Tau Beta Sigma’s Theta Lambda:
in Style!
by Emily Heitman Former President, Theta Lambda, Tau Beta Sigma
S
o you followed all the suggestions and ideas for recruitment, Tau Beta Sigma is now the hippest organization to join on your campus, and your membership numbers are nearing 100. What do you do now? The Theta Lambda chapter of Tau Beta Sigma at Auburn University recently had to face this very complex situation. From 1996, when I was initiated, to spring of 2000, our chapter grew from thirtytwo to ninety members, forcing several changes in our organization. From a management standpoint, there are several things that must be dealt with in order to run a large sorority successfully. First of all, how do you optimize your manpower? Ninety girls can do a lot more service than 30. However, there are not many projects that require that large a group; our typical band service project takes around 35 people. Obviously, a sign-up sheet for this project is full before it even gets halfway around the chapter room. So, we’ve had to take a different approach to service activities. With a large sorority, we can divide our membership up into seven committees, so we assign our service projects to different committees. These subgroups of the chapter can perform their assigned function individually and also work with other committees on different service projects. This way, everyone in our sorority can still contribute to the service projects, and our organization can accomplish much more, with the management of the projects being spread out among committee heads. Our chapter still needs to do a few things together, but
Janelle Seigert passes out balloons in Auburn colors at the recent Theta Lambda “Field Day at the Band Field.”
28—The PODIUM, Fall 2000
Theta Lambda sister Laura Spivey paints a future sister’s face at a recent “Field Day at the Band Field.”
finding projects that require almost a hundred people can be a difficult task. After thinking creatively, we came up with a community service project this year for underprivileged children. A university-sponsored program called Project Uplift pairs children with big sisters and brothers, and our Tau Beta Sigma chapter sponsored a “Field Day at the Band Field” event for the children. We reserved the band field and set up different booths and activities that taught the children about music. Having a musical theme, we could then provide a service to the community that both educates children and encourages an appreciation of music, while supporting the Tau Beta Sigma Vision Statement, in which we are charged “to promote band music as an integral part of the American cultural experience.” We were able to employ every one of our members in this project Sisters either set up equipment for the field day, ran a booth, led a parade of sisters and children around the field, or managed the overall project. The event was a great chance to prove our “sisterpower” capacity and our ability to run a large-scale project entirely by ourselves. A second dilemma of a large chapter is making every member feel important to the sorority. You can do this by getting the sisters involved in their committees. This is the key to membership retention. It can no longer be the executive council’s responsibility to keep up with every individual member. It is now time for the other student leaders, the committee heads, to be in contact with their committee members. They have to be the ones to give their members that individual attention, they have to be the ones to call a
