Panel Discussion

I think that one of the biggest things I took from the panel, is that the majority of the people on the panel agreed that there needs to be more collaboration between the different councils for our greek community at Ohio State to grow.  For that collaboration to happen, I think that the staff at the Ohio Union should host 2-3 events a year, specifically for greek members from different councils to meet and talk with each other.  If something along those lines happens, then I think we will begin to see a change in the mood here at Ohio State.

Another thing I enjoyed hearing about while at the panel discussion was Jordan Davis' discussion on how she enhanced her leadership abilities when she took over as recruitment chair for her chapter after coming back from a long internship out of country.  To me, that Is how leaders really begin to define their leadership styles.  Some people are more stern with things and by the book.  Other people think outside of the box and develop new ideas that could possibly help their chapters.  I think that in the todays society we need both types of leaders.  By that I mean we need people thinking of new ideas and developing them, and also leaders directing people on how to implement the new ideas.  Both types of leaders are important to our future here at Ohio State.  Often times you can hear gordon gee talking about Ohio State and how we are shaping the leaders of tomorrow.  He often says that here at Ohio State, we want thinkers.  Thinkers are going to be the people coming up with solutions to the worlds ever growing list of problems.  Along those lines, I think another big thing we discussed at the discussion was accountability.  We at Ohio State need to be held accountable for actions and responsible member of the Ohio State community.  By that, we need to watch our actions to make sure that they do not become negative reactions of non greek people around the community.

Here is a video of Gordon Gee Speaking, towards the end of the video he talks about the future and how we need to collaboratively change and create the next generation of opportunity.




Overall the panel discussion was very informative and helped to enhance my perception on leadership.

Zach M

Oath

Oath.  First off let me give the dictionary definition of the word Oath and then I'll go on to describe what I think it should mean and what it means to me, as a person and as a member of Pi Kappa Alpha.

Oath- a formally affirmed statement or promise accepted as an equivalent of an appeal to a deity or to a revered person or thing; affirmation.

Synonyms for the word Oath are vow and pledge

Based off of this definition I think Oath is what we pledge to do for ourselves and for our organizations.  We give an oath to uphold high moral standards, and to maintain academic excellence, and raise money and give back to the community.  I know for me, I gave an oath before I came to Ohio State to do the best that I could and to gracefully accept every opportunity presented to me.  Once I became a member of Pi Kappa Alpha I made a personal pledge to give everything I can to my fraternity, whether that be through grades, or planning community service events, or whatever else.  Of course I gave a formal oath when I became a member, to uphold the ideals of Pi Kappa Alpha.  I think for this formal oath to really be successful though, one has to look within themself and ask, "what can I do to make my fraternity better?  What can I do personally to make myself a better man, while at the same time helping my fraternity to grow?"  I think one must ask themselves these questions when taking an oath.  The same can be said for the President of the United States.  They take an oath to uphold the constitution.  If I were the president I would ask myself constantly if I was doing the right thing for the country, if the action I was taking was upholding the ideals and laws set forth by the constitution.  I would grow crazy if I was the President, because I think way too much, and there's so many people to look after.  The United States has over 300 million people, and at the forefront of all of them is their president, their leader.  But the President does always take that Oath of office, and I think they work very hard towards fulfilling that oath. 

I am the same way with the oath I made to the brothers of my fraternity and also to myself.  I won't stop until the oath I took has been fulfilled.  Based on the Oath I took to myself and my fraternity, that won't be until I'm in the grave.  And I like that.  Excellence and self fulfillment and striving to be the best, should be lifelong.

Below is a clip on President Obama taking his formal Oath:


That's all folks,

Zach

Incongruencies at Ohio State and in my chapter

There are a lot of incongruencies here in my fraternity that I don't like to talk about or discuss just because of the negative mood it brings to the table.  While saying that, i know that it can only be changed by looking at a problem and creating a solution.  We don't get the grades that we should.  I personally have a 3.4, but everyone doesn't have the same major and talents as myself.  Some people just need to be more focused and work hard in the week.  I stay true to the work hard, play hard philosophy.  Because of this i am able to get good grades and also to have a good time and be social.  We need to fix this, by implementing very strict grade requirements and study hours requirements.  This can be said for the entire greek community.  We come to college to get an education first.  Greek life enhances the educational experience, but in all fairness, employers are more likely to care about your GPA rather than what you did in college.  That is the first incongruency we need to work on.

The second incongruency we need to work on as a chapter and community, is our new member education and recruitment.  The more unified the greek community is in the recruitment of young men and women across campus, the larger our greek community will grow.  If you look at the size of our campus and how many people we have, you would think we would have 4-8 thousand greek community members.  We don't, and I think that is because of the incongruencies in our community over recruitment.  We need to team up and raise numbers.  Rather than having all different stands on Information day at welcome week, we should have one stand for sorority and fraternity life.  From that booth, we could have brochures and pamphlets to distribute out.  We should also have a list of events that students can go to while searching for an organization to join.

Another incongruency that could very dangerous to our appearance to people around campus is TG themes.  Some Tg themes can be very fun.  With that being said, I think that some of the costumes people wear to TG's can be offensive in some nature to one person or another.  I think that they can give a negative stereotype to certain groups of people.  I think to solve this, we should have an approved list of TG themes.  Noone gets offended by people wearing toga's.  One such thing people could get offended by is jersey shore.  We had this theme of TG last year, and one member brought to our attention how some people around campus could view this as offensive towards italian americans.  It's all up for discussion what is right and what is wrong, but it can be guaranteed that someone will be offended at sometime or another.  All I'm saying is we need to watch the themes that we use for TG's.  I personally am not offended by any TG themes I have seen, but that is not to say someone else hasn't.

That's all folks,

Zach "Big Mac" McManus