NGLA Conference 2019
“After spending a weekend with the “big boys”, I’m more struck by how much Delta Pi has gotten right, than what we get wrong.”
Conference Review
Hartford, CT - February 28th to March 2nd
The entire Bloomsburg University Contingent. Delta Pi in the back row.
Genesis
For about 10 years, the Alumni Association of Delta Pi has been interpreting the environment at Bloomsburg University as changing in a direction that favors national organizations. The DP Board understands the direction the University is taking, based on the national news, recent tragedies, and declining positive opinions of fraternal organization globally. If we ran Bloomsburg University, we would likely be moving in the same direction.
As a result, The Board has been taking, and will continue to take action to give our members and our organization the tools needed to compete in that environment. Delta Pi University (DPU) was one such step. Now, we have moved to another.
About 18 months ago, sending Active Members of Delta Pi to a national conference was broached and debated by the DP Alumni Association. It was unanimously found it to be a good idea and reflected in the meeting minutes. Unfortunately, we were unable to finalize the arrangements in time to get a contingent to the 2018 Northeast Greek Leadership Association Conference in Pittsburgh in 2018.
We planned and made it happen in 2019.
The Delta Pi Gentlemen. Brady on left, Justin on right.
2019 Contingent - Cast of Characters
Dave Decoteau - #351, Pledged Fall 1982, Graduated in 1986, Has held many positions in all versions of Alumni Associations since graduation. Presently, “web guy” and Alumni Liaison for the Alumni Association to the Active Chapter.
Brady Kaiser- #798, Pledged Fall 2017, On track to graduate in the Spring of 2020. Has held several executive board positions upon becoming a brother. In the Fall of 2017 was appointed to be the Community Service Chair, As well has held the position of Rush Chair from Spring ‘18 through Spring ‘19, Has also been recently appointed to be the Community Service chair for IFC.
Justin Obermyer - #808, pledged spring 2018, on track to graduate spring of 2021. Has held the rush chair position for 2 semesters since being in delta pi.
Travel
As with any good adventure, it usually starts with planning, a trip, and friends. It’s about four hours drive from Bloomsburg to Hartford Connecticut... and about two turns. We packed up brother Dave Decoteau’s “White Whale” adventure van that he uses for his outfitting company, and started to head east. Route 80 to 81 to 84 will get you about 8/10ths of the way there. A couple of more turns and you’re in the oversized vehicle parking lot area.
The Delta Pi Contingent had a lot of good conversations on the way. Most all of which concerned Delta Pi, it’s present state, the meeting I had just had that morning with President Bashir Hanna, and the investigation of Greek life that happened in Fall 2018. Ramifications of that investigation are ongoing, and open ended. We discussed at some length what that means for Delta Pi and the rest of the greek system at Bloomsburg University. We all gave thanks that Delta Pi HAS NOT been one of the organizations specifically named in that investigation, and we discussed at great detail how to keep it that way.
The Conference
The Northeast Greek Leadership Association (NGLA) Conference happens at various locations in the northeast section of the United States each year in late February or March. Last year it was in Pittsburgh PA, this year, Hartford CT, next year, Baltimore MD.
This year there were about 1000 attendees and 100+ educational sessions for them to attend. It’s an opportunity to meet new people, assess your organization, learn from others, meet new vendors, gauge the subjects of interest on the national stage.
For Delta Pi, it’s new ground. Since we don’t have a National, we plan to use this conference (and others going forward) to give our Active Brothers the best opportunities to accumulate the best practices for running our chapter. We feel this is critical for the long-term health of Delta Pi at Bloomsburg University.
DAILY ITINERARY AND SCHEDULE
Thursday, February 28th
Thursday was mostly a travel day, but we did get to Hartford in time to check into the Marriot, work out a registration glitch, get settled, investigate the venue, browse the trade show, meet with some other Bloomsburg folks and head out for some networking and nourishment.
Sections attended:
Peter Boie, Magician for Non-believers
9:00 p. - 10:30 p.
Attendees: Brady, Justin, Dave
After dinner, we attended the magic show that was provided by the Conference. While expecting a bit of cheezy magic and maybe some card tricks, the show was actually pretty good, and Justin even participated in one of the tricks. Below are some photos and a video of his experience.
As the conference went on, Justin and Brady got to be pretty good friends with the magician, and he is interested in coming to Bloomsburg. Who knows if that happens or not, but if he is a good magician, I guess he could make it happen, right?
After the show we goofed around for a while and called it a night. The brothers went on after their elderly Advisor went to bed to hang out at the pool until 1:00 a.m. or so, and “network” with some ladies henceforth called, “the pool girls”. Aside from meeting “the pool girls” the brothers also became friends with two gentlemen representing their respective chapters from RPI in New York State.
Thursday Lessons/Regrets/Future Planning
Had we planned better, we could have gotten there a little earlier, eaten earlier, and attended the Friday night Keynote and some other speaker offerings from the conference. As we did it, in our first “green year” we missed these offering, and had minor regrets. We wish I had seen THIS DOCUMENT prior to attending.
Friday, March 1st
Friday is when the conference began in earnest. The full schedule is offered HERE, if you would like to see what options were possible.
The Delta Pi Contingent did stay together a good bit on this day, but we also had opportunity and desire to cover as much ground as possible, by splitting up.
This was the day that offered the special Local Organizations series of discussions. This was a BIG REASON for going, as this track came highly recommended by Officers of Chi Sigma Rho sorority, who attended last year. They called it “life changing” and they came back to Bloomsburg to implement big changes in their organization.
Sections attended:
KEYNOTE - Just Another Assault
Delivered by Bonnie Shade
9:00 a. - 10:15 a.
Attendees: Brady, Justin, Dave
Bonnie shared her life, and specifically a sexual encounter between herself and her best friend many years ago. It was not the preachy droning and accusations discussion of “toxic masculinity” that we have all become so fatigued of hearing. Instead, Bonnie made this personal, but not as judgemental or stereotypical as many of the same discussions I had attended prior.
FAVORITE PART - And particular useful part of the discussion occurred when Bonnie acted out being in the line to get food at Chipotle Mexican Grill. She starts by standing in line and refusing to say anything when the workers ask, “Can I help you?” She just stands there. They ask again, “Can I help you?” She continues to stand. This goes on for a while, and then Bonnie asks, “If I continue to just stand there, do they start making me a Burrito or Bowl based on what they think I want?”
The answer is no.
She continues… So then you say, “Yes, I’d like a burrito please.” They then move forward (relieved that you are no longer standing silently) and say, “Wheat or regular tortilla?” You think and say, “Wheat”.
They move on:
“What meats do you like?”...you decide and reply..
“Do you want salsa, guac, hot sauce?”...you decide and reply.
“Do you want corn, lettuce, black beans?”...you decide and reply.
Finally, “do you want a drink with that?”...you decide and reply.
The point is, this is how sexual encounters need to proceed today...and maybe always.
You don’t assume anything.
Without consent, you don’t proceed.
You can get a wild and spicy as you want, as long as you talk about it.
This was very valuable as an example for all of us in attendance.
Additional thoughts on this section:
Justin - I felt that this keynote speaker did her job very well. She explained consent in a very unique way that was easy to understand and relatable. She also pointed out signs that may help people avoid sexual assault. This keynote was important for people who haven’t been educated enough in sexual assault and I what I learned can save lives
Brady - Attending this keynote speaker helped us learn valuable information that can help us learn the signs and steps to avoiding a sexual assault involving a brother or at one of our events in the future. The speaker also did a good job in explaining that sexual assaults aren’t something that only girls are effected by. Overall now I believe that I have the skills that can help me stop a sexual assault before it happens and to provide support to someone if they are to become sexually assaulted.
Local Organization Institute
Untold Stories of our “traditions”
10:30 a. - 12:00 p
Attendees: Brady, Justin, Dave
We had really high hopes for this “Institute” and this was the first class in a series of talks designed strictly for local organizations. Although we had high expectations, this one left us all a bit flat. We expected more “useful” information, but this class delivered mostly theory, definitions and some antIdotal discussions.
FAVORITE PARTS:
The speaker defined where the word “hazing” comes from. Did you know it’s derived from “hazy” days at sea, when the Captain couldn’t use the horizon or the stars to navigate. So instead of pushing forward (maybe off course, or into danger) they would have the crew do all the menial tasks, like scrubbing the deck or fixing sails.
The speaker said that Plato was the first person to record “hazing” in regard to membership into an organization. This was recorded on a stone tablet.
The Speaker hung around at the end, and we went up and talked to him. We got more out of those few moments, than we got from the rest of the talk. Nice guy, but the section was a little off target in our estimation.
All three of us attended this section. More comments below by Brady and Justin:
Brady: As Dave said we had really high hopes for this section because our fraternity is rich in history as well as traditions and were hoping we could learn ways to preserve these things. Overall the speaker spoke about how his local fraternity was very small when he first joined and as notorious for having a large dropout rate during pledging. After the section has concluded Dave, Justin and Myself went on to have a conversation with him and this girl who was from Montclair State University about our concerns about how to grow our organization
Justin: I felt as if this section disappointed a little bit. I expected the speaker to go more into depth with local organizations but he did not. However, I thoroughly enjoyed the conversation with the speaker and felt I could relate to what he said to us about local organizations after the section.
Lunch
12:00 p. - 1:30 p.
Everyone
Fraternity Recruitment for the Modern Gentleman
1:30 p. - 2:30 p.
Attendees: Dave, Brady and Justin
Not yet ready for another “locals only” session after the last disappointment, we decided to venture out to something different...and we were glad we did.
This section created by Matt Mattson and Matt Farrell of Phired-Up was amazingly informative!
“People don’t join fraternities...people join people.”
All kinds for resources can be found on their website pages. Mostly for recruiting and building strong organizations. They have tried and true methods, and they will come to any campus and demonstrate to consistent results.
Below are some photos of slides from their deck, and too many resources to digest in one sitting. Delta Pi will be STRONGLY encouraged to check out these resources, and we will incorporate many of these strategies into DPU and other educational opportunities for our brotherhood of Modern Gentleman.
FAVORITE PARTS:
Brady: This section in my opinion was the one that I was able to take the most away from. The one speaker Matt Mattson was familiar with the recent Greek Life investigation at Bloomsburg and offered us several good tips in how to recruit better quality guys. He said that we really have to rethink our interview process and think of it as the kids rushing are applying for a job and we are the employers. As well he said that we should constantly be on the look for kids that we believe can better this fraternity not just during rush, this is because if we show early interest in them they will remember that when it comes time from them to rush. Mattson also stressed that we should not be giving bids out based off of how “funny” or “cool” a guy was during the party we should really analyze how he answered the questions during his interview.
Justin: this was by far the best section of the conference. This section applied to an area that we greatly needed to understand more and improve on, especially in a time like this. He explained with great detail the current problems with how fraternities hold recruitment and how to improve them along with giving us a free 76 page link on certain situations and answers to common recruitment issues and questions. Me and Brady also talked to Matt again the day after and went into more depth about delta pi and he gave us advice on how to maximize our fraternity’s recruitment potential. What I learned from this section, I’ll be able to apply to delta pi the most.
Slides from the presentation. Click the thumbnails to make them larger.
Does your organization Culture Produce Champions?
2:45 p - 3:45 p.
Attendees: Dave (Justin had to take a test at this time).
Worst class I took. Basically useless. Was a guy teaching other people how to blame other people and things for their lack of success in life. I even googled some of his claims that turned out to be false. For example: he claimed there was zero black female CEO’s. In fact, there are 3 in Fortune 500 companies alone.
Waste of time. Knew I was snookered pretty quickly, but I was stuck. Huckster who tried to use teaching like a Preacher as a substitute for actual content.
FAVORITE PART:
Leaving.
He did talk about the importance of sharing a vision effectively.
He also talked about how if the color of the room is the wrong color: you can’t blame the people for failing at their tasks...so...that kind of wrecked it.
Brady: During this time I was networking with other people who were not currently attending any sections. I was able to meet guys from a couple other schools and we talked about how their rush processes went and what they do during rush. One of the guys I met shared with me that at his school they had only rush per year but it resulted in them getting bigger pledge classes and all of the kids had the grade point average to be eligible to rush.
Local Organization Institute - Roundtable
4:15 - 5:15 p.
Attendees: Dave, Brady, Justin
This was our second section of the Local Organizations Institute, and we were rewarded for giving it a second try. The first class was pretty stale, but the second class was simply breaking up into groups and each table talking about different subjects, and then reporting back to the entire class. Every 10 minutes or so, you had an opportunity to rotate to a new group.
The groups were as follows:
Alumni relations
Finance
Recruitment
Community
Motivation
This was another section where we really got to see that we are pretty far ahead of a lot of local organizations when it comes to most of these issues. We really shined in Alumni. Really light years ahead of anyone else I had talked to either in a national or local organization.
The was the class that I was asked to Present next year. The instructor heard me interacting with the groups, and what we were saying and what we were offering as far as valuable insights, and he asked me if I could teach the class next year: honestly.
We will see if that happens, but even if it doesn’t, it’s a pretty clear indication that Delta Pi is doing more right than most.
FAVORITE PARTS:
Brady: During this section I sat with the group that discussed how to keep brothers involved and motivated to do things like community service/ showing up to meetings. I chose to sit in on this particular roundtable because on the things we struggle with most is having good attendance at our meetings/ brothers getting good grades. One possible solution I was able to take away was that we should try to develop a system that incentivizes grades for instance we can make dues cheaper for brothers that get above a 3.0 in a semester. Another thing I was able to take away was that we have to be stricter with our fines because if we don’t enforce them nobody will ever take anything seriously. Lastly similar to the incentives for getting good grades we should do the same thing when it comes to doing community service.
Justin: during this section I sat in the recruitment group the whole time. I learned that many and I mean many local fraternities are struggling all over the northeast some of the fraternity representatives that were speaking only had about 6-10 brothers. most of the other people who spoke tended to have less recruitment types of events than our sororities and fraternities. For example, only one semester of rush. Sororities in Bloomsburg overall have the best recruitment process out of every person I listened to and that has a lot to do with their cobs, and other meet the sisters events.
End of Education
Go to your own dinner off site
There was “entertainment” after dinner, but our gentlemen decided to spend their after conference time socializing with the representatives of Chi Sig and Tri Sig. Later in the evening, the “Pool Girls” apparently made another appearance.
Friday Lessons/Regrets/Future Planning
Would have maybe decided as a group what area of fraternity did we want to concentrate our efforts. There are so many topics, it can feel a bit schizophrenic without an area of specific focus.
Maybe divided up a little more, earlier on in the Saturday programing, so cover more ground. But this strategy also worked when we hit talks that were really applicable, because we could all discuss what we heard later.
Brady: Somethings I was very happy about on Friday was that we attended the Modern Day Recruitment and Local round table sessions. I believed that both of these sessions gave us valuable information that we can bring back to the brothers. I was also happy that Justin and myself were able to have a good conversation with Matt Mattson who was very eager to help us grow our chapter into being one of the biggest on campus. As Dave said though I do think it would have been a good idea to split up and each of us go to different sessions so that we could have potentially gotten more information about various topics.
Justin: Friday was a pretty productive day. I felt our conversation with Matt Mattson and our local organization sections were very educational and i felt like I took away a lot.
Saturday, March 2nd
Saturday was the last real day of the conference. It starts early and ends late with an awards banquet. We decided in the planning process to leave on Saturday, so we didn’t attend the Awards Banquet in the evening.
Sections attended:
Advisor Academy
10:15 a - 4:30 p.
Attendees: Dave
All day, I attended the special Advisory Academy. This all day class was my main reason for wanting to attend (besides being the van driver).
This class was comprised of lecture, group work and individual work. We discussed how to best be an Advisor for a Fraternal organization.
Basically, the bottom line is that Advisors are to “facilitate informed decision making” in their organizations. As you might think that is easier said than done.
“When you joined this organization, you agreed to give up certain rights in exchange for being better than average for life.”
But we did talk about the legal expectations for an Advisor. This was helpful, as there are some common sense things you can do to limit your personal liability in this position. Things like:
Have a list of professional resources available for their usage.
Don’t dictate behaviors, but facilitate good decision making.
Ask questions, more than give answers
These things will keep liability limited in the eyes of the law.
Also, we did a good bit of work in regard to trying to see things from the perspective of a 19 year old. These were valuable exercises, and we discussed both developmental and environmental causes of those decisions. This part was particularly valuable for a man of 56 years and all the answers.
This course will result in some changes to the DPU ciriculum and the daily way I interact with our Active chapter. More questions will be asked, than answers given moving forward. More Facilitating, over problem solving.
NGLA Advisor Academy class of 2019
The Monster in the Basement: Unrecognized Groups and Their Threat to Fraternalism.
10:15-11:15
Presented by Allison Swick-Duttine, David Stollman and David Westol
Attended by Brady and Justin
Brady: This section was extremely relevant to the Greek Life at Bloomsburg University. This session was about fraternities that are currently not recognized by campus but still carry on with activities like rush and new member education and how these organizations hurt Greek Life. Organizations like these hurt the organizations that are recognized by campus in the following ways. One way is that they “steal” kids from other organizations by doing underground recruitment which keeps said kids from rushing the fraternities that are recognized by campus. Also unrecognized organizations are more likely to cause harm to kids that are pledging because they don’t have anyone to answer to as well the campus as has knowledge of the kids who are pledging these organizations or what these organizations do during their pledge process. This issue is the most harmful because one unrecognized fraternity could very easily do something stupid which causes harm to a pledge which then causes the school to punish organizations who are actually recognized and most likely did nothing wrong. I think this hits Bloomsburg hard because two fraternities such as DKE and AXP are unrecognized by campus but continue to operate. I am not saying that they have done anything that has resulted in a kid getting harmed since my time at Bloomsburg but they do take kids that could potentially join Delta Pi or other organizations during the recruitment process which I believe is something we should try to stop as a greek life community.
Shaking Hands and Kissing Babies: Recruit Like a Boss
3:30-4:30 p.
Presented by James Robilotta
Attended by Justin and Brady
Justin: this section has a lot of value. The speaker explained ways to create dialogue with potential members depending whether you’re an introvert or extrovert. He also did something no other speaker made us do and have 1 on 1 conversations with another person. I enjoyed this part because it was vital to practice listening skills and create a productive conversation i had a conversation with a fellow marketing major who was in TKE in a southern Connecticut college. We had. Similar life goals and aspirations and I felt that our conversation was very productive. I got his phone number to possibly network with him after college for our careers.
Brady: This section was all about how to use the personality traits of members of your organization to our advantage during the recruitment process. Recruitment is a stressful time for everyone and some people aren’t as good as connecting with people as other people in an organization. People that are more introverted are less likely to meet as many people during recruitment but the people they do connect with they are more likely to build a good relationship with them. This is because people who are more introverted are better listeners and remember more things about the people they talk to because they don’t meet as many as extroverted people. On the flip side extroverted people are the ones who are talking to every single person who comes out to recruitment which makes it harder for them to remember the little things that we learn about the people during recruitment. As a result of this though extroverted people are the ones that the people we are recruiting will be more likely to remember after they we leave the recruitment event, because of this the extroverted people are the ones who usually make people want to join an organization. Since Delta Pi is a very diverse group of people and always has been we should use this to our advantage, we get all types of people to come out for recruitment and I believe that we should be the ones most likely to genuinely meet these kids. Delta Pi is great at recruiting kids based off our personalities and if we continue to do so but now with more of an actual plan to feed off of each others strengths we can use this as an opportunity to grow as an organization.
Lessons/Regrets/Future Planning:
1. STAY - Maybe plan to stay over on the final night. Since this was our first NGLA conference, we decided to leave early (after the last educational component) and get back so we didn’t have to spend time and money being someplace that might have sucked.
Since it didn’t suck, a conversation should be had in regard to staying the final night, to attend the awards banquet so we can network more, debrief more as a group, and maybe set the groundwork towards winning some of those awards going forward.
2. BRING A SUIT - although it says, “Business Casual” for the dress code (and we were properly dressed in that respect) the banquet is “Business Formal”. If we decide to stay, we will need to have jackets and proper attire for a Modern Gentleman.
3. BRING A BATHING SUIT - there is usually a pool and socialization can happen there.
4. Brady: Something I was very pleased with was not only did we network with people from other schools but we were able to make a good impression with some of the girls from Bloomsburg (Mostly the Tri Sig girls). I do agree that in the future we should attempt to stay for the dinner on the last night but leaving Saturday afternoon didn’t affect us too much.
5. Justin: i feel we were very productive on Saturday. I think we would have benefited by staying another night although it didn’t affect us too much.
Accomplishments:
Just attending the conference was an accomplishment in itself. Here are some other accomplishments we wanted to recognize that were achieved via our participation:
Networked with other students we didn’t know from Bloomsburg. Set groundwork for future social interactions.
Networked with other students from colleges and universities from all over the north east part of the United States (including “pool girls”).
First national conference for Delta Pi as far as anyone can remember. Maybe during our Sigma Pi years we did similar, but that could be posted in the comments section below.
Got perspective on where we are as an organization on a much more regional and national level. Pleasantly surprised that we seem to have the same problem areas as most organizations, and far less overall problems than a good many organizations.
Built a connection between two future officers of Delta Pi and their Advisor.
Made contact with the Sigma Pi past Director. Good to know people.
Brady: We were able to make a good connection with girls from the Bloomsburg chapter of Tri Sigma. Also we were able meet good people like Matt Mattson who are eager to help us build our chapter as well as meeting people from other local organizations.
Justin: increasing our connection to Tri Sig was a nice accomplishment. I also have gotten numbers from people in 4 different fraternites and 2 different sororities in different schools. I felt like me and Brady built a good relationship with brian Agnew, who is a very good person to have our back. Also our conversation with Mattson was very productive
Conclusions:
These are presented in no particular order, based on our discussions on our ride home.
RECRUITING - It seemed unanimous that we found the “Recruiting for the Modern Gentleman” section the most meaningful and useful session attended. We will implement many things learned here. Read more about that plan in the “Implementation” and “strategies” sections below.
SCHEDULING - Spend more time really trying to learn the schedule of the conference. Although we did pretty good, we could have maybe been more prepared had we spent more time going over the schedule as a group, and making scheduling decisions.
WE ARE DOING MORE RIGHT THAN WRONG! This might be the single biggest surprise we discovered at the conference. Although we all know Delta Pi has not shortage of areas we could improve; we seemed to share many of the same weaknesses with national organizations and other locals alike.
Brady: As dave said I truly think that we are doing more right than wrong as an organization. That having been said we still have a lot of work to do if we want to grow as a fraternity instead of just treading water and being content staying the same. Next semesters recruitment is going to be where we can put this plan into effect and start getting the type of kids who share the same vision as we do. Compared to the other local fraternities I spoke to we are very large in size compared to them and I think that's something we should be proud of.
Justin: Overall I felt like the conference was a great learning experience, I learned what we have to improve and what we are doing well. This conference was also a great opportunity to network and I feel as if I capitalized on that well. Me and Brady’s conversation with Matt Mattson was my favorite part because I feel that if we apply the tools he gave us we will not only succeed but strive as a fraternity. In conclusion, given the opportunity
Strategy:
Look at the bright side. We could return to Bloom and say, “We have a lot of work to do, boys”. But instead, I think I’d prefer to say, “We learned that we are doing more right than wrong, and now we just have to spend some time working on the few areas of weakness we have.”
The Contingent thinks the optimum way to keep Delta Pi “educated”, would be to alternate between years with DPU, and years with the NGLA Conference. This would give newer members a steady diet of ideas and processes for ongoing modernization of our organization.
Brady: I believe that we can use this experience to grow as a group together. I believe we can reform the way that we recruit kids to help us be able to get better quality kids in our fraternity. I also believe that we can implement an incentive policy to help keep brother motivated and active in activities we do on and off campus.
Justin: Brady wrappped this part up pretty well. I think an incentive based strategy where we reward getting a good grades would be a good idea, possibly only paying $125 in dues if you have a 3.0 or above
Implementations:
It was generally agreed that Delta Pi’s biggest weaknesses today are recruiting and retention. We spent a lot of time talking about how that works, what it costs, and things we need to do to rectify it. Below are some of the ideas we hope to put into play:
LESS/END ILLEGALS - Support the IFC present proposal to lower the qualifications for fraternity new member programs. This isn’t a total solution, but it’s a step towards less “illegal” pledges, and we will support even an incremental approach to this most serious problem.
PHIRED-UP RECRUITMENT - Use the resources we found in the Phired-up online free “advice” to improve recruitment. They also have software called Chapter Builder, that is worth taking a look. Might be able to access through IFC, but that is under review.
DEAD WEIGHT - take a serious look at the fraternity from the perspective of who is there to contribute towards making us a better organization, and who is there to tear us down. Take appropriate steps to limit the damage those who choose to do damage can do to the fraternity.
DPU will be revisited, adjusted and improved based on many of the suggestions heard at the Advisor Academy session.
Brady: I really believe that we have to look upon ourselves and see who wants to be in Delta Pi for the right reasons and not just to party. I also think we should attempt to do a COB event this semester and attempt to pick up a couple more kids since we are losing a good chunk of brothers this spring. On the social aspect I believe we should be more outgoing when it comes to sororities, it never hurts to ask them if they want to mix with us.
Justin: we have to reach our necks out a little more for other organizations so that we have better relationships with all of Greek life, it doesn’t hurt to become close within other fraternity.
SUMMARY
Delta Pi should not see this big report and the recommendations of this contingent as overwhelming amounts of work needing to be done. Contrary. Delta Pi should look at this Contingent and their findings as an attempt to set a benchmark for our organization today. A benchmark that is recorded here on this page for future generations to read and interpret.
By setting this benchmark, we can begin to assess future success (or failure) based on this benchmark set in 2019. This is a first for our organization on a regional level.
To best visualize where we are today, imagine trying to quantify being a “Great Greek Organization”. If you gave that goal a scale of numbers, and “1” was a pretty horrible organization that gets it all wrong, and “10” was an organization that got everything right…Delta Pi might be a “6 or 7” we agreed in the car on the ride home. This is GOOD NEWS!
We don’t have to do a bunch of new things right. We already do a lot of the main things better than most. We we do need to do, is focus on the few items we get wrong or we are lacking. That’s not a tough thing to consider.
Incremental Approach - Take one issue each year and work as a team to better that area. When we have it done, move to the next.
Resources and links:
Tips and planning to attend NGLA - https://ngla.memberclicks.net/assets/docs/2019%20Resources%20for%20Conference%20Attendees.pdf
Schedule of NGLA 2019 conference - https://www.ngla.org/schedule-of-events
Advisor Academy - https://www.ngla.org/advisor-academy
Phired Up Free Resources - http://blog.phiredup.com/check-out-our-free-resources/
Rise Partnerships - Advisor Academy - https://risepartnerships.com/guide
BUDGET FOR TRIP AT RIGHT
We came in under budget, based on scholarships that both Brady and I were able to secure throught NGLA.
So all you cheap Delta Pi brothers can be happy. What other organization submits reports of being “under budget”?
We squeeze your dues and contributions for every penny. You get a great return for each dollar invested in Delta Pi.
