Brother’s Keeper? September 11, 2007
Posted by Turf Herder in Brotherhood, Chapter Issues, Controlled Substances, Kappa Kappa Psi.add a comment
Confessing that I’m writing this while sitting in a meeting. :)
I obviously don’t have a rit book in front of me, so I can’t tell if what I’m remembering is something everybody says, or just my chapter. But I distinctly remember standing there swearing an oath to be my Brother’s keeper. I also remembering wondering how many people actually heard what they were swearing, and whether they’d remember it. (Do you ever wish we were given print-outs of the oaths to post on our bulletin boards or mirrors so that we’d be daily reminded of what we’d promised before God to do?)
Being your Brother’s keeper is hard – being ANYONE’S keeper is hard. It’s hard enough looking out for ourselves without taking on the responsibility of another person’s welfare – especially when that person is just a casual friend – especially when that person resists or resents the help. When someone is determined to self-destruct, there’s a lot of steam behind that determination. How are we mere, concerned mortals to stand in the way?
I guess we’ve all had Brothers who were doing drugs, or drinking too much, skipping too many classes, choosing destructive relationships, you name it. The Brother you describe, Jennai, was obviously in a lot of trouble – and was causing a lot of trouble. When personal bad habits put a person into such a bad place that they’re willing to steal from their friends to support the habits, then things have gone very far indeed.
Too far, I suspect, for any of their peers to follow.
Unless (and perhaps even if) you are a close personal friend of the Brother in question, there is probably little you can do to sway him from this self-destructive path. A real counselor would probably say that you should do “what you can do” and what you need to do for yourself: say something, tell your Brother you’re worried and that you want to help him, and do what you need to do so that you can say to yourself that you did all you could. Remember that there are a lot of victims here – not just the imploding Brother or the Brothers being stolen from. That Brother’s friends and loved ones are being victimized too.
What we don’t know about the Brother in question is how far gone he is, how he may react if confronted. Under the influence of controlled substances, people can react very unpredictably. Be careful, and be safe, if you must confront the Brother yourself.
A better option might be to think in terms of an actual intervention. Rather than put yourself in the vulnerable position of being the only person to confront the Brother (it’s easier to blow off one person, for one thing) you might collaborate with other people in the chapter to sit the Brother down and let him know that there’s a problem, that you’re worried, and that you want to help him get his life straightened out. There are some pretty good resources online; this one isn’t bad, particularly when you read the “suggested reading.” Of course, the most important part is probably the whole “consult with a professional” bit….
Frankly, I think this is probably not a job for anyone in the chapter, Jennai. I mean, there are a lot of things you can do, but should you? Will they do any good, or will they do more harm? There’s a certain moral responsibility in that you should do all that you can, but ultimately… I think this is one of those opportunities where you really need to be talking to the advisor and leaving it in his or her hands. Adult intervention is really the responsible answer, in my opinion, and the most likely to actually do some real good. An advisor has resources that chapter members lack – like the ability to connect the Brother with campus counseling services, even involuntarily.
As far as the moral responsibility thing goes, look – sometimes the most we can do is care, so deeply that years later it still haunts us. No matter how hard we try, we can’t save everyone - in every aspect of our lives, not just the fraternity. :(
brothers in trouble September 7, 2007
Posted by Jennai Ell in Brotherhood, Chapter Issues, Controlled Substances, Kappa Kappa Psi.add a comment
Ok, so time for me to throw in something controversial and different.
What do you do, when a brother needs help?
“But Jennai Ell”, you say, “that’s not very controversial!”
“Ah”, says I – “but it is…”
Say that brother is in an abusive relationship. Say they’re addicted to drugs, or alcohol, or cutting. Say they’re stealing from brothers, to support a habit. Say they’re suicidal.
Say you’ve already tried suggesting therapy – and they’ve told you on no uncertain terms that there’s nothing wrong, that they’re fine, to leave them alone…
Now say they’re doing this self-destructiveness in front of the bands members. In the witness of brothers. Say they’re embarassing the chapter, the band, the school.
Now, what do you do?
(edit and clarification – yes, I have had a brother in this situation. It haunts me to this day, whichis why I ask)
Looking for Insight RE: Rush September 5, 2007
Posted by Turf Herder in Chapter Issues, Kappa Kappa Psi, Recruitment.add a comment
This may just be a case of an old fart fiddling with other peoples’ business, but it’s a puzzle to me so I thought I’d ask everyone what they thought. It bears mentioning that I’m the sort of person who likes to ponder over things without ever necessarily thinking of interfering with the real situation – maybe that’s why 8 Brothers exists. :)
My old chapter is having Rush this week. Every day, there’s a different event – fun stuff, social stuff, but with built-in opportunities to learn more about the fraternity. Active members are strenuously encouraged to attend. Potential recruits are individually targeted by actives, and there are posters and flyers everywhere band kids go.
The problem is – and from what I’m being told, this has happened for the past couple of years – no one is attending. The active members show up but they can only get 1-3 potential members to attend. If this year is like last year, half of the people who attend Rush won’t interview – but they’ll get dozens of interviews from people who never attended a single Rush event.
The end result is that Rush is a total wash and a financial drain, serving only as a Brotherhood experience for the active members who are able to show (given that it is a solid week of nightly near-mandatory activities). However, recruitment is generally highly successful nonetheless.
I get to wondering – what’s the deal, here? Our school has a very small/weak Greek system, so maybe the kids don’t understand what “rush” means – but shouldn’t they be interested in going to the events just because they’re fun and offer information?
Does it matter if recruits don’t attend Rush?
Since the chapter is getting recruits hand-over-fist who never attended Rush, should they just save the time and money and skip Rush entirely?
If not, how can they make Rush more appealing to recruits?
Should Rush be mandatory for recruits? Should it be an interview question – “Did you attend Rush and, if not, why?” Should skipping Rush reflect in any way on a recruit?
Is ten days of solid recruitment too much, too fast? Would a two-week period with five or six events be better?
One thing that I’ve noticed is that the event posters do NOT say “Rush” on them – they say things like “Come float the river with KKPsi.” Do you think people think that it’s a KKPsi-only event?
Whaddaya think?
A Story and a Question about Pins August 29, 2007
Posted by Turf Herder in Chapter Issues, Kappa Kappa Psi, Letters & Pins.add a comment
The other day, I had a flash from the past. My very first Little Brother came to see me, bringing a bunch of stuff she’d borrowed years before. We hadn’t seen one another in some time; in fact, since we last spoke, she’d gotten married. We caught up, and then she gave me one more thing – a tiny gold CofA.
“What’s this?” I asked.
“Remember when we put through D’s class?” she responded. “I had forgotten my pin – the family pin – at home, so I borrowed one from someone without a Little so I’d have one to give to D. I ended up just paying for it. Well, I finally found my pin, the one you’d given me. Since I’m alumni, and I’m not really involved with anything anymore, I thought I’d give it back.”
I looked down at the little pin blankly. Then it hit me: this was my pin, the one that had been carefully affixed to my chest in front of scores of Brothers back when I finally became worthy of that name myself. This was the first pin of my Family Tree. This was the pin that had been intended to pass down through my Family line, a tangible symbol of that bond-within-a-bond and of our chapter’s past. It had gone AWOL so long before that I’d forgotten it had ever existed.
After my Little left, I twiddled the pin between my fingers, marveling at the way pins had changed over the past several years. My recently-purchased pin (because I lose them like a drunk freshman loses inhibitions) was easily twice as thick as my old pin, a little smaller in diameter, and yet not really any heavier. The markings on the new pin were much more distinct than those on the old pin, and the color was diff… wait. The $8 pins are made of fake-o metal and gold-plated, right? So why would they soften with age? Could my old CofA be one of the 10K pins?
Over the next few days I thought about what I should do with the pin. My Family Tree has forked; there are at least three of my descendents active in the chapter today. Who would receive the pin? If I followed Little #1’s line, I’d come to a dead end pretty quickly – all my descendents still existing come from Little #2’s line, but it has since branched in three directions. I still haven’t figured it out, so for now the pin is biding its time over my heart, a little reminder of where I came from in this fraternity.
Recently, a descendent of my family – and the chapter VP – came to me and asked about pins. Like me, she has always felt that this symbol was an important part of being a Brother, and that wearing them should be automatic for people in the chapter – a given. Instead, she saw that only a handful of people ever wore their pins outside of ritual, and that they usually only wore them to meetings. As the school year kicks off, she was wondering if there was any way she could “incentivize” people to wear their pins more regularly.
I asked if the chapter already did anything. Apparently, on their final MEP test, there’s a question – worth 10 points – that reads “Are you wearing your pin?” Actives and prospectives all take that test, and have to have a high score to pass. Other than that, there was no real program, motivation, or reminder to wear the pins and/or Letters with pride.
The chapter does have an attendance policy, and we discussed the (distasteful) possibility of tagging on a penalty for attending meetings without pins or Letters. We also talked about “random pin checks” at band rehearsals, where the VP would pick names out of a hat, see if they were wearing a pin, and, if so, give them some kind of a prize. (Hooray positive reinforcement!)
Do youse guys have any other ideas? Any words of motivation that she could pass along to the chapter that might light a fire of WEAR MY PIN inside her fellow Brothers?
Change while active August 22, 2007
Posted by Jennai Ell in Alumni Affairs, Brotherhood, Chapter Issues, Kappa Kappa Psi.add a comment
Sorry – I read it as after we leave, because while we’re still there, well, that’s part of membership ed, so far as I’m concerned. Getting the feet wet so that prospectives can figure out what they like/dislike/are good at doing. Delegating to see what they can do, etc while the older brothers are still watching over their shoulders to make sure that they understand reasons and history and all the rest.
However…Turf Herder’s list?
- The Old violently resists change and makes the New feel unwelcome and thwarted.
- The New disrespects what has been and makes the Old feel defensive.
- Someone with a really bad, pushy attitude and drastically different priorities comes in and bulldozes their way through the chapter with no regard for peoples’ feelings, focused only on their own agenda.
Been there, done that, got a COUPLE shirts.
1 and 2 lead into a nasty feedback cycle. Which, IMHO, leads to some of the problems alumni have when we leave – because the newer brothers do a bit of “whew, they’re FINALLY gone, so we can do what we want now”. I think if they have better supervision when they’re new (NOT micromanaging) that they get a chance to really understand and respect the brother who came before – which tends to make this less of a problem. They feel trusted by the older brothers, and the older brothers learn to trust that the “new kids” aren’t gonna kill their chapter. I’ve only ever seen it *really* work that way once or twice though…it involves a LOT of preparation and open minds on the active chapter side, when bringing in prospectives.
And then there’s 3. This one hurts a place in my heart that never does seem to heal. When I think about the vision set forth by the founding brothers…and see someone pulling political BS? It makes me want to run screaming, to hide in a country that’s never heard of KKPsi, to give up all hope for the future of the organization. A couple years ago, there was a brother who aired all the political “dirty laundry” – and it made me sick to read it – because those stories should not represent who or what WE are.
I think that good brothers will hold to a chapter somehow and that weaker ones will “weed themselves out” at some point. But how does a chapter figure out who the political ones are, before it’s too late?
Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes August 21, 2007
Posted by Turf Herder in Chapter Issues, Kappa Kappa Psi, List of Reasons, Recruitment.1 comment so far
Balcoholic, when I read your post I was thinking that you were talking about the changes our bands/chapters undergo while we’re still actively involved…?
And I sympathize, I really do. You’ve got a chapter with a certain personality, and then in comes a couple new members with a totally different set of priorities, and next thing you know the chapter is dividing into factions and cliques – and then, because the different people are younger, they stick around longer and recruit people with their priorities, and end up changing the personality of the entire chapter. It’s neither a good nor a bad thing, but for the people who were there when it all started, it can be really hard, sad, and disillusioning.
My mama always told me that everything changes every five years – sometimes seven years, but usually five. It’s hard not to hold onto “the ways things were” or to not believe that the way your generation of people did things was the only right way. There’s no stopping change, particularly in a school setting where the population is going to cycle every 2-5 years. The trick is, as you said, keeping the old magic alive while letting the chapter evolve with its new membership.
I know that there are times when the New is hostile to the Old (or vice versa) and that’s a whole different kettle of fish. Probably a recruitment misstep, as well, although that’s debateable; is it proper to decline membership to someone because you know they’ll cause shattering change in the chapter? But when the New and the Old are playing for the same team, just using different styles, I daresay there’s hope.
Communication and differentiation are going to be key, in my opinion.
The process of change is often hard because we don’t understand it – instead of seeing it as the natural evolution of the chapter, we see it as a personal attack, needless bickering, and other variations on DOOM. If we can sit down as a united group and talk about what’s going on, we can be more supportive of one another and considerate of the impact one person’s progress is having on another person’s tradition. There’s no reason why the Old and the New can’t work together for something greater – and in fact, that’s a large part of the reason behind this website: trying to help new members stand on the shoulders of those who have gone before, so that they reach higher and achieve bigger and greater things.
Differentiation (delegation, pet projects, what-have-you) will help let the Old and New coexist peacefully. It’s good for a chapter if many different people are leading up projects that they’re passionate about, rather than just a few people doing all the work, or people having to do things they hate. If you bring in new members who are really excited about the stage bands, and your older members are much more focused on marching band, that’s not a bad thing – it’s an opportunity to diversify.
In my experience, things only really start to fall apart when one of three things happen:
- The Old violently resists change and makes the New feel unwelcome and thwarted.
- The New disrespects what has been and makes the Old feel defensive.
- Someone with a really bad, pushy attitude and drastically different priorities comes in and bulldozes their way through the chapter with no regard for peoples’ feelings, focused only on their own agenda.
What do you do in those cases? A good sponsor might be able to help intervene… or sometimes, maybe, you just have to ride it out…
Edited to add Reasons to be a Brother:
- Best course in interpersonal relations, communication, and leadership you’ll ever take in college
- Be a part of something bigger than yourself
- Gifts of random underwear
It’s OK When I’m Gone August 21, 2007
Posted by balcoholic in Alumni Affairs, Chapter Issues, Kappa Kappa Psi, List of Reasons, Retention & Attrition.add a comment
I understand what you are saying Jennai Ell and I have to say that really it doesn’t bother me that my chapter changed after I left. Maybe it’s because I haven’t been back to see them but once for a very brief visit and have distanced myself (for other reasons that I’m sure eventually we’ll go into here but not now). Or maybe it’s because I was feeling the drift while I was there and felt it was no longer a part of me before I left. I don’t know.
What I was trying to get at was the rift that was put in my active chapter when we got a group of newbies. We got a group of new members and those members had a different take on things that changed the way we were while we were active. This caused at least 2 members (that I can remember) to go inactive, a few actives to go conditional and a few more to completely disengage in the chapter only coming to meetings to keep their active status until they graduate so they could be considered “alumni.”
Maybe my question is more like: how do we get the experienced actives to understand and be open to change and how can we get the new actives to understand and be open to what exists so as to not cause rifts in the chapter?
Ooof… that’s a tough one.
Here’s one for the why join KKPsi list:
To meet people from other places (and at your own school) that are as passionate as you are for band.
