For example, I stopped at the Phired Up table and had a chance to say hello to some of the newer team members that I have not had the opportunity to meet before. Phired Up played a critical role in the development of several of the Sigma Pi Fraternity chapters in the New Jersey Province that I worked with when I served as Province Archon some 10+ years ago. In fact, based on our wide agreement with the principles in their book, Good Guys, our volunteer team in New Jersey actually hired Phired Up to conduct a regional recruitment workshop for our undergraduate chapters back in Fall 2007 and it was very well-received.

At the NIC’s Annual Meeting of Members, I told the young men at the Phired Up table how much Good Guys improved my chapters and they gave me a copy of their Social Excellence book to review. I finished reading Social Excellence quickly – in a matter of days. My big takeaway from this book is that you have to give life a chance! Go out there and take the risk of saying hello to someone, reach out and shake someone’s hand, live a life that is above the norm. The team at Phired Up talks about the four pillars of social excellence in their book. Those four pillars are curiosity, generosity, authenticity, and vulnerability. I want to talk a little bit more about generosity and authenticity in this post, but there is so much that could be said about curiosity and vulnerability. You might consider getting a copy of the book if you want to read more of Phired Up’s take on those two pillars.

On generosity, they write about the power of saying thank you and the power of making a person’s day by giving them something. It is about making someone else’s experience better through your own actions. In my own work with my fraternity, I have tried my best to give back of my time and professional expertise. I have also been a financial supporter of my local chapter, my province, and my international educational foundation. When I mix what I read in Social Excellence with what I know of my own experience as a volunteer and a donor both in my fraternity and with the many other nonprofits that I work with in my state, I find some interesting intersections. For example, it strikes me that the people who are the loudest detractors – those who want to be opinion leaders, but do not have a well-informed opinion – are those who have typically given the least of their time, expertise, and finances to the cause. This is an interesting revelation because it speaks volumes about generosity as a leading indicator on whether or not you are dealing with a well-intentioned individual or someone who just wants the spotlight for the sake of having the light shine on them.

On authenticity and focusing solely on my work for my fraternity, not my work in the larger nonprofit sector, it is critically important to know the true intent of your people before you place any trust in them. Being truly authentic is difficult for some individuals in the fraternity world because they do not have an example on which to model their actions. For example, if you are an undergraduate and your only interactions with alumni advisors have been painfully forcing a smile and a head nod as these volunteers tell stories about their glory days, then your example of being a good alumni volunteer is skewed. Those volunteers are not working authentically to improve your undergraduate experience – their involvement is more about their own experience and reliving what they loved about their time as an undergraduate. Not good.

Authentic alumni volunteers are those who the needs of the undergraduates (or whomever they are helping) before their own need. When I train new alumni volunteers, I give them this advice: if you respond to an undergraduate’s question by saying, “Well, when I was an undergraduate…” then you have immediately lost their attention. When today’s students as you about today’s problems, they want today’s answers. It takes someone who is authentically committed to improving today’s undergraduate experience to build a bridge between yesterday’s experience and the future. This is not easy to do.

You can get better at building that bridge by focusing on improving your social excellence. And a great way to build your social excellence would be to read this book and study these four pillars. I think you will enjoy it!

Earlier this month, I received a great opinion piece entitled, “What’s Right With Fraternities” which talks about the real-world benefits of joining Greek Life. This piece was penned by a recent fraternity alumnus named Ben O’Donnell. Inspired by this young man’s words, I put together an e-mail and forwarded it to a bunch of the fraternity alumni and undergraduates that I know. I re-read my e-mail to them the other day and thought that it would be the perfect entry to add to this blog. So below for your reading pleasure is an e-mail that I sent to my fraternity brothers both young and old talking about what is right with fraternity life. Enjoy.

All,

It is all too often that commentaries are released which take pride in lambasting fraternities. Groups like Sigma Pi are called archaic institutions with no real place in contemporary society. These commentaries are usually written by individuals with a personal agenda against Greek life.

Yet, once in a very long while a positive commentary is released about fraternity life. On Sunday, the Chronicle of Higher Education released a commentary written by a recent graduate of Dartmouth College praising the virtues of fraternities. The entire commentary is forwarded below and I encourage you to read it in its entirety at your leisure. However, I would suggest that the commentary hits on topics relevant to everyone BCC’ed on this e-mail.

On career networking and alumni involvement:

“Such exercises in responsibility foster a better version of the type of career networking that so many universities advertise. Sometimes fraternity graduates will go to work for older alumni. But that preferential hiring does not take place at the same remove as typical alma mater favoritism, in which the employer and employee know little about each other, other than that they both cheer for the same college football team. Rather, working alumni still involved with a fraternity (as corporation president, alumni adviser, or a similar position) witness firsthand the capabilities of undergraduate brothers. To do an important in-house job well while still a student is to prove to established alumni that you probably have what it takes to be a valuable employee.”

On real benefits of fraternity living:

“Fraternities bolster collegiate friendships more than any other social organization I can imagine. Much, if not all, of a brotherhood lives under one roof, and nearly all the day-to-day activities of college life are often shared: Brothers study together, watch TV or shoot pool together, eat together, and hang out doing nothing together. That type of immersion-usually not at the expense of extrafraternal friendships-does create a special type of camaraderie. At my fraternity that is evident from the groups of recently graduated brothers living together in New York and Boston, and from the dozens of alumni who return to visit the house every year-some of whom graduated 50 or more years ago.”

On undergraduate leadership responsibilities:

“Fraternities also demand responsibility in order to keep a house running. Undergraduate fraternity officers keep a house afloat by managing its finances, overseeing building maintenance, and acting as liaisons to university and national fraternity officials. There are other responsibilities too, like monitoring parties, coordinating charity events, and, of course, keeping a watchful eye on the beer supply.”

The ultra-liberalization of many college campuses has forced some of our very own Sigma Pi chapters to constantly play defense against outrageous attacks. I would suggest that now more than ever those of us who believe in the benefits of fraternity life should extol these virtues loud and clear.

The haters will keep on hating…but they should not silence us.

IST,
Joe

P.S. – Feel free to forward this message to others – especially if you are an alumni volunteer and you’d like your undergraduates to hear something positive for a change.

And so as the haters keep on hating, I wanted to send out this message to all of the readers of my blog. Thank you, Ben O’Donnell, for a well-written piece on the benefits of fraternity life. If anyone wants to read the entire opinion piece, you can go the Chronicle of Higher Education and sign up for their website (it’s free, I think) or you can let me know and I’ll see if I can get you a copy via e-mail.

My purpose for going to Nashville was to attend the Board meeting of the Sigma Pi Educational Foundation. As I reported on this blog last year, I was elected to the Board of Trustees of my fraternity’s foundation; I’m also the Chairman of our Alumni Communications Committee. Since then I’ve attended a few different meetings and they’ve each been rewarding both personally and fraternally. Plus, we have a bunch of really great (and incredibly smart) guys on our Board of Trustees and hanging out with them is a lot of fun.

For lodging, I spent Wednesday through Saturday nights in the freshmen dorms at Vanderbilt University. I should note – while the Foundation has its Board meetings, the Fraternity itself holds its biennial leadership school on Vanderbilt’s campus. It’s one of the “features” of the leadership school that you live on the campus of the university for the weekend. And I’m all for the whole fraternizing with the different generations of the fraternity thing, but my back and body disagrees. In other words, if I have to go down there again I’m going to have to stay in a hotel!

Before I go on, I should also state that the campus is beautiful. The folks who manage Vanderbilt University have done a wonderful job in making that campus appear in tip-top shape at all times. Definitely a job well done.

Tracy Lawrence – a member of our fraternity – was in attendance at the leadership school. He gave a great speech on overcoming adversity. The undergraduates had some questions for him and I thought that his entire presentation was very well done. For a huge country music star, he’s a down to earth kind of guy.

I’ve been down to Nashville twice before and the downtown scene is always great. It was no different this time. Of course, we generally wound up at Lonnie’s Karaoke Bar in Printer’s Alley, but that’s because we’re a bunch of northerners who are fascinated by that whole scene. On Thursday night I may have had a few drinks which led me to get on the stage and sing Don McLean’s American Pie…but that’s another story.

I enjoy going down to Nashville. I can get a bit hot down there, but the people are really nice and the scene is wonderful. It’s definitely a place I would consider living outside of New Jersey. Anyway, I’m back now!

In any event, this will be the third time that I’ve gone down to Nashville and I really like it down there. It’s a great city with a wonderful night life and the people are all really nice and laid back down there (which is a dramatic change from the northern part of the East Coast).

I’ll be back Sunday afternoon, but don’t worry – I have entries ready to be auto-uploaded to the blog for every day that I won’t be around. So you can get your fix of Joe’s Journal on JerseySmarts.com every day!