Traveling the Good Old US of A: Oklahoma City

Most days of being an Alpha Delta Pi Leadership Consultant are filled with meetings, workshops, and excessive trips to Wal-Mart, but occasionally I do get to see a bit of the cities I am visiting.

When I was at the University of Central Oklahoma I was lucky enough to have some Theta Xi sisters willing to show me around town. I went on a campus tour, ate at some delicious restaurants, and had the opportunity to see the Oklahoma City Bombing National Memorial & Museum.

Campus Tour

Fun Fact #1: University of Central Oklahoma’s campus is on track to be considered a botanical garden! The campus is covered with many different kinds of plants and flowers, and although I had no idea what everything was, it was pretty cool seeing some cacti on campus!

Fun Fact #2: The clock tower [right hand side of the picture] is the oldest sandstone building in Oklahoma.

Fun Fact #3: UCO has 5 outdoors classrooms! Some professors take their students outside to sit amphitheater style and learn! [Bottom middle of the picture.]

Eating My Way Through Oklahoma

I must say I have been pretty spoiled with delicious restaurant options growing up in New York City and living in Miami. So it came as a surprise to me – no offense, Oklahoma – that Oklahoma has some really great restaurants! I went to a ton of places, but my two favorites were Pops and S&B’s Burger Joint.

Pops is famous for having hundreds of different kinds of soda (yes, I am from the Northeast and do say “soda”) and for their huge soda bottle outside! Some flavors were cookie dough, maple smoked bacon, and “Barack O’Berry.”

 

S&B’s Burger Joint was amazing. Before I dive into describing the deliciousness, on the top left of this picture is a strange – but intentional – picture of ice. All of the Oklahoma restaurants I went to had tiny circles of ice instead of big cubes or chips. As an avid ice-chewer – sorry, dentist – this was awesome. Anyway, so at S&B’s we ordered Thanksgiving Fries – sweet potato fries with melted marshmallow and craisins! I will definitely attempt to make these this Thanksgiving. For my burger, I had the Elvis Burger. It appears to be a normal burger – beef patty, cheese, bacon, tomato, lettuce, bun – but the sauce on the burger was… melted peanut butter! It sounds weird and I was hesitant to order, but I figured why not?! It was definitely a good choice, and if I’m ever in Oklahoma again, I can’t wait to try their other crazy burgers. 

Always Remember

On a more serious note, I visited the Oklahoma City bombing memorial and toured the museum during my visit. On April 19, 1995 at 9:02AM, 4000 pounds of explosives sitting in a truck right outside the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building was detonated. As a result, 14 buildings were taken down and 168 people died. It was later discovered that Timothy McVeigh was behind the attack (read more here).

The memorial and the museum are a beautiful tribute to those who lost their lives that day.

Some memorial features include a reflecting pool, the Field of Empty Chairs (pictured below), and the Survivor Tree. The chairs represent the people that died and the height of the chair represents whether or not the deceased is an adult or a child. The Survivor Tree is a tree on the north side of the Memorial that survived the blast and continues to thrive.

This picture tells a sliver of Miss Baylee Almon’s story. Baylee celebrated her first birthday the day before the bombing. She was at the America’s Kids Day Care Center when the bomb went off.

The museum is set up to take the attendees through the events that day and the immediate aftermath. First, you go through a room about history of the Murrah Building. Then you sit in a room and listen to an actual recording of a hearing taking place on April 19th at 9AM. Two minutes later, at 9:02, you hear the explosion and the reaction of the people in the room. The doors open to your right, you walk through the rest of the museum and experience a taste of the aftermath. You see damaged personal items from the day of, read about survivors and family members of the deceased, and watch old news footage from around the world. 

The museum is carefully designed for each attendee to feel a part of the tragedy that happened on April 19^th. As you exit the museum, a wall reads, 

“May those who leave here know the impact of violence.”

I am thankful for having the opportunity to see the museum and learn more about the Oklahoma City Bombing. It is important for all of us to remember those lost due to terrorism on more days than just anniversaries and to make strides to understand the impact of violence.

Thank You

Thank you, Oklahoma City & Theta Xi sisters, for a wonderful visit. I hope to see you again! 

People Don't Take Trips, Trips Take People

Here are the places I have traveled and will travel to during the month of October! If you know of any fun things to do around Beaumont, TX; Starkville, MS; Memphis, TN; Knoxville, TN comment here! 

Also, if there are any past ADPi Leadership Consultants or current IFC/Panhellenic Consultants in the area I'd love to get together :) 

As John Steinbeck once said, "people don't take trips, trips take people." It has been a great few weeks of traveling and I can't wait to see what's in store at these Universities! 

Tales of Tulane: Part 2 - Bid Day

Welcome Home, Alphas, to Alpha Delta Pi at Tulane University! I could not be more happy to have such an amazing founding class and I cannot wait to see what this year will bring for these new members. To celebrate our new members we went to City Park to eat some food and get to know each other.

It ended up being a fun afternoon considering it was a whirlwind putting it together. Buses were late, the food wasn't ready at Wal Mart [even though I called in the morning to confirm], I dropped a vegetable tray [which they kindly replaced in under 5 minutes], and some racoons ate our turkey wraps. If I have learned anything so far this year it is to roll with the punches.

Until I leave for the University of Memphis, I will be helping the Lead Consultant here plan weekly Colony meetings and Colony Retreat. Colony meetings are more involved than regular chapter meetings because the colony has to go through new member education, learn about chapter operations, work in committees before officer elections, and prepare for formal recruitment in January all at the same time.

Being in a sorority is a lot of fun, but there is certainly lots of work to be done regarding marketing, recruitment, fundraising, building Panhellenic and Inter-Fraternity Council relations, and working on internal chapter relations - also known as sisterhood!

Tales of Tulane: Part 1

I arrived in New Orleans Sunday afternoon and hit the ground running! Alpha Delta Pi is recolonizing their Epsilon chapter at Tulane and I could not be more excited to be a part of the colony process. Our Alpha, Beta, and Gamma chapters are not currently active, so the Epsilon chapter will be the 2nd oldest active chapter - right after Delta Chapter at the University of Texas, Austin.

This week will be full of marketing tasks - tabling on campus, making announcements at fraternity and sorority chapters, hosting Q&A sessions, and scheduling coffee dates with potential new members![Thank you to the members of Sigma Chi, Zeta Psi, FIJI, and AEPhi for inviting us to speak at their chapters!]

Our colony recruitment starts on Sunday, September 8th with an information session and continues on the 9th, 10th and 11th with "Tell Us About You" sessions, which are essentially interviews. On the 10th we will also organize a philanthropy night so potential new members can learn about Ronald McDonald House Charities!

Then before you know it Alpha Delta Pi will welcome home our colony members at Bid Day on Thursday, September 12th!!!

I would really appreciate it if you could follow Tulane ADPi on our various social media accounts and spread the word about ADPi coming home to Tulane! I spent some time chalking the sidewalks on campus tonight with some info on ADPi (fingers crossed it doesn't rain tomorrow!) so look out for pictures of my kind of/sort of/not really beautiful chalking!

Twitter: @TulaneADPi
Instagram: @TulaneADPi
Facebook: www.facebook.com/TulaneADPi

BOOM BOOM I WANNA GO A-D-PI!

My first visit to the University of Central Oklahoma was packed with recruitment workshops, officer meetings, and three long days of recruiting a new Alpha class. I met with over 18 officers, spent over 48 hours in 5 days perfecting Theta Xi’s recruitment skills, and ran around the Theta Xi house for 40 hours in 3 days making sure formal recruitment went off without a hitch. Theta Xi was colonized on November 17, 2012, so this was their first formal recruitment ever!

Recruitment at UCO is divided into three days: Open House, Skit Day, and Preference Night. Each sorority met over 250 potential new members (PNMs) on Open House, and through a mutual selection process both sides narrowed down their selections until a new member class was formed on Bid Day. Open House started at 8:30AM (although members arrived to prepare at 7AM) and ended at 7:30PM. It was broken up into 40 minutes rounds back to back with 20 minutes to prepare for the next party and a one-hour lunch break. The work didn’t stop at 7:30, however. Decorations needed to be taken down, new decorations were put up, and chapter members learned an entirely new agenda and set up for Skit Day.

Skit Stage for "ADPi-Airlines"

Some chapter members on the left
Formal Recruitment Chair, Maria, and I on the right!

The women of Theta Xi caught on quickly for their first recruitment. Preference Night, however, is structured differently as to which PNMs each sister speaks to, so sorting out the logistics of this night was a daunting task. Breaks between rounds were still 20 minutes, but there was double the amount of work to be done between rounds. I am forever grateful for Theta Xi’s undivided attention during Preference Night. In those 20 minute breaks I was no fun and all work – one chapter member even referred to me as a “drill sergeant.” I laughed when she said this, of course, because (a) it was true and (b) it was followed by a thank you for my hard work the past two weeks.

Members, advisors, alumnae, and International Officers put a ton of work into those three days, and it certainly paid off with 53 new Alphas! Quota for each sorority was 41, and Alpha Delta Pi met quota with 12 quota additions! They doubled their chapter size and are now 11 new members away from meeting Panhellenic Total! [Note: Theta Xi held a Continuous Open Recruitment event two days after Bid Day and extended some bids the next day, so they are even closer to Total! Total will be reevaluated in a couple weeks and may be lowered slightly from 111 – making Theta Xi even closer.]

I am so proud of Theta Xi and I know they will continue to grow and become strong leaders, sisters, and women. I also want to take a second to thank all of the alumnae and advisors that gave up their free time outside of work and helped immensely during formal recruitment, including [but not limited to!] Barb, Kristyn, Meredith, Amy T, Amy C, Jamie, Ms. Doe, Ms. Broshears, and Ms. Wiesner! Theta Xi is blessed to have you in their lives. Miss you already, Oklahoma!

Fall 2013 Alpha Class! Welcome Home!

Setting Goals

I've been having a lot of fun getting to know the ADPi women at the University of Central Oklahoma, but my days have been jam packed with recruitment practice and team building activities. After my visit I'll share some things on my blog about Oklahoma, but for now below are some of my goals for the year!

The Leadership Consultants had dinner with International President Ms. Tammie Pinkston last Tuesday, and as if I could be any more excited about my job, I left the dinner even more energized to begin my year as LC. Ms. Pinkston has accomplished a lot so far in her life and is such a strong leader that I tried to soak up everything she was saying at dinner.

Some of her words of wisdom really stuck with me and they inspired me to make a list of things I hope to learn and improve upon on the road.

The first is learning to prioritize. I am very passionate about the responsibilities I take on in my life – whether or not that means being Philanthropy Chair for Gamma Delta, being a good role model for my younger siblings, or being an LC. I often feel that every objective is important and cannot be sacrificed, when it reality some things are beyond our scope of reach at that moment. This is not to say that I should underachieve or even settle for accomplishing only what is required of me. However, I should be realistic as to what can be accomplished. During my year as LC I hope to learn not only how to utilize the International Officers to set priorities at each campus, but how to better asses those situations myself and be most efficient and effective in promoting positive growth and empowering female leaders.

My second goal is to learn as much as I can about the people I am meeting and the places I am visiting. Being a Leadership Consultant is truly a unique experience. We are frequently on a new campus, working with a different set of International Officers in each district, and meeting collegians from all around the country. The experience is different for those of us working more closely with colonies (soon to be new chapters of Alpha Delta Pi), but it is just as dynamic. We are simultaneously learning about City culture, University culture, and Greek life while serving as all 26 ADPi officer positions until we are able to establish a foundation for colony members to fulfill those roles.

Thirdly, it is one of my goals on the road to convey the importance of philanthropic service to each chapter I meet. Not only do fraternity/sorority organizations across the country foster leadership, loyalty, and dedication, but they also do an exemplary job in giving back to their communities. Greek organizations are committed to raising money for their national philanthropies and the philanthropies of the other organizations on their campus. They also create extensive scholarship programs for their collegians and provide educational opportunities for their members.

Last, but certainly not least, I hope to come out of my year as a Jack of All Trades. I will be consulting at various chapters with the President, Recruitment Vice President, Executive Vice President, Finanice Vice President, Director of Standards & Ethics, Director of Social Enrichment, Panhellenic Delegate, and numerous other officers and members. I will be an event planner. A confidant. A presenter. A fundraiser. A moderator. My knowledge of organizational behavior, finance, marketing, public relations, and conflict resolution will undoubtedly increase, and I hope to take advantage of each opportunity I have to learn something new!

. . . Now for some exciting news . . . I will be at the University of Memphis & Tulane University for the  month of September! 

Training Snapshots

The 2013-2014 Leadership Consultants have been at Executive Office in Atlanta, GA for two weeks now. It is surreal actually living in Executive Office after touring our headquarters for the first time in February 2012.

Me (middle row 2nd from the left) with some of my Gamma Delta sisters! 
February 2012

2013-2014 LC's - I am 5th from the left
July 2013

Seven of us are staying in the Bunk Room, which feels just like being at summer camp except we train from 9AM to 9PM instead of kayaking in a lake and eating s’mores.

                               

We have already covered a ton of information to prepare us our travels: finance training, National Panhellenic Council Release Figure Method, standards appeals process, recruitment and marketing, total membership education, Alpha Delta Pi Foundation, philanthropy training, parliamentary procedure, and District Team Director training. To help us keep track of everything we’re learning we received an awesome new iPad! To make things even more official I now have my first business nametag and business cards!

The Consultants are hard at work, but we do have some down time to explore Atlanta. We have two huge mini vans – super hip, I know – that we affectionately named the “Swaggin’ Wagon” and “Stow ‘n Go.”  

Me driving the Stow 'n Go to dinner!

Last Tuesday we hopped in the minivans and drove over to Macon, GA to learn about the founding of Alpha Delta Pi at Wesleyan College. Wesleyan College was the first college to grant women degrees and Alpha Delta Pi - then known as the Adelphean Society - was the first ever secret society for women. It is a privilege to be a small part of such a rich history!

In the Alpha Delta Pi Fountain at Wesleyan College!

On Thursday, to celebrate Logan and Morgan’s birthday, we went to the Atlanta Braves game against the Colorado Rockies :)

Turner Field

There are still a few days of training left, but I can’t wait to get to Oklahoma and meet the women at Theta Xi!