Conundrum Redux

Most of the following was posted to the blog in 2004. It doesn't appear that much has changed in the past four years.

For a fraternity with so many alumni out there, it seems we are totally depended with just the talent that resides in our past-staff (former RD's and/or HQ staff). Now, in 2008, it is even more obvious when recently reviewing a copy of the current National Committee list. Almost every standing committee is flush with "past staff." Even a majority of the National Board of Directors (and you can’t count the undergrad members) is past staff. It raises some very serious questions: .....

• Diversity. With our operational infrastructure being totally run and governed by past staff, where is the diversity? Certain chapters and regions of the country have traditionally been over-represented when staff members were selected. Do we currently have geographic, regional, or district diversity? How can the interests and regional differences be properly represented if there is not sufficient diversity within the leadership?
  
• Elitism. If only past staffers are deemed capable and competent individuals for positions of leadership, then we are implying that the only competent “leaders for tomorrow” are those who have passed through Richmond on their way to a career. Moreover we are obviously doing a terrible job of: (1) recruiting the best and the brightest campus leaders in our chapters, (2) member development in that we are unable to turn these quality recruits into quality leaders for tomorrow, and (3) educating our alumni volunteers that are not past staffers. This argument folds back on itself when you consider that the staff should excel at helping chapters to do those very things!
  
• Stagnation. By either actively or passively adopting the philosophy of utilizing only our "home schooled" past staff, we have become biased, we have develop tunnel vision, and we have lost the true ability to think outside the box. It is quite evident that anyone who is not past staff that expresses an opinion that goes against the "past staff party line" or calls attention to an obvious frailty is deemed a heretic and will be made a political pariah. The leadership of the Fraternity must be able to take its own inventory. It must be able to listen to different points of view with the idea that great concepts often come from unexpected quarters.
  
• Divine Right. Desire to serve is our greatest asset among our real alumni volunteers - the unsung heroes who really embody the essence of the fraternity experience to our undergraduates. The perception is that past staff members consider the positions of leadership as their divine right and the path to the elitist circles and lots of free trips. If we as an organization are unable to either grow, train, or recruit quality volunteers to serve other than the past staffers, then we have failed miserably.
  
• More about Elitism. In a passive aggressive manner, we have gotten away from the concept of providing opportunities for all members and further expanded our elitism through the Leadership Continuum. The only remaining vestige of global/corporate inclusion is now EDGE. In fact, these, for the most part, are also run by past staff, they continue to perpetrate the inbred concepts referred to earlier.
  

What should be done?This is a question with a two-part answer, and both parts must be addressed if the Fraternity is to continue to serve its stated Cardinal Principles.First, the current Leadership of the Fraternity must develop a strategy and specific goals to recruit and train alumni volunteers who have not served the Fraternity in a professional capacity. The ratio of non-staff alumni to past staff is extremely high, and we are surely missing some great talent. Second, the undergraduate membership must insist on competent leadership and be ready to provide it if called for. Conclave committees must not be a ‘rubber stamp’ but should do their own investigation. Unfortunately, at our gatherings like CLAs and Conclave, the smoke and mirrors propaganda works like cult indoctrination to mystify and wow the delegates and attendees so that any agenda can be easily accomplished. What would happen if all of a sudden our undergraduates said, "we're mad as hell and we're not going to take it any more," and do what one of our "peer" fraternities did at one of their conclaves - purge the board and HQ staff and start all over.......

Not with a bang....

So, now we see what HQ has to say. Not much.

It is really amazing what you can find if you know where to look and who to ask. This did not come directly from a staffer, but I am confident of its authenticity:

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Subject: Re: Bentrim Resignation

All Staff:

Brother Brent Bentrim has resigned from the National Board of Directors and resigned his membership in Sigma Phi Epsilon Fraternity. This is an unfortunate ending to his long involvement in the Fraternity, apparently resulting from personal differences with members of the Fraternity's leadership.

The Bylaws state that the board shall elect a member to serve in an interim basis until the next Conclave, at which the Grand Chapter will elect a member to serve the remaining four years of Brent's term.

Sigma Phi Epsilon has long benefited from strong leadership on a clear mission to continue enhancing the relevance of the American college fraternity as a valued partner in higher education. We have an awful lot of work to do. We carry on.

Please make appropriate changes to membership and Board rosters and distribution lists.

Craig.

As much fun as it has been the last few days to wallow in scandal and speculate on who did what to whom, the facts remain stubbornly resistant to change.

Challenge the status quo and you threaten those whose "quo" is the "status." When threatened, the first response is to defend turf. Leaders are those who can inspire others to overcome their tendency to stay put, not those who insist that "not invented here (by me)" is a valid criticism.

From an undisclosed location, I am Diogenes, and I approved this message.

The Monarchy

Our upper level of leadership is much like a Monarchy. Only the chosen few have true eligibility to be elected to the National Board of Directors. For anyone who was ever nominated or self-nominated to be considered for a vacancy knows very well that the pretense of propriety is there but underlying it is a complex manipulation of political shenanigans that certainly look legitimate on the surface. As far back as I remember, which is well over 30 years it has been in essence the passing of the birthright to a select group of individuals. Let me give you a brief run through of how the process works.

Prior to each Conclave the chosen heirs have already been selected. They are guaranteed an interview and make their debut before the nominations committee early on. Then those individuals who have been nominated or self-nominate by the specified procedure are listed and the nomination committee is counseled by one of the current board members or a past board member who is still in the inner circle who should be interviews from that list, time permitting. Once the interview begin it is a revolving door to the committee chamber by existing board members and their past-board minions to lobby for or against those individuals being interviewed. If the committee cannot be properly coaxed then they are intimidated. If that doesn’t work, then the propaganda force goes into action and the RD and staff are sent out to spread negative and positive comments about the various possible candidates. I personally know of an incident where the RD staff was sent out to slander a potential candidate by telling the Conclave delegates that a certain individual was a racist and a member of the Ku Klux Klan among other slanderous comments about his character and that it wouldn’t be appropriate for him to be elected should his name be put in nomination.

I have also witnessed where the heir apparent was knocked out of his position for Grand President when a former board member who had not been previously tapped played some strange last minute politics with the nomination committee. I
It has been an unwritten rule that alumni nominations are not made from the floor and that the delegates simply affirm what comes from the nomination committee. I do recall one instance where some nominations were made from the floor and the ensuing election was everything but “fraternal.”

One wonders why we as a fraternity spend so much time comparing ourselves to our “peer” competitors when we won’t consider some of the more democratic forms of leadership. In some organizations, members of the board are elected by districts or regional areas to balance the representation on a chapter/manpower basis. Some have a hierarchical system where even a district leader is elected by those chapters in the district. These then may be elected to regional leadership position within a region, and then the national board of directors is either composed of the regional leaders or elected from them. This has been suggested to Sig Ep; however, that would make it an openly democratic process that could not be easily manipulated.

I actually think ours would be an ok system if the politics wasn’t so clandestine and sometimes underhanded. Coupled with our politics is the unwritten concept that no one is really worthy to have a position of leadership unless they had served as an RD or staff person (collectively, past-staff). I haven’t done the tally lately but you may want to check out how many District Governors and members of the Board are past-staff.

"Breaking News" Musings

A recent post made reference to some unrest with the National Board of Directors and the Headquarters Staff. First let me give you an almost three decade perspective of what may have precipitated what has happened.

For as long as I can remember we have had a very unorthodox way in which the fraternity operates. First we have the undergraduate chapters who, in spite of the upper bureaucracy, manage to survive and in many instances thrive. Next we have the Headquarters which manages the day to day operations and is supposed to be a support entity for our chapters. And finally, we have the National Board of Directors which has operated more like a self-perpetuating Monarchy rather than the great democracy they claim to be. While there is supposed to be a symbiotic relationship between the three entites, there continues to be a considerable disconnect.

Having attended staff meetings and NBD meetings among other various "conflabs" where the HQ staff does their dog and pony act, it is quite evident that there is considerable smoke blowing by the staff in giving their reports and in interpreting their data so that they spend more time in trying to remain blameless rather than really present an accurate self-study of what is happening. It's basically an HQ CYA show.

Depending on the alpha dominance among board members at any given time determines in part the agenda du jour that august body chooses to champion at any one time. Over the years we have moved away from the typical academic model of fraternalism to the corporate business model. Perhaps a hybrid could work as we do definitely rotate around the encumbrance of the almighty dollar. Our strategic plan has not varied significantly for almost two decades. It's the same old set of tired powerpoints with just a new background and added slide animation. We have become stagnated in our being at the cutting edge of contemporary fraternalism that will meet the needs of an ever changing student population. The needs of today’s millennial generation is much different from that of the baby boomers and generation X.

We have done no in depth data analysis of that. The same tired harpies still haven't learned from our previous experiences with the demographic and attitude shifts we encountered a decade ago. Another issue facing us is the issue of cultural diversity along with the basic demographic parameters. Current data predicts that in the 2008-2009 academic year we will see one of the greatest increases in college enrollment we have had in over two decades. After that we are on another period of decline in available numbers. The cultural diversity of this population is also changing along with the attitudes and needs of this generation. Denial is not just a river in Egypt.

We continue to set our benchmarks based on the performance of our peer fraternities. One must remember that when people are free to do as they please, they usually imitate each other. And rather than really setting significant benchmarks we only strive to be "better" than our peers. If your peers are mediocre in their vision, when you just barely surpass them you are still mediocre. We as an organization once proffered achievement based on self-evaluation rather than norm comparison.

Our HQ staff has been considered as being unresponsive, non-communicative, and self-preserving. While this is not new, it has truly gotten worse. HQ staff positions are the breeding ground for our inbred bureaucracy and the fact that we had rather self-perpetuate on an almost incestuous level rather than broaden our horizons and let new ideas, organizational, and operational philosophies see the light of day. It is almost like continually watching Wrong Turn or The Hills Have Eyes over and over again. One might say that our way of developing leadership is analagous to the possible offspring of a sexual relationship taken out of Deliverance.

The Sig Ep standard mode of operation is to embark on a idea that is temporal with no long term forecasting or planning. We also generally embark on a project, report its initial success and then forget about it and let it die. We do too much in the now with no objective or evidence-based plan for long term implementation. We are an instant gratification organization.

I plan on commenting more on these talking points in sequel editorials but suffice it to say at this point that you should never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups. I hope I have perked your interest (or your ire) for now and rest assured that I will do my best to further enlighten you on our Monarchy in an upcoming op-ed on avian fornication.

Breaking News - NBD Resignation

We have received word that a member of the SigEp National Board of Directors has resigned.

Brent Bentrim sent his resignation in an email to the board members last Thursday in which he cited his differences with certain policies. The strongly worded email, called "the Buzzard letter" because of certain references, ended with his statement of resignation from the Board. A source who requested to remain anonymous but is acquainted with the facts has confirmed that the board is in the process of accepting the resignation.

Bentrim (College of Charleston '94), was elected to the Board just last year at the Atlanta Conclave.

Our source also confirmed that the process of replacing Bentrim will take place "by the letter" as provided for in the bylaws. Details of the process of acceptance and replacement were not provided because of "possible legal action."

Additional questions about the termination of a key HQ staffer were answered with a comment that the contract runs until later this year and the executive council will make a recommendation to the full board regarding its renewal.

Bentrim's information has already been removed from the fraternity website.

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Editor's Comment: Because of the sensitive nature of the comments in "the Buzzard letter" we have made a decision not to publish it. In our opinion to do so would not be in the best interests of the Fraternity.

HQ Resignation

Chris Minnis, Director of Operations, has resigned from the staff of SigEp HQ. In a letter reporting results of ongoing operations Minnis concluded with:

On a final note, this is my last report to you. After eight years of service and earning an MBA from the University of Richmond, I am leaving my role with the Headquarters staff. The Fraternity has been very good to me over the years, I am thankful for this fact and all the hard work that you, as volunteers and fraternity leaders, have put into making our fraternity successful. There are many more mountains to climb, and I look forward to SigEp's future exploits. I will be taking on a role with Dot Foods, Inc. out of St. Louis serving as District Sales Manager for North and South Carolina. My family and I are very excited for this new chapter in our lives.

Goodbye Chris, and best of luck in your future endeavors. After eight years at HQ it is high time you started earning what you are worth!

(PS: No, this is not what the "teaser" is about.)

Stay tuned...

We don't normally do "teasers" at S&P, but we got some information yesterday that could be very significant relating to the Fraternity leadership.

For the moment, all we can say is that there may be "gaps" (note plural) soon in some of the senior level positions, both voluntary and otherwise(ambiguity intended).

As soon as we can get solid confirmation pro or con we'll post it here.