A couple months ago (wow, was it really that long ago?) I had the opportunity to attend the AFLV conference in St Louis. The Association of Fraternal Leadership and Values is all about what the same suggests: to educate members of Greek organizations about how to live out values, and to train members to be more successful in recruitment, socialization, and other areas.
This is an annual conference, but somehow I hadn't heard about it at all until our president brought it up at one of our house meetings some time in December. The extent of the discussion of the conference at our chapter meeting was, "So there's this conference coming up next semester. It's pretty cool. Who wants to go?"
Well, I had nothing better to do, and I always wanted to go to a conference (I didn't really care what conference. You just get that feeling of "I am a grown-up businessman, darn it!" when you get to go to these things) so I raised my hand and just like that I am registered for this conference. Two members of every Greek chapter on campus got to go, making a total of twenty of us total.
The conference was a three-day experience. We left Thursday morning and came back Saturday afternoon. And from the moment we got there to the moment we left it was non-stop activity. I had no idea what to expect when I left owing mostly to the wonderful product description from our president, so I was excited and also nervous. What if this was a conference where I would have to--GASP--talk to people? I was understandably worried.
Conversing with strangers? THE HORROR.
But I went along with it anyways. Besides, by then I was on the bus to St. Louis and there wasn't much else I could do at that point. So five hours later we were at the hotel, and after a quick nap we headed over to the conference center. The first thing I thought when I sat down was that it looked just like a TED conference or something. Spotlights, huge screens, hundreds of people, all within a huge warehouse-sized conference space. It looked like they had gone all-out when all I was expecting was a small room with hotel chairs and overly excited guy with an ID badge around his neck. That was most definitely not the case, I realized.
Every day during the conference you had the choice of attending four or five presentations out of a list of over a hundred; the benefit of this was that you were almost guaranteed to be sure you were attending something that interested you. I checked out talks on hazing, several seminars on recruitment, and even one about relieving stress, just to name a few. All of these talks were designed to help members of fraternities and sororities reach their fullest potential in all aspects of their organization.
The best part, I think, of the conference wasn't necessarily all of the great presentations, or the step competition, or even the fact that I was in a new city I had never visited before. It was lunch on our first full day. Friday was a special luncheon, wherein you were to sit with members of your fraternity or sorority. If you were a member of a local group (meaning that your chapter is the only one in the country, like Zeta Pi Omega or Kappa Phi Delta, which are sororities unique to IIT) you got to sit with your fellow chapter members and meet people from other locals. If you were a member of a national fraternity or sorority, you were to sit at a table designated for your group.
Now, I have never been to a conference dedicated to my fraternity, so I had never had to opportunity to meet brothers from outside IIT. It was definitely a strange experience. I would almost compare it to meeting your distant relatives for the first time. You've never met them before, but it's almost uncanny how well you know these people because of how similar they are to you, that-one-crazy-aunt-you-don't-talk-to-anymore excluded. It was probably the most fun I had that weekend, especially when we all broke out singing some of our fraternity songs in the middle of the luncheon (which, honestly, wasn't that out of place, considering some fraternities have chants they'll shout at random intervals and there's this one sorority that has this ear-bleeding screech).
It was a reminder to me that this strange experience called "Fraternity Life" isn't something unique to someone like me. This is something that happens all over the country, and it was amazing to meet people who, like myself, weren't too hot on the idea of going Greek, and then found themselves not only enjoying being a part of a fraternity, but being a part of Alpha Sigma Phi. "Inspiring" is totally the wrong word to use here, but maybe something short of pride would fit better.
By the end of the weekend I had made three or four new friends (two of whom were from IIT. Who knew?) and we came out of it not just with a canvas bag filled with Greek schwag (a trucker hat, a color-changing cup, sunglasses, and about enough paper to choke a copy machine) but a huge reminder that while we might be from different fraternities we are still all a collection of men and women who live by their values and support one another. Gee, that sound an awful lot like the last two blog entries I wrote... On the plus side, this ends my commentary on Fraternity life for now. Hopefully the next time I am inspired to grace the internet with my prose it will be for something completely different. Or interesting. Interesting would be good.
Okay, so maybe it wasn't THIS extravagant, but this is what it felt like.
Every day during the conference you had the choice of attending four or five presentations out of a list of over a hundred; the benefit of this was that you were almost guaranteed to be sure you were attending something that interested you. I checked out talks on hazing, several seminars on recruitment, and even one about relieving stress, just to name a few. All of these talks were designed to help members of fraternities and sororities reach their fullest potential in all aspects of their organization.
The best part, I think, of the conference wasn't necessarily all of the great presentations, or the step competition, or even the fact that I was in a new city I had never visited before. It was lunch on our first full day. Friday was a special luncheon, wherein you were to sit with members of your fraternity or sorority. If you were a member of a local group (meaning that your chapter is the only one in the country, like Zeta Pi Omega or Kappa Phi Delta, which are sororities unique to IIT) you got to sit with your fellow chapter members and meet people from other locals. If you were a member of a national fraternity or sorority, you were to sit at a table designated for your group.
Now, I have never been to a conference dedicated to my fraternity, so I had never had to opportunity to meet brothers from outside IIT. It was definitely a strange experience. I would almost compare it to meeting your distant relatives for the first time. You've never met them before, but it's almost uncanny how well you know these people because of how similar they are to you, that-one-crazy-aunt-you-don't-talk-to-anymore excluded. It was probably the most fun I had that weekend, especially when we all broke out singing some of our fraternity songs in the middle of the luncheon (which, honestly, wasn't that out of place, considering some fraternities have chants they'll shout at random intervals and there's this one sorority that has this ear-bleeding screech).
It was a reminder to me that this strange experience called "Fraternity Life" isn't something unique to someone like me. This is something that happens all over the country, and it was amazing to meet people who, like myself, weren't too hot on the idea of going Greek, and then found themselves not only enjoying being a part of a fraternity, but being a part of Alpha Sigma Phi. "Inspiring" is totally the wrong word to use here, but maybe something short of pride would fit better.
By the end of the weekend I had made three or four new friends (two of whom were from IIT. Who knew?) and we came out of it not just with a canvas bag filled with Greek schwag (a trucker hat, a color-changing cup, sunglasses, and about enough paper to choke a copy machine) but a huge reminder that while we might be from different fraternities we are still all a collection of men and women who live by their values and support one another. Gee, that sound an awful lot like the last two blog entries I wrote... On the plus side, this ends my commentary on Fraternity life for now. Hopefully the next time I am inspired to grace the internet with my prose it will be for something completely different. Or interesting. Interesting would be good.
Song of the Day
LCD Soundsystem - Dance Yrself Clean
Featuring the Muppets
