ΣΦΕ Chapter
Unfortunately, the organization I chose to do my final project on only has one meeting during the rest of the semester. Therefore, I had to choose another organization to do my analysis on. As I am an executive board member in UFA, I can't sit in the corner, so I chose my other organization, Sigep. This turned out to be quite interesting as the meeting I wrote about ended up being the most intense chapter I've been a part of since joining.
The leader of the organization is obviously the president, Matt Lehrer. The other most recent leaders were John Tannous and Steven Engelhaup. Steve was incredibly dominant, loud and overbearing as a leader. For the same reasons that he was incredibly successful as an engineer, he was a terrible politician. By the end of his term he had lost most of the chapter's respect. John was the perfect yin to Steve's yang. John would sit down with different brothers throughout his term and get their perspective on his leadership style and what they were upset about. John had an uncanning ability to know when to speak when not to; when to let the chapter resolve their own issues and when to step in. He was a great release from the grip of the Engelhaup reign. Matt has taken a much more passive agressive stance as president. His agenda is well known but he rarely takes control of the chapter in public and chooses to instead disseminate his orders through his exec board.
The absolute core value of Sigep is to be a balance man. This means to find a balance between "work" and "play". We believe that if you do not take care of each aspect of your life, you will be out of balance and never achieve your full potential. Our implicit values are expressed through closed aspects of our chapter but our explicit values ring true through the Balanced Man Program. The president is a very stressful and touchy position. If the leader of a chapter loses touch with his constituents, faith from the chapter can disappear very quickly and if any other chapters on campus have been any sign of this, trouble with the police and the university can follow.
The follower of Sigep are obviously the general brotherhood and executive board. We all have made an oath to hold ourselves to our core principles of virtue, diligence and brotherly love. However there has begun to emerge a large divide in the social values of the general brothers. We recieve a lot out of being a brother of the fraternity including but not limited to: connections, friends, social and brotherhood events, facilities, advantages of greek community, etc. There is typically a wavering off of brothers as they approach graduation. I have seen it several times and honestly struggle with it myself.
Unfortunately, it does feel that their can be a lot of talk at chapter but very little action is ever taken. As in most college student organizations, there is typically a lot of complaining and very little solutions presented. This is the most difficult aspect of the executive board. A lot of brothers will approach you with issues, but rarely will they come to you with a solution to that problem. This is a problem that we have struggled with and are doing everything we can to adjust that attitude.
The general feeling of the chapter is quite relaxed as we had a very exciting weekend and are in relaxed attire for the first time of the year; however, there is an anxious feeling in the room because of recent standards board decisions. As of late, we continue to have the top GPA on campus, have outstanding involvement of our members and just had a very successful week with our homecoming partners, Kappa Kappa Gamma. In regards to our core values, brotherly love was at the forefront as we had our chapter retreat the day before. Our virtue was quite evident through our regular religious meetings and very diligent standards board. Finally, in order to remain diligent, we have set lofty GPA and other academic goals and set up options for study help for brothers that are struggling.
Are we happy? That is an interesting question. Some people may be, others may not. It's a tremoulous time in Sigep right now and some tough discussions need to happen because of the discord between leadership and membership. Once we got to standards board announcements, the intensity of the meeting increased exponentially. Without divulging any sensitive information, there were brothers embarrassed in front of the entire chapter and had their reputations drug through the mud due to a lack of diligence by members of the executive board. People, myself included, that had been keeping our opinions to ourselves were finally speaking up. There is an incredible pride in our organization but because of the current situation, the chapter as a whole is definitely at a dip in pride. We are well liked by the university because we send them updates, follow rules for the most part and have a university owned house. This is no more evident than the five homecoming court members that are Sigeps.
President: Matt Lehrer
Advisor: Donald Stenta
-Nick
