Senior Year of AST

In October 2014, I joined Alpha Sigma Tau. As older post read, I have had many memories and experiences with this organization. I have held a number of leadership positions and have served on executive board twice. After eight semesters in a chapter that feels like home, there hasn’t been a day that I regret joining this chapter and community. It has pushed me to hold many roles in the Greek Community and around campus. I have met so many amazing sisters who have encouraged me to be my unapologetic self and I am very thankful for that. In my time in AST, we have done so many amazing things as a chapter that I am so proud to be apart of. We have held the highest sorority cumulative GPA since I have joined, won Greek Week twice, raised about $4,000 a year for Pine Mountain Settlement school, sent a group of sisters to volunteer at our national philanthropy every year, have every sister involved in at least one other RSO on campus, had the highest volunteer hours per sister in a long time, and improved member retention. I have been so proud of the accomplishments we have has. My learning experiences in this chapter has been beyond what has been in any other organization.  I have learned how to be self motivated to balance my social life, academics, and school involvements. I have learned time management to balance my involvements with my personal life. I have learned confidence from the affirmation of succeeding in my positions and following in the footsteps of our older members. Overall, this organization has given me so much and I’m glad I  have gotten the opportunity to give back to it.

 

Panhellenic Council

Over the past two years, I have had the opportunity to serve on the Panhellenic Council Executive Board as VP of Administration and now Executive Vice President. This board oversees the sorority side of the Greek Community. It consists of 11 positions of women from different chapters from our campus. In my current position of EVP, I have many roles I need to fulfill. The main part of my position is that I look over all chapter representatives and liaison positions as well as being the right hand women to the president. I have learned how to effectively communicate with women in different organizations other than my own as well as ensuring they are in the light on all events we have going on as a community.With the liaison positions, I have had to figure out the most efficient way to fill positions with the best position holder. Along with the responsibilities of those, I am in charge of the legislative and judicial parts of this council. With that, I have learned that the best way to look at bylaws and potential changes is to have meetings with the chapter representatives to hear their voices on behalf of their chapters and make appropriate changes from there. The most challenging part of this position has been the judicial side. There have been many instances where I need to seperate my friend side from my professional side in order to properly go through judicial hearings. Overall with this position, I have learned that the most important part is the teamwork within this council. We have had many obstacles to overcome from what media portrays from internal concerns. Without coming together and working off of each others strengths, we would not have been as successful as we have been.

 

The Fred Factor

In LDR 100, we had to read a book about the Fred Factor (link to a short clip attached). It was about a guy who took his job to the extreme and always went out of his way for everyone. We were challenged to create a group project where we had to be Freds. My group took the approach to a personal level. We each read the book and challenged someone else to do the same then pass it on.

I chose to give it to one of my younger sisters, Elena. Even though she is younger than I am, I really look up to her. She is intelligent, healthy, strong, open-minded, and beautiful on the inside and out. She inspires me to be a better person and I knew that the Fred Factor would inspire her.

Currently, she is finding her way in high school. She is a part of the dance team, student leadership, and track & field. She is planning on joining the LIFT program in the fall where she gets to me a mentor to students in her high school’s special education program. I couldn’t be prouder of the impact that she is making on her school and community.

Elena and I when we were on the dance team together.

Not what you do, it’s why you do it

After watching Simon Sinek’s TedTalk on How great leaders inspire action, I learned a lot about how people follow. Simon spoke on how average people speak vs how inspiring people do. It all has to do with what, how, and why.

Usually, normal people think, act, and communicate in a certain way. First it’s what, then how, then lastly, why. Studies have proved that the most inspirational leaders are the ones we always follow more think, act, and communicate in a different way. That way is actually the opposite. It’s why, how, then what. Along with that, that is where all of the gut decisions are made from. When you know what you want to do, that is you knowing the why first. The best workers don’t just work for the paycheck, they work for the why of the company. The people who want to be the first to get a new product don’t care as much what it does. It’s more of why so they can prove they believe to be the first.

There are always leaders and those who lead.
Those who lead are those who inspire us. We follow them because we want to, not because we have to. To follow them is to follow something we believe in.

To be an effective leader, I need to know why I am leading and why I believe in it. From there I need to know how I am going to lead based on why. Then I need to know what I am going to do that will make people want to follow me. It is a process and a journey that I am ready to begin.

Class Protocol Reflection

Through our psychology course (PSY 100L) I learned that how we are leaders is all in our brains. That can be from being born with traits, learning them on the way, or a mixture of both. There is different stages in our lives where we develop different parts in our brains that makes us the leaders we are today. Outside the course material in the class, my cohort learned how to study as a class a make lectures more enjoyable. If it wasn’t for random dancing and singing before tests, then I think the stress would have overcome me.

In our debate course (COM 267L) I learned a lot about how to make people think a certain way and how to express why the way I believe is the correct way actually is. I also learned how different methods of argumentation are used to make the other person look bad instead of supporting my case. Over all, I learned that I need to be able to back up my side with facts and show the other side why my side may be the better option. We debate in our everyday lives and I feel as this is a very valuable class to have. We got to debate against other students in our cohort which got really interesting. We laughed and gasped at each others’ debates but over all bonded while doing it. We could not get that from just a normal debate class.

Overall, I am glad that we got to take these courses as a cohort. We learned that we can’t always have each other there in every class, but for the classes that we do we have valuable resources. I hope to make even a small portion of the connections in my other class as I do these leadership offerings.

President Ross

This past semester I got the privilege of meeting my school’s president. He talked to us about how he got to where he is, how leadership is important, and about our roles on campus. What I thought was very cool that he did was take our questions and answer them honestly. Not everyday does a university president come to your class and take random questions from a group of students, but at CMU it’s different. It really did seem like President Ross cared about our thoughts and feelings as students. I got the chance to ask him what makes Central’s campus different from any others that he has been on. He replied that we are not just a number like he was when he went to college at Michigan State University, we are all people with different great aspects to each one of us. I really think that he is has a positive contribution to that. Before he took my question he was curious to know my name, my hometown,my major, and why I chose CMU. I found out that he also majored in accounting. It really goes to show that he cares about the students on campus and it is inspiring to see. (Side note, people ask me why I’m doing an accounting major and how leadership would ever apply. My answer is I love accounting and there is always a need for leadership in everyone’s life. You never know where life will take you. President Ross went from being an accountant to president. Who knows what I will do.)

President Ross talking to my LDR 100 class/LAS Cohort. (Oh hey, that’s me under the arrow).