MEINIG FAMILY CORNELL NATIONAL SCHOLARS
EXCELLENCE IN LEADERSHIP AWARD
Lila Ontiveros
Industrial & Labor Relations '06
The Omicron Upsilon Chapter of Alpha Kappa Psi Professional Co-Ed Business Fraternity (AKPsi) has drastically changed immensely since I joined the organization as a freshman, and I have done my part to ensure these changes. The summer after my freshman year, I attended the National Convention in Chicago after being a pledge for an entire semester. In one week I was able to talk to Presidents from chapters around the US, Canada and Great Britain and explain to the how to run a successful recruitment - although I had not experienced rush from the brother's side yet. At the final awards ceremony, I was shocked and appalled to see those chapters that I had previously given advice to taking home award after award, which infuriated me. This experience made me realize the caliber of students that existed at Cornell, and additional opportunities that our chapter was not capitalizing on, basically because we did not have anyone advising us or pushing us to new heights. The National Convention in 2003 was our fraternity's centennial anniversary - which inspired everyone in attendance - but lit a fire in my belly to win nationals and earn the title "the best chapter."
When I joined AKPsi people would ask, "What do you do in AKPsi?". This question, although simple, was somewhat difficult to answer. We had rush, we went through all of the evaluation processes to admit our pledges, then we did it all over again the following semester. It was difficult to find our core competence and what value we added to the Cornell community and our brotherhood. We were a "business fraternity" and our executive board decided that we needed to run more like a business. We asked ourselves - What are our brothers' needs and wants? What can we offer? Who is our target market? What marketing strategy will we implement for recruitment? - and due to the dedication, intellect, and creativity of our brotherhood, this year was the most influential year in our chapter's seven year history.
In prior years, we were experiencing extreme attendance problems not only at chapter, but even less brothers attended the few events we were holding. The great thing about AKPsi is that everyone is a leader in some capacity outside of AKPsi, however extremely hectic schedules makes it difficult to find a time that everyone can meet. Therefore myself, and my executive board colleagues, made a lot of simple changes, such as changing the time and place to accommodate our brothers who are varsity athletes and various other leaders who have a jam-packed schedule. We also implemented an attendance policy, and formed a judicial board to address those who are not attending chapter and other professional events. Currently we are enjoying over 80% attendance at chapter meetings and other events. I attribute this great attendance not only to the change in policy but more importantly the improvement in morale and relationships within the brotherhood. People come to events not because they have to, but because they want to. Our biggest challenge this year has been overcoming the animosity that non-Greek brothers had towards the brothers active in social fraternities or sororities. Initially this caused a huge rift in the organization, especially because there were many leaders of fraternities and sororities within the AKPsi, yet we addressed the problem head on and supplemented exercises to enable the brothers to get to know each other better, which has improved morale and built trust amongst the brotherhood, and therefore solidified brothers' commitment to AKPsi despite their Greek affiliation.
One of the highlights of this year was our recruitment process. Due to our marketing strategy, which involved every single brother, in conjunction with our ever improving well-known image, we showed up to our first day of rush in Warren B45 to the amazement of 175 students present to rush our business fraternity. Although there were only 45 of us to meet these students and evaluate their ability to fit into, add to, and grow from AKPsi, we met this challenge, stayed true to our chapter's mission of finding the best, and gave out ten bids to fabulous kids who will become full brothers this Saturday. Philanthropically, our last two pledge classes have blown my pledge class' fundraising ability out of the water. In the fall, the pledge class sold ribbons at the first Cornell home football game for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society and made over $600 in a few hours. The spring pledge class rose over $1400 over the course of a six weeks for the American Cancer Society, in entrepreneurial ventures such as selling hot chocolate outside Bartels Hall while students waited for the John Stewart Show. The people who gravitate to business typically have an interest in making money, and the great thing about the brothers in AKPsi is that they have an interest in making money for a good cause. Previously there has been a period known as the NIB (newly initiated brother) period, where these new brothers struggled to find their place and role in the fraternity. To eradicate the NIB period, this past year I have sat down with every single pledge and helped them come up with not only defining his/her role but finding something that s/he is passionate about and can add to the fraternity. Like any company, we want people who can add value to the organization. These meetings have seemed to work amazingly well, and NIBs contribute freely in chapter, take on leadership roles earlier, and are more comfortable interacting with the rest of the brotherhood almost instantaneously after the pledge process. In the words of West Wing's President Bartlett, "What's next?." Omicron Upsilon chapter is in a position to expand. For years our organization has talked about starting a business, having more professional events, having more social events, and getting a house, yet were not in the position to do so. What was once talk, is quickly becoming a fabulous reality due to the improvements that have been made in the last few years. I have worked extremely closely with Joe Benevento, our President and more importantly my friend, on a number of ventures to achieve these once seemingly unattainable goals. We have collaborated with Student Agenices and developed a business that should be making money this upcoming fall. We have collaborated with Career Services to facilitate more professional events. Career Services and AKPsi do many of the same events, such as etiquette dinners, panels with Wall Street firms, panels with the Johnson School Admissions Department, resume workshops, etc. This fall we plan to start doing these events with them to broaden our value to the Cornell community, in addition to participating in new events such as marketing panels, internship panels, and Dress for Success fashion shows. This year we had our first alumni weekend, and we plan to grow this to include a charity golf tournament and various social and networking events. Just yesterday, an alumnus sat down with Joe and me to discuss plans for buying us a house in Collegetown for our officers to live, to hold chapter, and various social events. We will elect our next executive board in the upcoming weeks, but most importantly we will be adding a Vice President of Housing to tend to the various responsibilities associated with maintaining the house. As a sophomore I was recruitment chair, currently I am Vice President of Administration, and will be running for President in a few weeks. It is hard to pin point all of the things that I have learned throughout my years in AKPsi. There were many things about my leadership style that I actively tried to change and/or improve, however I am sure there are many things that I have improved or learned without knowing it. The most important lesson that I have learned is that there are politics in everything, and it is the leaders responsibility to address the issue and facilitate and environment in which people feel comfortable. As a leader you have to maintain your composure, be a good listener, gather all of the factual information you can when making a decision (no matter how small), try to remain as impartial as possible (which was my biggest personal challenge), stick to your guns, give members a forum for voicing his/her opinion, stay true to the mission of the organization, think outside the box, give people a reason to show up, have people find something they love and can contribute to the organization, and do what is right - just to name a few. It is impossible for me to talk about what I personally added to AKPsi because we do everything as a team. Although one person may voice an idea, I guarantee someone else was thinking the same thing. I may have voiced a lot of ideas over the years; however without the team mentality of AKPsi none of these ideas would have been implemented. I am truly proud of AKPsi - proud of the people for who they are, who they want to be, and how they contribute to the world. I am proud to know these amazing people. We are a diverse group - captains of sports teams, former military officers (2), student trustees, Presidents of Panhellenic and numerous sororities and fraternities, leaders in various minority associations, and the list goes on - which attributes to our great successes. Although I know that we will win chapter of the year at some point in the future, having the trophy and title of best chapter is no longer a necessity to me because I know in my heart that we are the best chapter not because the events we hold, or our increases in membership, but because of the genuineness of our brotherhood.
