At the beginning of the year Sigma Zeta members met in goal-setting sessions to determine the chapter's primary and secondary areas of focus for the coming year. We decided on the theme “Be the Difference.” We knew our overriding goal for the Leadership Hallmark was to increase our visibility and leadership roles on campus, in the community and within the region. How to turn that rather lofty goal into smaller, measureable goals was the subject of tremendous discussion. We finally decided to focus our efforts in two of the three areas, increasing our visibility and leadership on campus and in the region.
Through our brainstorming and discussions, we realized that the college administration, as well as many of the student groups on campus, needed additional volunteers for a myriad of campus-wide events. We decided that our chapter would volunteer whenever possible to assist these groups and as we increased visibility and demonstrated leadership, we would look for an opportunity to take the lead on a college-wide project. Our entire officer team and advisor agreed to share this responsibility and give status reports at our weekly chapter meetings.
We also recognized that our region would be made even stronger if we focused on increased participation with regional efforts. With that in mind, we decided to find new ways to inform our membership of regional events (our President-elect took the lead for this goal), create a new event or turn an existing Sigma Zeta event into a regional one (our President and advisor agreed to work on this together), and encourage a member of our chapter to run for a regional officer position.
Our
chapter decided that our secondary goals should include additional training
and education for our officers and any interested members in teamwork,
leadership styles, and public speaking. We also decided to send our
entire officer team to the Regional Leadership Conference in Idaho.
Sigma Zeta members volunteered to work at numerous college-sponsored events, such as selling refreshments at all the University of Oregon home games to benefit the Lane’s Athletic Department, college recruitment at Lane’s Preview Night and helping with the college’s float entry in the Eugene Celebration Parade. Our increased visibility and leadership became evident when the college administration asked us to take the lead role in creating the college’s float entry for the Springfield Holiday Parade. We worked with several departments around campus to include as many as possible in the project design, and decoration, as well as the parade itself. We borrowed a diesel truck, flat-bed trailer and driver from the diesel repair shop, and asked for student representatives of various departments to walk alongside or ride on the float. Several Sigma Zeta members participated and rode with our college president along the parade route.
Our chapter’s next goal of increasing participation and leadership at regional events began with some research into the most successful communication and advertising forms utilized today. One of our officers and our advisor found that MySpace and YouTube are extremely popular and excellent ways to improve communication among members and chapters. Our advisor worked with us to develop both a MySpace page and several YouTube videos to advertise and show off chapter and regional activities.
We chose to invite other chapters in our region to Sigma Zeta’s beach cleanup activity which we conduct twice a year as part of SOLV’s fall beach cleanup. We rented facilities at the coast for an overnight stay and provided meals for all Phi Theta Kappa members who attended. In addition to the work picking up litter on the beach, our advisor conducted a Myers-Briggs Personality Inventory in the evening. The inventory is based upon the idea that a person's behavior is the result of how they prefer to use their perceptions and judgment and identifies sixteen personality types. It is considered one of the most reliable personality tests and it is thought that knowing one's personality type allows for better interpersonal relationships and teamwork because it aids in appreciation and understanding of individual differences and leadership styles.
At the regional conference our chapter won seventeen awards and two of our chapter officers became regional officers. Our chapter president successfully campaigned for southern region vice president. One of our chapter’s vice presidents was chosen as regional vice president of communications. The regional members voted to create this new position to facilitate and improve communication among the chapters.
For our secondary goal of additional training and education in teamwork, leadership styles, and public speaking for our officers and any interested members, we decided to end each Sigma Zeta weekly meeting with leadership training. Our advisor conducted the half an hour sessions which included learning about personality types, leadership styles, and teamwork.
We decided it was vital to sponsor and/or attend training events within our region whenever possible. As already mentioned, our chapter conducted an evening leadership training and teamwork for the other chapter’s members who attended the regional beach cleanup. We sent our entire officer team to the Regional Leadership Conference in Idaho where they completed various leadership and teamwork activities including a “ropes course.” Two of our members attended Beta Delta Epsilon’s New Officer Training at Tillamook Bay Community College and two of our officers attended the three-day Clackamas Community College 2007 Leadership Seminar, sponsored by Alpha Xi Zeta. Two of our officers attended the International Leadership Conference in Chicago and reported back to the other members of the chapter.
Our advisor worked on public speaking with several
members of our chapter, preparing them to give short presentations about
Phi Theta Kappa to various campus groups. Two of our officers presented
with our advisor on “Creating a Chapter Website” at the 89th
International Convention.
The holiday float we designed and organized for our college won two awards: The Tuxedo Award for Best Fantasy Display and second place for Best in Show. Lane’s president was so proud of our accomplishments in support of the college, that she invited us to a Board of Education meeting where she told the board of our efforts, introduced the members present, and showed them one of our new “YouTube” videos! Although we are proud of the awards, we are more excited that through these efforts Sigma Zeta has not only increased our visibility, but have become a “go to” group on campus. We’ve been asked to participate in the planning and organizing of other campus activities and the college administrators have asked us to head the holiday parade entry next year. Additionally, because of our increased visibility, students sometimes recognize chapter members and are able to ask questions about membership and participation.
Our new MySpace page and YouTube videos are growing in popularity. We use these in addition to our other methods of communication including our chapter webpage and newsletter. We are still accessing the impact and do occasionally hear comments about the positive image each conveys of our chapter.
Turning our chapter’s beach clean-up project into a regional one allowed us to take on new leadership roles within the region. We were able to include service, leadership training, fellowship and good food into the overnight event. It was especially gratifying to have Phi Theta Kappans from around the region join together and work with the nearly 4,000 volunteers who spent several hours scouring the beaches of Oregon to collect more than 30 tons of trash!
Sigma Zeta has become stronger due to the leadership of our two officers who also became regional officers. They represent our chapter well, share leadership insights gleaned through regional trainings and work hard to enhance communication and teamwork among the region’s chapters.
Our chapter has benefited tremendously from the increased training in leadership, team building and teamwork, and public speaking. We’ve conducted our own training each week, sent as many members as possible to trainings all around the region and to the international leadership conference. We believe that the increased training has made our other leadership (as well as scholarship and service ) activities not only possible, but highly successful. It took each member of our officer team (and several members) to plan, organize and execute our major projects.
Public speaking is often difficult and our advisor has worked with each chapter officer to help them become more comfortable in this arena. Our three newest officers have all presented on Phi Theta Kappa at various meetings around campus -- something none of them ever saw themselves doing... willingly anyway! Each of the two members who helped present at the international convention said it was the first time either made a presentation to such a large group and they were quite nervous. Our advisor taught them how to work through the nervousness and prepare for any unforeseen circumstances during the presentation. Each said they learned a tremendous amount and the experience enabled them to make individual presentations (with our advisor’s help) at the Regional Leadership Conference.
We are very pleased with the growth we’ve seen, both as a chapter and as individuals within the chapter. We were able to increase our visibility and become effective leaders in our chapter activities, on the campus and in the region. We were able to “Be the Difference.”