When I wrote Part 2 a cou­ple of days ago, I was sur­prised at the response I got. I can kinda see new actives being afraid to speak up, since they may not know how things work, but Jane is from West Class… she’s been around for a while now, and I’m sure she has ideas that can help the chapter.

Jane said that she doesn’t feel she can speak out because she doesn’t have a posi­tion and is afraid of offend­ing some­one on ExComm and/​or start­ing drama. She also said that she feels her only course of action is to go to the Pres­i­dent and hope that he will act on her behalf. So I have to ask… what is it that makes the Pres­i­dent approach­able when the other posi­tions aren’t? Was I unap­proach­able when I was SVP? Did you guys feel I did a bad job as SVP and no one let me know?

I think it’s a seri­ous prob­lem and a true shame when broth­ers feel their opin­ions are less valu­able than oth­ers because they don’t hap­pen to hold a posi­tion on ExComm. That would mean that at any point in time for our chap­ter, the major­ity of actives are insignif­i­cant; and that is not true at all. Remem­ber, ExComm offi­cers are not dic­ta­tors. They do not con­trol their pro­grams with an iron fist. They are servant-​leaders; they lead in order to serve their broth­ers in the fra­ter­nity. You should be dic­tat­ing to them! If you feel there’s a bet­ter way to run a pro­gram, you should tell the offi­cer in charge of that pro­gram directly. They may not fol­low your sug­ges­tion, but at the very least they will now know how you feel on the issue. And if enough peo­ple do talk to them about it, maybe they will change their pro­gram. Going through the Pres­i­dent or advi­sors is less effec­tive because it feels like hearsay, the offi­cer doesn’t get as accu­rate a sense of how many peo­ple feel like you, and the offi­cer also doesn’t know how strongly you feel about the issue if you can’t tell him your­self. It gets even more com­pli­cated if there are per­sonal cir­cum­stances involved and the third party you go through doesn’t know every­thing about what’s going on. So please, if any active has an issue with or sug­ges­tion for a pro­gram, tell the offi­cer in charge directly! (Of course, it helps if you phrase it constructively…)

And offi­cers… I know you take pride in your pro­grams, but that doesn’t mean you should turn a blind eye to the chap­ter at large. Like I said before, ExComm exists to serve the will of the actives. All I’m really ask­ing is that when you get a sug­ges­tion or com­ment, don’t instinctly get defen­sive. Just take a sec­ond and think about if this could help your pro­gram and the chap­ter. If it can, great, how can you incor­po­rate it? If not, that’s cool, tell the per­son why you don’t think so, and move on. If you can dis­cuss it ratio­nally, then that per­son won’t be afraid to come back with another sug­ges­tion; and maybe next time, it will be an idea you’ll want to incorporate.

So to get back to Jan’e s rea­son­ing for not speak­ing up… (and this isn’t to pick on Jane; it’s because she hap­pened to voice these feel­ings in response to my post, and I’m assum­ing there are other actives out there who feel the same way…) If the chapter’s con­flicts are resolved quickly and directly, there is no oppor­tu­nity for drama to brew. Only by hold­ing back your ideas do we get the fes­ter­ing that leads to angry con­fronta­tions. If you talk about things before they become major issues, and if you present your case clearly and directly, there should be no rea­son for an offi­cer to get offended.

To close, I have two sug­ges­tions for mak­ing the chap­ter more open. Let me know what you guys think!

First, the eas­ier of the two — every offi­cer should set aside time in their Comm meet­ing for tak­ing ques­tions and sug­ges­tions from drop-​ins; it would be sim­i­lar to “ExComm office hours.” You can talk face-​to-​face, in pub­lic or in pri­vate (by mov­ing to another table in CoHo or out­side or what­ever), and you can eas­ily test the idea by spit­balling it with your Comm mem­bers or ran­dom CoHo folks.

Sec­ond, I think CPPC should be more open. We should hold it in more of a “town meet­ing” style, in a room on cam­pus that will allow more peo­ple to come and par­tic­i­pate. In the past, CPPC can be com­pared to work­ing as a com­mit­tee. You only have ExComm, old ExComm, and a cou­ple of “super” actives present (often in a room so small it dis­cour­ages “reg­u­lar” actives from coming/​staying to talk about their ideas), and we dis­cuss every­thing that will affect the next term. Then we bring our deci­sions to the gen­eral meet­ing and “reg­u­lar” actives either swal­low the pack­age whole, or often get shot down with a “We already dis­cussed this at CPPC” when they make a sug­ges­tion. If we open up CPPC for any­one to come and present their ideas when noth­ing is set in stone yet, they will have the best chance of being worked into our programs.