and (2) listen. Here is a good list of questions to start with:
  • What are your hopes and aspirations for your chapter?
  • How can the IFC help you achieve these aspirations?
  • What do you expect from the IFC in general?
  • How do you think your contributions can make the IFC stronger?
  • What priorities should the IFC address this year?

10: Set Up Regular Meetings with Senior Administrators

The IFC President and Officers should establish regular standing meetings with senior administrators. It is important that these meetings be proactive and positive, and generally accomplish 3 things: (1) inform the administrators of recent IFC and chapter accomplishments, (2) share concerns and questions from the delegates, and (3) listen to the needs and perspectives of the administrators. Such administrators would include: the President, the Vice President of Student Affairs, the Dean of Students, the Director of Housing (if applicable), and the Provost. These meetings may only occur once a semester, and that’s okay (unless there is an urgent issue). It’s about reminding them that you’re here and working to build a stronger fraternity system. By building a friendly and professional relationship, they are more likely to listen to you when it matters most.

Those are several of my ideas and I hope you've found them helpful. I plan to build out some of them in future posts. Please share your ideas in the comments section below.

If the fraternity movement is to succeed, it needs strong, active, and credible IFCs to help steer the ship. Here's your chance to lead. Seriously.

2 comments:

  1. I took both blog posts (part 1 & 2) to our IFC meeting this week. If we go back that part 1 about meetings being a colossal waste of time, that section of the post read like a checklist for an ineffective meeting. As the IFC exec was ready to pull their hair out, one of the chapter presidents said, "There's a simple fix to this problem. Get rid of the delegates." Just like you wrote this week. Have the chapter presidents represent the chapters at the meetings." This would give the chapter presidents weekly interaction to talk about current issues in their organizations with each other and their campus sorority/fraternity advisor. If you think about it, the advisor has to meet with these presidents regularly anyway to do all of that roster and grade paperwork et. cetera. Part of the reason that our chapters are distanced within the fraternity system is because the presidents don't know each other well. Not to mention, I think our founders would find the delegates' representation of our organizations completely atrocious.

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  2. I agree about the extra benefits received when chapter presidents gather around a table together once a week. It builds greater trust.

    If an IFC wants to use delegates instead of the chapter presidents, I think that can work if they have a fairly intense training session for the delegates on what representation really means.

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