As members of the Board of Directors continue to support and invest in implementing the ‘Forward to 50’ Strategic Plan, I am focusing on the Association’s partnerships and collaborators. This includes having a better understanding of which higher education associations, umbrella groups, regional conferences, and research companies (etc.) we have relationships with, how they’re defined, and how those partnerships might be improved. While I engage in this work, I want to encourage those in our industry to do similar assessments, audits, and reviews with their office, organization, or community.
Relationships and collaboration are vital to our work and can only enhance the impact we have as professionals within our sorority/fraternity organizations and campus communities. Remaining in silos or leaning on familiar partners can feel like the comfortable thing to do, but getting out of our comfort zones to forge new partnerships or broaching awkward conversations where partnerships have stalled can be fruitful.
Embarking on a new semester is an invitation to do the following:
Examine how you engage in partnerships and relationships on your campus or as a headquarters staff member.
Ask yourself where you have connections only utilized in times of crisis, and see if there’s a way to develop a more constant partnership to get to know each other’s roles better, which can benefit everyone involved when a crisis does arise.
Define relationships with campus partners, offices across campus, or headquarters counterparts, and be proactive about relationships that have become stagnant or have a history of tension.
Many times, when we’re a new employee or have a new colleague arrive, culture dictates which offices we should work with and with which offices we have no relationship. This plays out between both campuses and headquarters and chapters on our campuses. Be the professional who questions cultural norms or organizational history head-on. Have the uncomfortable conversation, ask about the history you have been told about but think is silly to uphold, and challenge the status quo to invest in collaborations that can help you innovate in your role. We do not have to be trapped in stagnation or complicity passed down from previous administrators or staff members.
Gain a better sense of what others are doing and how it overlaps with the functions in your area
Whether between offices on the same campus or between a campus-based office and headquarters staff, you will inevitably find areas where our work is duplicative rather than additive or supplemental. I encourage you to identify a few of these relationships, get familiar with the programming or guidance being offered, and work together to design and strengthen collaborative initiatives. Prioritize building partnerships that amplify overlapping initiatives benefitting the FSL community and the campus community broadly, including prevention efforts, health and safety programming, and campus traditions.
Empower students to identify opportunities to collaborate on programming or work toward building relationships across sorority/fraternity councils or with student organizations outside of FSL in your community.
I have worked with many campuses where organizations (sometimes in the same council) don’t realize they are hosting similar events on campus or raising money for the same organization. In a climate where budgets and resources may be limited, it is a relief when students are able to pool those resources and work together toward a common goal. Sometimes there’s pushback based on not having good relationships with other organizations, wanting to compete with other groups, or feeling like they need to execute programs individually to meet accreditation requirements. This is where building relationships before leveraging them for collaboration plays a huge role. Partnerships within the FSL community or with organizations on campus should not simply be transactional, they should come out of intentional and meaningful relationship-building to elevate the community. Our students and members are generally involved in numerous activities and wear multiple hats on campus, but they’re not always encouraged to consider how their experiences integrate. Let’s model for them and enable them to work smarter and not harder.
Our effectiveness can only improve as we make it a practice to regularly assess the ways we work with one another throughout our industry and on our campuses at every level. As a board member, I am helping our Association evaluate our partnerships for effectiveness and elevate our collaborative initiatives. I hope as you move (fast and furiously) toward a new academic year, you will also take a few moments to evaluate how you can be a valuable collaborator and invite others to create new and dynamic partnerships.
