I woke up on Tuesday morning of October 27, and everything was just great (besides me not wanting to get out of bed). Naturally, I was scrolling through my various forms of social media, checking my email and shirt orders, and getting my things ready for my 10 hours' worth of classes. Then I saw a tweet that was a bit out of the ordinary. One of the people I follow had retweeted a tweet from Lambda Chi Alpha's National Headquarters saying that they had resigned from the North-American Interfraternity Council (NIC). It was the Greek life shot heard around the world.

In the official statement on Lambda Chi Alpha's National Website, they have stated that, "For more than a century, we have supported the NIC’s efforts and advocated for its stated principles and values. Unfortunately, the NIC has recently elected to pursue counterproductive tactics that we believe are antithetical to our values and we cannot support them.” So what does this all mean? I got the chance to ask one of the most influential people that I have met along my Greek life journey to help me understand. Dennis Campbell, Jr. is a graduate of The University of Akron and an alumnus of Sigma Nu. He is currently the Director of Fraternity and Sorority Life for the University of Nevada- Reno. I met him in the summer of 2014 when I attended UIFI (Undergraduate Interfraternity Institute) which is a program that has been put on by the NIC every summer for over 20 years. It's nice to not only have someone who shares your love of Greek life on a professional level, but also understands from attending the same school.

I asked Campbell to explain to me what this all means and how it will effect Lambda Chi Alpha not only on Akron's campus, but every other campus as well and if it has an impact on their relationship with the Interfraternity Council (IFC). "It means they will not be included in nationally shared data programs or information. Other NIC groups will not openly share ideas, they won't have to support them during expansion efforts, some IFCs won't recognize them, and expansion can be harder. It depends on the IFC and their policies." He also continued onto say, "Many groups that aren't NIC members do run into issues with campus, as they usually do not offer the same support to chapters."

There are other fraternities on campus that are not part of the NIC. Phi Delta Theta and Kappa Sigma are not members of the IFC and are two very strong chapters nationwide with a large amount of support. I reposted an article by Total Sorority Move on my personal Facebook page and got some really good feedback, specifically from Todd Simmons. Simmons is a Phi Delta Theta and heavily involved with Greek life at UA. He said, "I'm happy that more chapters are beginning to see the flaws with the NIC and resign. Phi Delta Theta is one of the founding organizations of the NIC, and we resigned in 2002 because we didn't necessarily agree with the direction that it was going. Now, other orgs are seeing this and following suit, and I am really intrigued to see what the NIC does next."

Greek life members are also starting to get fed up with Total Sorority Move (TSM) and Total Frat Move (TFM) and write articles about large issues, such as Lambda Chi's resignation from the NIC, a joke. Bethany Fisher, one of my sisters and Kappa Sigma Sweetheart, also commented on my post saying, "Very few people know that about Kappa Sig and Phi Delt, but I think it's good to bring that up. We especially hear about these two still doing really wonderful things in our community and in Greek life communities everywhere. And I really don't see this being a big deal at all. I hope TSM is being sarcastic as usual about this, because if they aren't, they're making a bigger deal about it than there needs to be."

Lambda Chi Alpha's president at UA, Brandon Korns, gave me his outlook on the matter as well. "We are damn proud to lead the way for fraternities and sticking to our own beliefs over this of others is what makes us great. The NIC is dissolving and they are not doing the best they can for fraternities in this country." He and his fraternity brothers will continue to lead the way on campus and be leaders, especially the way that they stand up for what they believe in.

We will definitely see how Lambda Chi's resignation from the NIC affects chapters in both the near and distant future. I've heard rumblings that this could cause other chapters to reconsider their membership in the NIC, but who knows what will actually happen? As a community, we should respect and support the decisions of our brothers and sisters. I, myself, fully support Lambda Chi Alpha's decision to resign from the NIC. If something is happening that does not align with the values of an organization, then yes, something needs to change.

I'm very curious to know how everyone else is feeling about this topic. Please comment on the article, find me on Facebook, or tweet me!