AFA
by Courtney Stevens, Associate Board Member The 2019 Association of Fraternity/Sorority Advisors Annual Meeting was held in Anaheim, California during the first week of December. The mission of AFA is to enhance its members’ abilities to foster impactful fraternity and sorority experiences. I was accompanied by my fellow board members Amanda Cronin, Liz Jason, and Alex Nestro. I was honored to represent Kappa Delta Phi National Affiliated Sorority. I wore my letters with pride and entered the conference with an eager and open mind. Through my membership to the AFA I have discovered countless resources and made numerous connections which I believe have contributed to my skills as a chapter consultant. Prior to attending the conference, I had the chance to explore online resources. On the AFA’s website there are webinars and presentations about many topics that span from how to resolve conflict to how to recruit new members. Throughout the course of the week at the Annual AFA Conference there were dozens of workshops, lectures, and panels led by organization and campus professionals. Meeting with other Greek Life and campus professionals attending the conference was eye-opening for me, as a new member of the National Board. It helped put into perspective how important it is for chapters to have a good relationship with their campus partners—faculty/staff advisors, Greek Life professionals, and even Conduct Officers. The reason why it is so important for chapters to have a good relationship with these members of the campus community is that it gives you the chance to be proactive. These professionals are there to support the student body, just like we are. We should be working in collaboration with them so that in the unfortunate event that something comes up everyone can be in the loop and we can work quickly to find a solution. Each session focused on a specific topic. My favorite sessions were focused on leadership skills. As a leader it is your job to impact others and to let others impact you. Being a good leader is not only about guiding and teaching others, but allowing others to guide and teach you. No one is perfect and it is important to remember that you can learn something from everyone. The women that we work with come from all walks of life and all have unique experiences. You should learn from the experiences of others so that you have a better understanding of where they are coming from. If you learn a little from everyone, you’ll be more well rounded. Every person you work with has another piece of knowledge you can learn.
Alex Nestro (Treasurer), Courtney Stevens (Associate Board), Amanda Cronin (VP of Administration) Another session I enjoyed was about conflict resolution. I’m sure all of us experiences some sort of argument, altercation, or disagreement as an active. Unfortunately, the thing about being a group of strong women is we aren’t always going to agree. The important piece of conflict resolution that we always seem to miss is that a situation affects each person differently. In order for everyone to come away from a discussion feeling good there needs to be a safe space for people to present problems and also the solutions to those problems. The technique we used was called a “restorative circle.” During this activity each member who is willing to participate, shares how they were affected by the situation and how they believe it should be rectified. This allows everyone’s voices to be heard. It allows for a peak inside how each member is feeling. It also allowed for people to take accountability for their actions and gives a tangible way for them to work towards a resolution. Since the conference I’ve been able to conduct a restorative circle myself and it was overwhelmingly successful. (If you’d like to learn more about this, join Alex and myself for our breakout sessions!) Spending time at AFA taught me that even as a working professional there is always more to be learned. You can learn through conversation and the experiences of your peers. Not everyone has the same experiences but when people share the difficult scenarios that they’ve encountered it can prepare us for a similar situation in the future. So even if you don’t think it applies to you now, it may be applicable in the future. It was inspiring to see the pride that people had for their organizations and the students that they work with. It reminded me how lucky I am to be able to work with such incredible young women.
05
