The Brothers

(to follow The Bay St. Louis Blues)

When it comes to my music experience during my junior year in college, my performing actually took a backseat to my leadership work and my life as president of my fraternity chapter.

My fraternity, Kappa Kappa Psi, is a national fraternity that focuses primarily on service to college bands. When I joined the brotherhood, I thought it would be a cool way to synthesize my musicianship with my desire to do service. Still, I wasn't very enthusiastic at first. I thought it would be a good way to meet people, but I didn't see myself becoming too involved.

And so, of course, I soon found myself running for president. Some of my friends and former leaders in the fraternity urged me to do it, partially because they thought I would do a good job, and partially because there didn't seem to be anyone else willing to step up. Whatever the reason, I reluctantly ran for the job, and won.

Clearly, I went into this position with the wrong attitude. Not only was my heart not completely in it, but I think I felt like I could do no wrong since some of my friends had practically begged me to run. I didn't seem to recognize the fact that I could make any bad decisions. I thought my brothers should just be happy to have me as an officer.

It didn't take long for me to learn my lesson. Some of my fellow officers questioned my opinions on our projects. At first, I simply disregarded them. After they persisted, I began to resent them for rejecting my ideas of what was best. In reality, I was a little intimidated, and I was in denial of my own shortcomings. Sure, a lot of their concerns and arguments were petty, but after a while I realized that there was some truth in their opinions.

I kept this in mind, trying to humble myself and change my attitude. Instead, I focused on improving myself as a leader rather than assuming I was already good at my job. And sure enough, I saw that my former mentality was actually common throughout my chapter. For years, our Kappa Kappa Psi chapter at Michigan had been one of the stronger and leading chapters in the midwest, but we were also complacent, and never really tried to find ways to make ourselves better. Why hadn't we won the Governors' Cup in years? Why didn't we get more awards and recognition? Complacency. THAT was our problem.

For the rest of the year, I tried to inspire a new attitude within the chapter to combat this attitude. We all tried to spearhead new and innovative projects, like a Band Directors' convention, and a high school Mentorship Program.

When March rolled around, it was once again time for the Kappa Kappa Psi North Central District Convention. This was an annual event where brothers across the midwest could attend workshops and bid for awards and honors. Once again, we were bidding for the Governors' Cup. Typically, this would involve a presentation to the Governors' and District Officers describing how great we are. However, this year we took a different approach. We described our issues with complacency, and discussed what we were doing to purge the attitude from our chapter. Additionally, as president, I was required to attend several Governors' summits, during which I had to share my thoughts on the fraternity with chapter presidents and national officers, and I was constantly being judged on what I was saying. It was an intimidating and stimulating experience.

Good thing we don't have any height requirements.

The final night of the convention consisted of the Awards Banquet. I was nervous throughout dinner. The Governors' Cup wasn't important to me because of the name and the prestige. Rather, it was important because I wanted my fellow brothers to have something to be proud of - something that would legitimize their efforts to change the way they looked at the fraternity.

It was the last award announced. The anxiety was building until they finally made the annoucement. "The 2007 Governors' Cup goes to...The Nu Chapter of The University of Michigan."

I walked to the front of the hall to pick up the award, applause all around. When I returned to the table, I saw the faces of my brothers glowing with pride and excitement. At that moment, I felt honored to lead such an amazing group of hard-working students.

They each touched the award and took photos with it. I think they all had similar thoughts when they saw the Cup up close. I mean, it wasn't really the nicest trophy. It was just...a thing. We all knew that the trophy itself didn't matter as much as what it represented. Our fraternity had changed a lot over the past year. We began to realize what "brotherhood" actually signified. Now, we were constantly growing and striving, and we knew we could always rely on each other for care and support.

And I guess the Governors' Cup itself was pretty cool to look at. Though, we would never dream of possibly using it to serve drinks, of course. Tra la la la. ;-)

The Bros.