As I write this, I am sitting on an airplane flying back from Chicago to my home state of North Carolina. I had spent the weekend there, as an attendee of the Dunham Women of Character Institute, a weekend-long leadership and character program produced, funded and operated by the Sigma Sigma Sigma Foundation.
I had been selected as the representative of my chapter, the Delta Delta chapter of Sigma Sigma Sigma, to attend the institute. That in itself was an extreme honor, and I couldn't have put my excitement into words. I was excited to attend the conference, learn from mentors and national officers and to go home and implement those same lessons. However, I was so eager to implement these lessons and thought they were so relevant that just sharing some these with my chapter was not enough.
I needed to share them with others as well.
Don't throw what you know until you know what you throw.
Many people have seen on social media sites like Instagram and Facebook that sorority women throw what they know—hand signs that are representative of their organization. For example, Tri Sigma's hand sign is a sailboat; for many others, they may be letters or a symbol that truly embodies their organization.
Upon arriving in Chicago, speaker Dr. Mariann Callais told us "Don't throw what you know until you know what you throw." Now, the immediate thought is "What in the world... ?" You know your hand sign, symbol, letters, but do you truly know and understand why you are throwing up that sign?
What are you standing for?
In today's society, it's so easy to lose track of the original purpose of sororal organizations, which was to serve and to be women that were forces of nature. If we, as sorority women, throw what we know without knowing what we throw, what are we standing for? How would our founders react?
We are women.
This was something so trivial at first thought, but truly encompasses the role of sorority life. We need to cease calling one another "sorority girls" and start calling one another "sorority women," because that is what we are—young women.
If we continually use the term "girl" to describe a member of any sorority, it's easy to say that it diminishes them, lessens their value and puts them on a lower playing field. However, if we embrace the term "sorority women," we are embracing the ability for each and every one of us to have the power to make positive change.
Just in the past two days of using the term "women" versus using the term "girls," I have noticed my own self-confidence increasing, because it associates power with who you are and opportunity with who you are meant to become.
Know your roots.
I'm sure every organization has their own form of new member education to teach the new women about the organization, the origins, and most importantly, their founders.
Each year, it is common for every sorority organization to celebrate their own Founders Day, honoring the women that were brave enough to jump-start and form these organizations that are powerhouses in the modern collegiate environment. However, how many members can actually name their founders?
This happened at the Dunham Women of Character Institute. They asked us about our founders and the room—full of roughly over a hundred young women—were silent. No one, without the help of Google or another source, could name all eight of our own founders, which was absolutely shameful.
I am not knowledgeable about the founders of other sororities, but I am about my own. I knew the basics: Sigma Sigma Sigma was founded in 1898 in Farmville, Virginia, at Longwood University. I knew we had eight founders, but like everyone else, I could not name all of them, and it left me wondering. These eight women who founded the organization I now represent were the bravest women I will ever come to know. This is the same for many other sororities as well. The eight women that founded Tri Sigma did so in secret, did so before they could legally vote and did so before they could legally own land.
But here they were, forming an organization in which they had the power. So what does it say that we cannot name them?
Earn your letters.
An overarching theme throughout the weekend was that many women in many organizations only wear their letters, versus earning them each and every day. By displaying our letters, we represent our organization. Our organization strives for us to be the best women we can be—to live up to the legacy our founders left for us to carry on.
It was sad to hear that many chapters had what we deemed as merely "letter wearers." This meant that rather than earning your letters and being that woman of character, they were there for the benefits, for the mere excitement of having something to represent. But it is often forgotten that with representing something so spectacular as Tri Sigma, there is a responsibility to represent it well.
They told us to earn our letters every single day. Give life all you've got. Be that woman you look up to. Earn the life you live.
When I was recruited to be a member of Tri Sigma, I was recruited halfway through the semester, as I did not go through formal recruitment. Something I have not told anyone was that I specifically chose Tri Sigma. As my mom urged me to just give sorority life a chance (she herself being an ADPi at East Carolina University), I had only one sorority in mind, and that was Tri Sigma. As crazy as it sounds, I felt an incredible push from God and knew that I not only wanted to be a Tri Sigma, but I needed to. To this day, that want and need has not changed.
This weekend, at the Dunham Women of Character Institute, I took 18 pages of notes because I wanted to do my part in spreading good, because I have learned that that is what we, as sorority women, are supposed to do. While I have only included a few points from the entire weekend in this article, I thought they were so integral and universal for any sorority woman at any campus, because we often forget why we are here.
As you go forward, I urge you to know what you throw, I urge you to embrace your identity as a woman, I urge you to know your roots, and I urge you to earn your letters, because this is the greatest honor we could have as college-aged women.
