"Training in Ten" A New Era in Volunteer Training

Starting today, SigEp Headquarters is unveiling a new way to bring effective training to our many volunteers.

You may have seen teasers about following @TrainingInTen on Twitter and wondered what is was about. Well, it is time for the big reveal. Be sure to go to the linked site to see the entire 10-minute introduction.

"Training in Ten" is the HQ brand for a continuing series of twice-monthly 10 minute webinars specifically aimed at all the volunteers who give back so generously to SigEp with their time, expertise, and guidance. The first edition is an introduction to the series and covers the What/Why/How of this new communication channel. The screen capture shows there will be a narrator and slides to present information both with audio and graphically.

Future webinars will address core topics that AVCs face regularly: Mentoring Undergraduates; Cultivating Alumni; Managing Assets; Managing Corporate Health; plus topics on Personal & Professional Growth. There are also opportunities to suggest topics, provide feedback, and let others know what your AVC and chapter are doing well.

"Training in Ten" is available several ways. If you use Twitter follow @TrainingInTen or (and!) @OfficialSigEp. You can also "like" the Official SigEp Facebook page or check with the "Official SigEp Blog" on the headquarters site. S&P will be investigating methods to include a link here as well.

Thanks to HQ, and especially to Archie Messersmith for developing a new way to add value and interest to our volunteers.

Introduction to Training In Ten

FAU Greeks Join Study of Learning Outcomes

FAU Fraternity & Sorority Life Partners with UniLOA to Measure the Student Learning of Members

BOCA RATON, Florida (March 31, 2011) – The Office of Fraternity and Sorority Life at Florida Atlantic University has entered into a partnership with The Center for Measuring Behaviors and Academics at Indiana State University’s Bayh College of Education to provide undergraduate fraternity and sorority members with the University Learning Outcomes Assessment (UniLOA). The UniLOA is an assessment tool which is a nationally recognized indicator of student growth, learning and development (GLD). The assessment results will be used to support evaluation, planning and program development within the FAU fraternity & sorority community.

The assessment, developed by Drs. Mark Frederick and Will Barratt, examines seven areas of a student's life - critical thinking, self-awareness, communication, diversity, citizenship, membership & leadership, and relationships. The UniLOA is unique in that is designed to measure actual behaviors, whereas other assessment tools survey the attitudes, feelings or beliefs of the student. As part of this partnership, the Center for Measuring Behaviors and Academics will provide the Office of Fraternity & Sorority Life with a comprehensive community and individual chapter reports that speak to the impact.

“Working with the UniLOA allows us to take an in-depth look at the impact that the fraternity and sorority experience is having on the learning and development of our students. I’m looking forward to analyzing the results and using them to enhance the experience here at FAU” said Ryan O’Rourke, Coordinator of Fraternity & Sorority Life.

The Office of Fraternity & Sorority Life at Florida Atlantic University hopes to continue to participate in the UniLOA for the next several years with the expectation that it will gain greater insight into the connection between student learning and the undergraduate fraternal experience.

According to Mark Frederick, results from the UniLOA indicate that nationwide, members of fraternities and sororities not only perform at a level higher than non-affiliated students, their overall rate of growth, learning, and development during the college years exceeds that of non-affiliated students as well. To its credit, Florida Atlantic University is committed to employing UniLOA findings to further develop supports, services, interventions, and programs aimed at triggering even higher levels of GLD in its Greek population. That forward-thinking approach should serve as a model for other colleges and institutions across the nation.

The Office of Fraternity & Sorority Life at Florida Atlantic University strives to empower fraternity men and sorority women to live their organizations’ founding principles in the context of today’s world by providing students with the knowledge and opportunities to live principled lives. To find out more about FAU Fraternity & Sorority Life, please visit http://www.fau.edu/fslife. More information on the University Learning Outcomes Assessment (UniLOA) can be found at http://www.measuringbehaviors.com.

- FAU –

About Florida Atlantic University:

Florida Atlantic University, established in 1961, officially opened its doors in 1964 as the fifth public university in Florida. In commemoration of its origin, FAU is celebrating its 50^th anniversary throughout 2011. Today, the University serves more than 28,000 undergraduate and graduate students on seven campuses and sites. FAU’s world-class teaching and research faculty serves students through 10 colleges: the Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts & Letters, the College of Business, the College for Design and Social Inquiry, the College of Education, the College of Engineering & Computer Science, the Graduate College, the Harriet L. Wilkes Honors College, the Charles E. Schmidt College of Medicine, the Christine E. Lynn College of Nursing and the Charles E. Schmidt College of Science. FAU is ranked as a High Research Activity institution by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. For more information, visit www.fau.edu.

Learning doesn't stop at 22. (Scripting News)

Dave Winer is one of the first, if not the very first, bloggers. He also is one of the inventors, if not THE inventor, of podcasting. In addition to his technical chops he often has interesting stuff to say on any number of subjects. In this article he touches on something that every chapter volunteer (not to mention every parent) has experienced. No matter what age you are, you think you know all you need to. He writes about a conference he attended at age 44...

Picture this. A group of about 20 people seated on the floor in a circle. A young man, opposite me, says directly to me, "I know as much as you do." It's part of a discussion about the differences between people of varying ages. According to the younger folk, they have everything we have, and of course their bodies are younger, and stronger. We older folk are nothing but older. This was the point the young man was trying to make.
[...]
I asked him a question.

"Do you know more now than when you were 12?" (I picked an age before puberty, when he lived with his parents. Before he had a beard. Back when college would seem as vague as high school, when he would have had no sense of his future life independent of his family.)

"No comparison! I didn't know shit when I was 12."

"Do you think learning stops at 22?"
[...]
People of all ages should keep their minds open. It might surprise some young people to learn that this advice applies to them as much as it does to older people.

Good advice for students, and for volunteers. There is more at the link.

Learning doesn't stop at 22. (Scripting News)

Large universities changing freshman experience

What an odd concept. It seems that large classes and unconnected peers makes for a hard time starting college.

Large universities changing freshman experience - Yahoo! News: "Overwhelmed freshmen in many places still sit anonymously in large lecture halls, surrounded by hundreds of peers whose names the professor couldn't possibly remember. Dorm life isn't much better, with total-stranger roommates sharing little other than a desire to survive those first rocky semesters.

It sounds like the kind of thing that fraternities and sororities are designed to overcome. The schools are trying to move into this space too.

But such cattle-call approaches to higher education are increasingly out of fashion. At the University of Missouri and many other schools, from large public universities to selective liberal arts colleges, first-year students increasingly live and learn in small groups with those who share similar interests[...]"

Yeah, it is such a good idea that the colleges themselves are making competition for the experience typically provided by Greeks.

Nearly one-third of Missouri's 5,620 first-year students participate in freshmen interest groups, or FIGs. They share rooms with each other, or entire sections of residential housing. They take four courses together, making the oversized auditoriums "psychologically smaller," as one university official says.

And they meet in small groups with a peer adviser who helps them navigate the school bureaucracy while offering tips on time management, and how to speak with professors.

"It's an immediate connection," said Matt Hibbard, a junior peer adviser and former interest group participant. "You build really strong relationships right off the bat."

These so-called living/learning communities, as well as first-year seminars that don't include a residential component, are not new. But as enrollment at many schools continues to increase, so does the popularity of such programs.

The first-year residential program at Missouri has grown from 21 interest groups in 1995 to 110 in the current school year, with nearly 1,900 participants. FIG participants have higher grade-point averages and graduation rates, school statistics show.

Doesn't "living/learning community" sound similar to the concept behind RLCs? It makes me wonder if there is a challenge/opportunity on the horizon for the entire Greek system. What would happen if the "FIGs" expanded to be a four-year experience? Could we compete? Is there room enough for two different ways of approaching the problem of helping new students to acclimate themselves? We shall see, I suppose.