WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.928 Well, one of the activities I got involved in early on 2 00:00:02.928 --> 00:00:06.798 was I was part of the founding group of a fraternity here, 3 00:00:06.798 --> 00:00:08.918 Phi Delta Theta fraternity, 4 00:00:08.918 --> 00:00:12.766 so that took a lot of our time. We were creating from scratch 5 00:00:12.766 --> 00:00:15.822 a chapter of a fraternity and part of the reason for that was 6 00:00:15.822 --> 00:00:20.426 there were already nearly two dozen fraternities on campus 7 00:00:20.426 --> 00:00:23.656 but a lot of students who were involved in student leadership in one fashion or another, 8 00:00:23.656 --> 00:00:28.786 who knew each other, a lot of us were friends anyway or at least acquaintances, 9 00:00:28.786 --> 00:00:33.326 wanted to start something that was new, that would be unique to us. 10 00:00:33.326 --> 00:00:37.315 One of the advantages of joining an existing fraternity is it's already in place; 11 00:00:37.315 --> 00:00:42.593 one of the disadvantages is you inherit whatever baggage or reputation, for ill or for good, 12 00:00:42.593 --> 00:00:45.100 that it may have, and we wanted to really do our own thing. 13 00:00:45.100 --> 00:00:50.404 It was a great experience. I think doing things like that really help you in your professional life later, 14 00:00:50.404 --> 00:00:53.024 which you don't think about at the time, 15 00:00:53.024 --> 00:00:58.619 but you have to organize a lot of the business side of an organization 16 00:00:58.619 --> 00:01:03.343 if it's not already in place. You're creating the by-laws, you're establishing the rules of the road, 17 00:01:03.343 --> 00:01:08.685 you're establishing recruitment policies and procedures, you're establishing eligibility for membership, 18 00:01:08.685 --> 00:01:13.972 you're helping set standards on what kind of people you're looking to bring in 19 00:01:13.972 --> 00:01:15.689 and how broad or how limited that's going to be. 20 00:01:15.689 --> 00:01:21.268 You are trying to build out a reputation for being strong not just in one area, like academics or sports, 21 00:01:21.268 --> 00:01:24.236 but to be really strong across the board, 22 00:01:24.236 --> 00:01:30.288 and we were able to do that very early on, so we won a lot of awards and campus recognition in the early days, 23 00:01:30.288 --> 00:01:35.574 sort of set the standard for ourselves and an expectation, and it was compelling 24 00:01:35.574 --> 00:01:40.086 to have the opportunity to do it and see the fruits of our labor pretty quickly. 25 00:01:40.086 --> 00:01:47.850 So I'd say the last thing on that is you learn very quickly that you can't be irresponsible for long 26 00:01:47.850 --> 00:01:51.064 because if you are you're letting down an entire group of people. 27 00:01:51.064 --> 00:01:55.261 If you have a job to do and you don't if affects others, 28 00:01:55.261 --> 00:01:58.680 sometimes financially, sometimes in terms of their calendar, 29 00:01:58.680 --> 00:02:02.404 sometimes in terms of their just general expectations of what they think is going to happen, 30 00:02:02.404 --> 00:02:08.694 and it doesn't take too often of making the mistake of falling down on the job 31 00:02:08.694 --> 00:02:14.183 to quickly learn that even at a young age being responsible, being reliable, 32 00:02:14.183 --> 00:02:20.278 following through on details and so on, is very important and those are terrific lessons in general.