Fraternity and Freedom

I’ve heard it said that when America was formed, it was held as a grand experiment in man’s ability to govern himself.  Models of self-government were mostly theoretical at the time, and so this country became the first to really test that idea.  Although there have been many stumbles along the way, I think the experiment has worked pretty well.

I’ll let the politicians and pundits debate whether or not we’re drifting closer to, or further away, from that ideal.

Nonetheless, if America can be judged as an experiment in self-government, then I believe that the American fraternity or sorority can be judged as the same - albeit on a smaller level.  Our earliest forms were established by men and women without the permission of the colleges they were attending.  Back then, students did not have to submit paperwork to a campus office in order to gain “recognition.”  If they felt something was important enough to establish, then they went forward without apologies.  Now, it’s fair to say that our earliest groups also didn’t want or expect anything from the colleges.  We weren’t looking to compliment the mission of those institutions back then.  We wanted to be left alone.  We wanted to govern ourselves.  That spirit remains, but is being challenged.

I wrote an essay once that argued that fraternities and sororities (and thus their members) have defiance in their DNA.  There is a natural and embedded distrust between the fraternity man and his/her national headquarters and/or campus Greek Life office.  That goes all the way back to our founding.  And it’s proper to be skeptical of the institutions to which we are connected.

I believe that one of the chief reasons for the longevity of the fraternity/sorority movement is the spirit of self-government.  Not only have our organizations been a place for young people to find enduring friendships, service opportunities, academic support, and great memories - they have also been a place for young people to find freedom.  

Freedom and self-governance go together.

The benefits of self-governance can be profound.  Our society needs more individuals who can act upon their convictions, who will question authority when necessary, and who can simply manage their own problems and concerns.  Our world needs the strength that comes from individuals who are unwilling to let others control their destiny.  Self-government creates personal responsibility and nobody I know thinks we have enough of that in our world today.  

And so, we arrive at yet another reason why the fraternity and sorority is an absolutely relevant organization today: we create generations of responsible citizens through the practice of self-governance.  Our society should be cheering our ability to inspire young people to contribute more than they take.

Yet, we are not embracing this.  Because, we are not embracing self-governance.

Is fraternity/sorority self-governance under attack?  Possibly.  Colleges and universities seem to be laying out more and more requirements on student organizations.  Think about the following trends and developments, which many of you will see as progress.  When viewed through a lens of self-governance, and all the benefits of that principle, maybe that assessment should be reconsidered:

• Colleges/Universities choosing to move fraternity and sorority dwellings on-campus, in new facilities that can be managed by the institution.
• More requirements on groups with housing needing to have live-in advisors.
• Headquarters and universities requiring reports on minimum expectations/criteria to be recognized.
• Academic requirements for members to affiliate or organizations to be recognized.
• Service hour requirements from HQ or the university.
• More and more mandates on when a person can join, when they can live in the house, etc.

In an era when the relationship between universities and fraternities is more seamless than ever, it can be justified that colleges and universities have the right to do all of the things mentioned above.  However, for the sake of student learning, efficacy, and empowerment, justifying that they should do these things is not as easy.

Just because fraternities and sororities have allowed entities such as their headquarters and campuses to exert more control over their destiny doesn’t mean it’s the right thing to do.  In my opinion, it certainly cannot be described as progress.

We were meant be organizations that allowed young people a chance to build something together. They were able to learn from experience, achievements, and mistakes. Now, we are trying to build the experience for them and asking them to just ride along. 

For professionals who work in this industry - we were all once collegiate members.  We likely learned tremendous life skills from the autonomy of that experience.  I invite you to wonder (as I have on many occasions) why then we spend so much of our time now thinking about ways to limit that autonomy? How many of us quickly jump to policy when trying to solve an issue?  How many of us have spent a Friday night driving around Greek row looking for rule-breaking behavior? 

Comparisons between a campus chess club and a college fraternity are often made in jest and as a way to show to unique significance of the fraternity/sorority experience.  If we’re not careful, the day when the chess club has more self-governance to speak of than we do, is not too far away.

 

Justifying Fraternity

I have chosen fraternity.

Part of living in a free society is the opportunity to make choices. Many other nations in our world take choices away from their citizens. In America, we add new choices every day. New things to do, new things to see, new things to read, new things to eat, new ways to live. I made a choice 10 years ago, which I have never regretted – the choice to be a fraternity man.

Because it is a choice, we should not disparage those who make a different choice. It’s their right. We should not judge them for the choice they made. However, we also should not sit idly by and allow them to judge us for our choice. It is perfectly acceptable to justify our choice – loudly and proudly if need be.

We each have our own justifications for why we chose to join. Perhaps, at this point, you don’t know why. That’s okay. I was that way myself, especially at the start. When I was a freshman, I wanted to take a long and fulfilling ride through my 4 years of undergraduate education. A fraternity seemed like the best vehicle for that ride – but I wasn’t sure why at the time.

By justifying the choices we make in life, our life becomes clearer. There are sound reasons why we make every choice – although some of those reasons may be hidden until we are ready to see them. As a new father, I sometimes try to remember my motivation for becoming a parent in the first place. It just seemed like a natural thing to do. Now that I have a child, I never want to go back to my life before him. Parenthood has provided me with an opportunity for legacy that can’t be found anywhere else. I wasn’t ready to understand that until I held him for the first time.

As I reflect on my fraternal experience, I have also discovered and rediscovered the reasons why I made this choice. My decision to join a fraternity becomes clearer and more convincing each day. Perhaps you can’t justify your reasons for joining a fraternity. I can.

Many people make a choice for safety. They want to live free from controversy, conflict, or debate. I chose fraternity, and welcomed these things into my life.

Some choose to avoid scrutiny and accountability. They want to go unnoticed. I chose fraternity – I want you to see me. I want my accomplishments to be felt.

Some people want their lives to be orderly, formulaic, and easily navigated. I opted for the emotional chaos that comes from a group of young men trying to pull together. I chose fraternity.

There are those who treat leadership as theoretical, relying on books by experts and seeking inspiration from heroes. I participated in a service project, set an agenda, approved a budget, intervened in a quarrel between brothers, led a meeting, and stood up to an older member who was slamming an empty keg into the fraternity house doors – all in the same day. I chose leadership that's real. I chose fraternity.

Some people like to think about moral dilemmas and discover their values through reflection. I chose fraternity – and tested my values day and night.

Many are forced to be in environments where mistakes cannot be made and learned from. I thank goodness for choosing fraternity – and getting myself into many mistakes.

Some want to always follow the rules and abide by authority. I chose fraternity, and learned that some of the most beautiful achievements come through defiance.

Many believe that “men’s only” organizations are antiquated and offer nothing to our society. I unlocked brotherhood, and all the unexplainable tears, cheers, hugs, and laughter it provides. I chose fraternity.

Live and let live. I will not judge someone for their choices in life – it’s the reasons behind them that can be investigated. Stand up for your choices. Discover the hidden reasons behind them.

I hope that you make choices in life that make you stronger and help give your life more meaning that it might otherwise have had. Whether by chance, luck, or destiny, I did.

I chose fraternity.

We Are Choking the Entrepreneurial Spirit Out of Fraternity

When Ernesto Sirolli was a young man living in his native Italy, he wanted to help people and to make a difference. As part of delegation from a charitable organization, Ernesto traveled to Zambia on the continent of Africa. Their mission was to help the poor in Zambia in transformative and long-lasting ways. When Ernesto and team arrived to a village, they noticed an amazing amount of fertile land along the Zambezi River that was not being used for agriculture. Perplexed by this, and sensing a potential gamechanger, they told they Zambian people that they should use the land for farming, grow food that could sustain their people and could also be sold, and forever alter their destinies. They showed the villagers how to plant and raise tomatoes. Strangely, the Zambian people did not have much interest in these new lifesaving plans, but Ernesto and his fellow Italians would even pay them to help work the fields so that they could see the value in this agriculture. Sure enough, the fertile land bore tremendous results – large beautiful tomatoes.

One night, when the tomatoes were at their ripest and best state, 200 hippos emerged from the river and ate them all. The Italians were taken aback and shocked and told the villagers what had happened. The Zambians responded that yes, the hippos would do that, and that’s why they had no agriculture in their village.

“Why didn’t you tell us?” the Italians exclaimed. “You never asked,” was their reply.

Ernesto relays this tell in a much more eloquent fashion is his TED Talk and in his book, Ripples from Zambezi. The point he derives from this story, and that I wish to derive as well, is that too often we force our own solutions on people instead of listening for the solutions they wish to explore. Human history is fraught with noble-minded but tragic results of a central controlling force trying to impose structure on an indigenous people.

Ernesto’s larger point is that if you want to help people improve their situation, you need to foster entrepreneurship at the local level. That means showing up to listen, with no agenda and no preconceived ideas. You then support the entrepreneurs in their own ideas and their own vision.

I feel this is a message we need to hear in fraternity and sorority life in 2019.

Fraternity started as an entrepreneurial and grassroots solution to a problem on the campuses of the day: the lack of free expression. A society of men (or women) wasn’t necessarily revolutionary, but to build it secretly and cautiously on a heavily-controlled environment, such as a college in the 1800’s, was as risky and daring as starting a new business or enterprise.

Somewhere along the line, it flipped from being a grassroots movement to a top-down one, heavy with requirements, policies, structures, and the “one right way to do things.” I believe this is based on the fear of losing  something all of us love. But in that fear, we have sought to control. 

We structure it all. Rush/recruitment. New Member Education. Officer training. Meeting agendas. What we wear and how we wear it.

Some of this was for the sake of efficiency.  But what have we lost in that effort?

In fraternity today, we have a dearth of entrepreneurship.

Our heavily-resourced national offices (seemingly growing in bloat the way centralized governments do) are inventing programs and educational resources for their chapters on a daily basis, often relying on the intelligence of the people in the room but almost no input from the local level. And thus, we build and brand a fancy program called “How to Grow Tomatoes” and ship it off to our Zambias. And from there on out, we fight fires based on the fact our Zambians can’t grow tomatoes like we expect them to.

We talk a lot about campus culture in fraternity and sorority life. But we do so with an eye towards controlling it, and fitting it into a package we’ve already designed (from hundreds of miles away). Rarely do we talk about it in a celebratory fashion. For us it seems that unique cultures are something to be dealt with, not embraced. Grow these tomatoes, dammit.

When we need to do things like redesign a new member education program, we bring forward a commission to sit in a room and figure it out. We rarely listen to our chapters when developing new solutions, or stop to consider that the different cultures in which they operate could mean a need for multiple localized solutions.

Ernesto describes two ways Western cultures approach other societies: we either patronize them, or are paternalistic. To patronize means to treat them as servants; to be paternalistic is to treat them like they are your children. How often do we do that to our chapters, and in a world of increasing innovation, force them to do what that commission decided was best?

Campuses are quick to do this as well. Consider the growing movement to rate chapters based on a campus scorecard, with often arbitrary measures. That’s us telling an indigenous group that we know best how they should do fraternity and if they don’t fit within that structure, they deserve the fate of an outcast. Consider how arrogant (albeit well-intentioned) that sounds.

What if we tried something different. Take for example new member education programs. Instead of that commission or committee, what if instead we told our chapters that for one year, they could do anything they want for new member education. In the end, the goal is for the new members to be adequately prepared for membership, but the process is entirely up to them. Of course, hazing is illegal and can’t be utilized, but otherwise have at it!

Does that make your palms sweat? I admit, mine too.

But think about what creativity might emerge if 100+ chapters were empowered to customize new member education. At the end of that year, you invite the chapters to share what really worked and what didn’t. You listen, and then you share back the best ideas you heard.

Is it risky? Yes. But could yield a high reward. Think about all the other functions of fraternity life we dictate from the top, and what could happen if we unleashed entrepreneurship.

Is the role of the fraternity/sorority national office to create solutions to make fraternity chapters as strong as possible, or to empower chapters to discover their own strength? Patronize or Serve?

I guess it comes down to you answering a fundamental question for yourself: are you willing to let exist different ways to experience and do fraternity, or is there only one right way?

Respect the undergraduates for the entrepreneurial spirit they can possess. And listen to them, for they will tell you about the hippos in the river.

Love Your Brothers

"I don't have to like my players and associates, but as their leader, I must love them.  And, please believe me gentlemen, my love will be relentless." 

(Vince Lombardi)

In regards to the current improvement and future success of the fraternity movement, the Beatles had it right: All You Need is Love. 

Yes, love.

Let me offer this in a different way.  As fraternity men, we do not love our brothers enough, and if we loved our brothers more, we'd be in a better place.

I'm not speaking about romantic love, although that could happen.  I'm speaking about much more primal and original meaning of love - the act of extending yourself for others to make them better.   

C.S. Lewis said that,  “Love is not affectionate feeling, but a steady wish for the loved person’s ultimate good as far as it can be obtained.”  

In short, when you decide that love is more than a Nicholas Sparks novel or a Hugh Grant movie, you'll realize that love abounds in the fraternity experience.  Yes men, love is all around, and love is all you need.

It's hard for men to say "I love you" to each other.  It can feel awkward and unusual.  I remember the first time I decided to start saying it to my dad more frequently.  Ironically (or perhaps not), I made this decision while in college and while in my undergraduate fraternity years.  I decided one night to start ending our weekly phone conversations by saying "I love you" to my dad.  I wasn't sure what I would get on the other end of the line.  After a few seconds, the reply was "I love you too." 

If you have trouble saying those exact words to the men you call your brothers, understand that there are other ways to say it.  It gets back to understanding what love really means.

Loving your brothers means confronting them.  It means putting a halt to decisions that could ruin the lives of your brothers, or others around them.  It means stepping between a brother and potential disaster.  When you say "stop" or "no" to a brother, you are saying "I love you."

Loving your brothers means caring about their situation and their experiences.  It means observing a quivering lip or a watery eye, and putting your arm around him.  It means noticing someone's absence and taking the extra step to find him.  It means genuinely inquiring about their life.  When you say "how are you doing today" to a brother, you are saying "I love you."

Loving your brothers means pushing them.  It means challenging them to bring their best. It means getting them off the couch and to the meeting, or event, or service project.  It means acknowledging achievements and rewarding extra effort.  When you say "I expect more of you" to a brother, you are saying "I love you."

Love is central to the fraternity experience.  Love is central to the bonds that create brotherhood and sisterhood.  Love is another one of those cherished few aspects of fraternity that separate our organizations from every other.  When we forget the importance of love in the modern college fraternity, it's as though we're forgetting the fraternity itself.

If a person chooses to live life independently, to be the solitary climber on top of the mountain, then he may be able to avoid love.  Although, loving yourself may be the most important action any person can take.

When you elect to be a part of fraternity, and let fraternity be a part of you, you give up independence.  The same can be said for marriage, or bringing children into the world, or any other decision that involves intense relationships.  When you make those choices, you decide to begin sacrificing a part of who you are in order for the others in the relationship to thrive.  And they do it in turn for you.  This willing act to give yourself for others and be in community with them is a glorious expression of love.

And that's why love exists in every minute of the fraternity experience.  

Let's all strive to be better at loving our brothers.  It is not easy, but it's fairly simple.  If you've ever been to a wedding, likely you've heard the famous biblical passage about love found in Corinthians.  It can serve as a roadmap for how we can be better at love.

Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends. 

This passage wasn't written for weddings only, or even at all.  It was written, I believe, to attempt to describe the indescribable - to put into words the human experience.  To try and reflect the best of who we are as people.

And isn't that what we try to do in fraternity?  To strive to be an ideal expression of human connection?

Without getting too deep, I would just offer this:  If we accept love as the only way we can truly be brothers with each other, then we can realize our potential as organizations that bond men together.

And, it wouldn't hurt to say it more often as well.

And just because I'm not sure if I ever said it back long ago - to all my brothers from 310 North Bishop...I love you guys.

Going for Gold (or actually, Green)

I absolutely love the Winter Olympics. Cool stories, a fun study in geography, and strange but interesting sports. When else does ski jumping, curling, and slopestyle become prime time viewing? 

I noticed something different during the figure skating competitions this time. While the athletes were skating, little green, yellow, and red boxes appeared by their name. These indicators measured how well the skaters would perform the technical aspects of their routines. Here is how the website Thrillist describes it: 

The technical score [of a figure skating routine] is determined by a panel of judges gauging how well things like spins, jumps, footwork, transitions, and other elements are executed in real time. Each element is worth a certain "base" score (the more difficult the move, the higher its base score), and essentially, judges assign an overall technical score by adding up the scores of all successfully completed maneuvers. 

So, how do judges know what maneuvers to look out for...Well, each competitor has to submit the plans for their skate -- sequentially -- ahead of time. Accordingly, each gray box you see before an athlete starts their program represents a technical element they intend to execute. The different colors indicate how well they pulled off a specific technical component.

If the skater has successfully completed a move, the box will turn green. If the skater didn't successfully pull it off, it'll turn red. A yellow box indicates that the judges aren't quite sure and will need to review it (if you notice, as you keep watching yellow boxes eventually turn either red or green). 

Part of me appreciated this as a tool for the casual viewer to know how a person was performing, but another part of me missed the suspense of not knowing how the scoring would come out. If you saw a guy with 2 red boxes, you already knew there was no chance, since the guy before him only had one. Anyhow, it’s like the yellow first-down line in the NFL - it’s probably here to stay.

I had a slightly humorous and mostly serious thought enter my mind. What if we, as humans living our day to day lives, had these green-yellow-red boxes appear whenever we made a choice or engaged in a behavior? What if others could see how we were scoring in terms of effectively living our daily lives?

Now, in order for this to work, we would have to be judged against something: a routine, a plan, a blueprint of sorts. Basically, we’d be judged against a standard for which we live our lives. Perhaps it’s a religious doctrine, or community norms, or at the minimum, laws and regulations. If you jay-walk, you’re definitely getting a red box. (or maybe yellow, since who really gets in trouble for jaywalking?)

In the workplace, maybe you are evaluated based on how well you perform your daily to-do list, or if you develop a new idea. In the classroom, you could get green boxes for paying attention and participating, and yellows for taking Buzzfeed quizzes instead. The guy next to you snoring, with his head dangerously close to laying on your shoulder, is off-the-charts red.

But what about fraternity and sorority life? For what would we earn green boxes next to our name?

The Ritual.

The Ritual is your routine, your plan, your blueprint. As soon as you are initiated, a series of gray boxes show up next to your name, and it's now your job to make them green. The Ritual will sometimes allow you to comfortably skate in a straight line, but will also ask you to pull off a quadruple axel on occasion. Are you up to the challenge?

For example, my fraternity’s Ritual asks me to be kind and generous to others, even strangers in need. That’s the foundation for the “Helping Hand” of Theta Chi. So, if today I was to walk idly past a person who has fallen down, that red box next to my name will be loud and obvious. If I was back in my college fraternity house, sitting across the breakfast table from a brother who is in clear emotional pain, what would my Ritual call upon me to do? Be worried but just walk away (red)? Say something motivational like “I’m sure things will get better” (yellow)? Or, clear my morning to spend in conversation with him so that I can get him the help he needs (green)? If I knew that a box would appear next to my name based on my decision, I might give it some additional thought.

But here’s the thing, we obviously do not have those boxes literally popping up for all to see. Our success and our mistakes are not always broadcast to the world. 

But imagine there is a panel of judges who can see them, and who would mark you up or down based on how well you perform. For fraternity, this panel might include your founders, your big brother/sister, your favorite alum, etc.

And most importantly, it includes you.

When you go to bed each night, look up in the sky and find your row of boxes. They are sitting there below your name. Was your routine - your Ritual - executed well? Did you deserve the yellows and reds you see, and can you make those green tomorrow?

Remember that in skating, a green box doesn't mean that a particular element was flawless...just that it was executed well. Your Ritual isn't calling upon you to be perfect, but it certainly will give your guidance on what will "score well." 

Let's go land those jumps.

Do Strong Fraternity Stuff

I am a big fan of Dave Ramsey, who is a financial management guru famous for his radio show and bestselling books.  His style is to give tough love to people, not allowing them to make excuses for their financial situations.  His message is well-received because it’s simple: get debt-free, live debt-free, build wealth slowly, and after you’ve succeeded, give lots of it away.

One of his primary messages is a principle that is so simple, it’s profound:  If you want to be rich, do what rich people do (do “rich people stuff” as he says).  If you want to stay poor, keep doing what poor people do. 

Here is a great quote from his website:

If you are broke, you will become rich when you do rich people stuff with your money. Find out what the habits of rich people are and do them, and you will become one of them. How do I know this?  Seventy-eight percent of America's millionaires are first- generation rich. They started with nothing and became millionaires. If you do poor people stuff with your money, you will become poor people. If you are rich and you do poor people stuff with your money, you will become poor people. "Rich" isn't an amount of money; it's a mindset in how you live. I've been broke, but I've never been poor because when I was broke, I just had no money. It wasn't that I had no hope. It wasn't that I didn't believe I could win. It wasn't that I was unwilling to sacrifice.

What is “rich people stuff?”  He shares many examples that come from research and studies about millionaires.  They work their tails off to get out of debt, and then pay cash for everything.  They invest wisely and patiently.  They buy used cars with cash instead of new ones with loans.  And they live frugally.

This goes against conventional wisdom, doesn’t it?  Rich people either inherit their money or lie and cheat to get it, right?  Not according to the research.  They have very distinct behaviors and make very thoughtful decisions.

Stuff that poor people do includes things like living by credit cards, payday loans, adding debt upon debt, not saving, and frivolous spending. 

So, while our emotions may say that it’s unfair that rich people are that way, our logic should tell us that if we make the right choices and behave in a disciplined way, we can join them.

The same is true for fraternity success.  If you want to be a strong fraternity, do “strong fraternity stuff.” 

But, like rich people, we tend to demonize strong fraternities.  We hate them for all the awards they win, all the recruits they get, and all the attention they receive.  Instead of learning from them, we dismiss their success (yet secretly hope we have the same).

Let go of your envy or jealousy about the highly successful fraternities, and start observing what they do.  You can be right there with them.  One of the benefits of a Greek system is that we see several examples of how to do fraternity happening at once.  In any given Greek system, we see the range of success, from chapters that are failing completely to those that are knocking the ball out of the park. 

There is no cap on how many successful fraternities there can be.  The problem is, too many of us choose to just be mediocre, because like many people, we’re just waiting to win the lottery or for some other stroke of ridiculous good luck.  Wealth isn’t built that way.  Neither is organizational success.

It’s an old but true quote – don’t wait for your ship to come in.  Swim out to it.

So, what is “strong fraternity stuff?”  We don't have very detailed studies on this, but based upon years of observation, awards judging, and common sense, here are a few things to consider:

• Strong fraternities are extremely discerning in recruitment.  So much so, that they have a very low pledge dropout rate.  They pick the right guys from the start.
• Strong fraternities are quick and nimble.  For example, when a natural disaster strikes, they have tables set up within hours to collect donations and a van full of members heading towards the relief efforts.
• Strong fraternities practice and perform the Ritual ceremonies with precision.  They treat membership initiation with the same reverence that new colonies do.
• Strong fraternities care about presence.  They strive to look impressive and act confidently when showing their public persona.
• Strong fraternities have high chapter GPA’s because they recruit high academic performers.  They realize that recruiting a low performer and thinking they can change him/her is unrealistic.
• Strong fraternities do not take shortcuts in recruitment.  It’s person-to-person, time consuming, focused work.  They know it’s their lifeblood as an organization and they prioritize it that way.

The list goes on.  The main point here is that a strong fraternity is not something to ignore.  Or complain about.  Or hate.  It’s something to observe, study, and possibly emulate.  Fraternity success is not by accident.  Nor is fraternity failure.  Choose your examples wisely.

This essay was originally posted in August 2012 and has been updated.

Don't Judge Institutions For Having Flaws, But For How They Respond To Them

The response to Pope Francis’s recent visit to the U.S. was heartwarming for many reasons. He’s a true servant leader who has inspired so many and his gentle leadership makes him a person easy to admire. It was especially nice to see the reaction of Catholics, who are presently living through a very positive moment in the life of their institution. 

It hasn’t always been positive. In fact, the Catholic Church has been in a pretty steady swirl of controversy for a long time. I am not Catholic, although I attend mass with my very-Catholic wife and our kids, so it’s the closest thing to a religious affiliation I have. Certainly, I’ve watched the child abuse scandals in the church with concern and compassion for the victims. Many Catholics have left the church because of it, and yet many others remain loyal. I’m convinced that most who left didn’t leave because of the child abuse incidents themselves (as sickening as those were), but rather because of the church’s perceived weak response to the incidents, or total lack thereof. 

How we engage with the institutions in our lives is an interesting study in human nature. There are moments in which we are proud of our institutions, and moments in which we are embarrassed by them. 

It is impossible for an institution to be perfect. Discomforting headlines about the Catholic Church, your Alma mater, your favorite sports team or league - and yes, fraternity and sorority life, will always be there.   
 
In any institution, there will be bad actors. In any institution, there will be dramatic and traumatic incidents that move the ground beneath our feet. All institutions are flawed. No one should hastily jump on a bandwagon of disdain towards other institutions lest the ones they believe in become immersed in hot water as well. And they will.

Where we can be judgmental, and where we can show disdain, is in how an institution reacts and responds in those critical moments when their flaws emerge. 

Embarrassing moments within our institutions can shake our pride. If an institution doesn’t respond to those moments responsibly…that can shake our faith. 

Here’s an example from politics: Republicans have long been branded as the party of family values – marital fidelity, child welfare, pro-life positions, etc. And so, when a Republican is found to have cheated on his/her spouse, or engaged in criminal behavior, or caught doing something “sinful,” it’s a common hue and cry to say Republicans are hypocrites for preaching family values. 

Not necessarily. The individual engaged in the behavior is most certainly a hypocrite. However, the institution can still carry its values and beliefs and promote them through their response. If a Republican is found to have run afoul of the institution's values, and yet he/she holds on to their position or basically feels no serious ramifications, then the institution indeed deserves a label of “hypocrite.” 

But, if the institution forcefully responds and serious ramifications are felt by the individual, then isn’t that actually a powerful statement of credibility and alignment with values and purpose? Shouldn’t that actually strengthen the institution’s position? Shouldn’t that be cause to celebrate the institution? 

In our world, that would mean we would collectively cheer every time a member or chapter is held accountable.  But, that doesn't happen very often because we're still smarting from whatever incident led to that action.  Instead of focusing on "did you see how Alpha responded to that situation," we say "did you see what happened to Alpha?"

In today's fraternity and sorority industry, we are being held hostage by the next headline-grabbing incident. Because, what comes next is a media barrage of outrage to dismantle the whole movement.  A group of immature imbeciles chant racist statements on a bus, and there is a call to take down the entire institution. Some fools hang sexist banners from their fraternity house balcony and the institution is judged to be dangerous place for all women. Some sorority girls make a bikini-laden recruitment video that goes viral and the response is that the institution is homogeneous and regressive. 

It seems like the world judges us for the behavior of a few. (Just as we do for other institutions so we shouldn’t be surprised). 

Somewhere in your network of chapters is at least one chapter that hazes its new members. That’s a fact that cannot be ignored. Having some chapters that haze does not make your national fraternity a hazing organization. Just as having some child predators in their midst does not make the Boy Scouts an organization of pedophiles. It’s how we respond that defines us. 

We can battle back against this by not falling for it ourselves. We have become hyper-sensitive to every negative story about Greek life and are constantly running scared. Bad stuff is going to happen folks – it always has. Yes – let’s try to reduce the number of incidents, but living and dying on each one is no way to thrive. It only feeds the beast. 

What matters most is not the first story. It’s the second one. It’s the one that describes how a national organization, or chapter leaders, or campus officials plan to respond. 

Is your national fraternity cracking down on hazing like it should? Or any other plague on the fraternity/sorority system? Or, does it feel more wishy-washy and heavy on “super secret double probations” that don’t mean anything? 

Are we really serious about values-alignment, or not? 

Is your IFC or Panhellenic imposing consequences on chapters that do not observe community standards? Or, do we wink and turn the other cheek. If it’s the latter, then our institutions deserve every criticism we’re receiving. 

Of course, it’s not that simple. The church believes in redemption. We believe in learning moments. How do we square that with a desire to be tough on those who violate our values? One way is to ensure that there is no question about what is considered right and wrong. Hazing is wrong – always. Sexual assault is wrong – always. Our members start their journey at the age of 18 or 19 and that means they are adults who should understand these issues. They just need to be told once and then they should be expected to understand the consequences of their actions. 

If you want to be proud of this greater fraternity/sorority institution again, it starts with being proud of what happens when our own members step outside of the values we hold dear. Are you proud of how your national organization reacts? Or your campus? 

Or do they too often shake your faith? 

This is a call for us all to start judging our fellow organizations and campuses by what matters - not the fact that incidents occur - but rather how they respond.  

Is the Era of Big Greek Government Upon Us?

I wonder which of the following feels more like progress to you:  the day in which the fraternity movement relies on a strong centralized power structure to keep it accountable to what it promotes and stands for,  or the day in which all fraternity organizations are committed and responsible enough to manage their own affairs and hold their own chapters accountable to their own values and ideals?  Which of those scenarios lie closer to your ideal? 

And, based upon your ideal, how would you assess this moment in our history?

For me, I come from the Ayn Rand school that teaches that if every individual lived to their highest potential, everything else takes care of itself.  It’s a lofty ideal, but I choose to support initiatives that bring us closer to that, not push us further away.

If every national fraternity lived to its own highest ideal, then our movement is healthy and progressive.  We’re not there yet, but let’s take actions with the assumption that we want to get there.

What are some signs that we’re moving away from this ideal?  The creation of bigger

unifying structures, for one.  It’s a natural inclination in times of crisis to want some big overarching structure to take the wheel.  For example, during the Great Depression, government grew substantially because we trusted it would make things better.  When we are fearful, we put too much trust in heroes.  Our belief that a crisis is too big to handle causes us to place irrational faith in institutions. 

Fraternity and sorority life could be in a crisis moment.  It’s hard to tell.  Membership doesn’t seem to be affected yet, but public perception continues to sink faster than my beloved Browns playoff hopes (yes I do realize it’s only the preseason).  At the minimum, many fraternity and sorority national leaders believe this to be a crisis moment.  This has led to increased involvement in Washington DC, leadership changes in umbrella organizations like the North American Interfraternity Conference (NIC), and talk of a new organization to supplant the NIC.

It’s a great tradition in fraternity and sorority life that when all else fails, let’s just make another organization.

“Big government” in fraternity life is not a new phenomenon.  I  heard a speech from Jeff Cufaude many years ago in which he quipped that most fraternity board members are probably small-government conservatives in their political ideology but more than willing to let their national organizations become centralized and controlling institutions.  Chapter shenanigans over the years have led to the policy manuals getting thicker, not slimmer.  The NIC unified around standards that member organizations were tasked to enforce.  For better or worse, these standards imposed a way of being on these groups.

If we were choosing three words to describe the last 3 decades of fraternity life, I nominate “Thou Shalt Not.”

Fraternity leaders are exploring a new initiative – possibly a new trade association – called the Interfraternal Collaboration Effort, or ICE.  There are many new strategies being discussed in this effort and many smart people involved.  I’m far enough removed to pass proper judgment on if ICE has the right approach.  As an observation, ICE is different from the NIC is a very apparent way.  It’s more. 

It wants to do more, staff more, involve itself on campuses more,  spend more, and cost more. 

Thus, here we are in a moment of crisis and one answer seems to be to consolidate at the top.  To put more into the tip of the pyramid.  To put money behind probably the biggest centralized effort in the history of our movement.   

Hey – this could work.  But do you know what else could?

How about national fraternities having the guts to hold their own chapters accountable to their own standards.  To have the courage to pull more charters, even from those elite institutions with the influential alumni.  To take a stand about what it means to be a member of the organization and stick with it even when it hurts the bottom line to do so.  

Before the leaders of our national organizations put even greater resources into a unified structure, they ought to ensure that their own house is in order as much as possible.  After all, a unifying structure shouldn’t exist to clean up your fraternity’s mess. 

Outsourcing the individual responsibility each fraternity has to manage the behavior and experience of its own members is about as far away from progress as I can imagine.  I suppose you could say we’ve already been moving down that road by expecting campus personnel to enforce our own standards.

I’m not naïve.  I understand that there is frustration in the Greek world and it’s searching for a solution.  And there are some central efforts needed to protect fraternities and sororities from dangers like campus’s enacting all-Greek suspensions.

I would favor a solution in which the vast majority of responsibility falls to individual national groups to address their own issues, complimented by a small and lean association that does a few things very well.  In any discussion about new or renewed umbrella organizations going forward, I hope someone is advocating for that ratio.

Fraternity and sorority chapters should understand a very important thing: your Interfraternity Council and Panhellenic Council are not there to solve your problems.  That’s why you are there.  Handing the keys over to an umbrella entity to make your experience safe, healthy, and significant is like expecting your church to make you holy.  The church can provide a forum for education and reflection, but it’s ultimately your decision to behave in the appropriate way.

Your personal experience, your chapter’s success, and your organization’s destiny still lie in your hands.  Seize it.  And don’t give it away.