Part 2: Relationships

I really loved this chapter, it's something I think we could all learn from. There was a statement that really stood out to me. "Trust is valuing other people such that you respect their opinions and perspectives. You listen to them. Trust means moving outside your comfort zone and letting go of always doing it your way or even the way that "it's always been done before" (pg 74). The first sentence I really like because that's what I think when I think about trust, valuing others and respecting what they think and feel. However, I think that a lot of people regarding the third sentence is where there is difficulty in Greek Life with trust, not just with Active members, but even more so with Alumni. I know from past experience and talking to some of our more recent Alumni whenever I or they have tried to make a change to something we have always received extreme opposition from the Alumni. The reason behind the Alumni not wanting change is because it has been a tradition or "it's always been done before". While I am not for taking away from traditions that made the Fraternity into what it truly stands for, I am always looking to make sure that what we are doing represents who we are today. I think many organizations have a hard time doing this because of the way things have "always been done". I never think an organization should take away from something if it does follow the core values of what their organization stands for (and as long as it's safe), but rather look into anything that doesn't exactly match up with those values and at least question what is being done and if it's something that can be improved upon to stand for the ideals that the organization is really about.

One of our Alumni Jen put it best when she was encouraging me to continue trying to make changes when she said that what we do now does not change what the Alumni remember from the time they spent as Active members of our chapter, but when we change something for the right reasons it should be in order to reflect who we are now, and what our organization has always stood for. The Alumni have over time chosen the people to continue on the chapter and those people have chosen us and therefore they should trust us because we all are extensions of the decisions they made. The alumni should trust us to love our chapters like they do and just want the right thing for them.