An Unusual Leadership Story
In November 1999, I was still in my first semester of college at the University of North Alabama. I had gone directly from a farm to the “big city” of Florence and was still very much clueless about who I was. I was trying so hard to make a pre-med major work for me, but I knew in my heart I could never be a medical doctor and that terrified me. And, I had a boyfriend from my hometown who was doing everything possible to hold me back, trying to convince me to quit school, get married, and have babies.
In an effort to get involved on campus and make friends, I decided to join a sorority. Some of you know all about my sorority experience; some of you may be surprised to hear I’m part of a group like this.
I had been a fully initiated member of the Zeta Eta chapter of Alpha Delta Pi for about 4 weeks when our then president Tiffany Carter announced that it was time to sign up for officer positions for the next year, and to please indicate our interest by signing the sheet taped to the back wall of the chapter room. We were a really small chapter, and everyone was going to have to do something to keep us afloat.
The officer sign-up list went in hierarchical order, from President at the top on down to the very smallest offices. I walked over and wrote my name down to run for the office of Corresponding Secretary, the office responsible for sending thank you notes on behalf of the chapter. It was all the way at the bottom of the list, maybe one spot up from Music Chair. I still don’t quite know what the Music Chair does to be honest.
I picked that office for a few reasons. It seemed like a foot-in-the-door opportunity, one that might lead someday to another secretarial position, which I thought was the best I could ever do in a leadership role. Maybe the next year, I could take meeting minutes! And, this job wouldn’t take much more time away from the boyfriend who already hated my sorority involvement; he was really worried about me going to fraternity parties and talking to any man that wasn’t him.
I also knew I could write thank you notes. That wasn’t hard. At this point in my life, I didn’t do hard things. The higher up the list? The harder the job, and more likely I was to fail, which in my brain meant “do something less than perfect.”
Deep down, though? I felt that I probably belonged at the bottom of the list. I didn’t even think I deserved a shot at the mid-list offices, like new member educator. I somehow bought into this false belief that I wasn’t worthy of leading anything, despite hearing a tiny voice in my head that was trying to tell me I was wrong about that. I shut it out, choosing instead to take the easier and more comfortable path that kept me in my place.
On my way out the door that night, after signing up for Corresponding Secretary, Andrea Childress (we called her AJC), one of the seniors and most respected women in our chapter, grabbed my hand, dragged me back over to the list, and stood there with a pencil. I thought I was in trouble. She pointed to my name beside Corresponding Secretary, looked me in the face like I was crazy, and this conversation happened:
AJC: Scratch your name off there, and write it here. *she points at the blank line beside Executive Vice President, or EVP, the second highest office we had, right underneath the President.*
LBD: Um, you know I’m just a freshman, right? And I have been here a month? And I’m not good enough for that office.
AJC: *with a smile* I said, scratch your name off that line, and write it here. Anyone can write thank you notes. We need you to be EVP.
LBD: I don’t know what makes you think I would be good for that office.
AJC: Well you sort of remind us all of Dawn Victor-Herring. Just trust me, I know what I’m talking about. Sign up for EVP.
LBD: Who’s Dawn-
AJC: Stop arguing with me and just write your name here. You’re our next EVP.
Not wanting to offend one of the most important women in our chapter - and, secretly, deep down, even though I was unable to admit it, suspecting she was right - I did as I was told. A couple of weeks later, I was announced as the new EVP.
The boyfriend was going to hate this, and the time I was now expected to commit to the role. Part of me worried about that. But another part of me was saying, loudly, “GOOD.”
I was equal parts terrified and enthusiastic about taking on that job. I didn’t even know what it involved, other than a lot of work, especially for a chapter like ours that was in serious danger of being closed. A few years of mismanagement and small chapter size had left our chapter a mess, administratively, and it was going to be up to our newly initiated class of members to clean it up. I didn’t know if we could do it, or if I could handle that level of potential failure. EVP, I learned, was the office responsible for making sure the chapter ran as it was supposed to. The chapter’s success, in very large part, hinged on whether the EVP did her job. There was lots of paperwork, deadlines, diplomacy, and organizational skills needed and it turns out I was absolutely perfect for the role.
At this point in my life, before taking on any leadership positions in the sorority or elsewhere on campus, I had very little self confidence, and even less self worth. I hadn’t yet learned how to lead and didn’t know if I was capable of it. But, I trusted AJC, and if the older women of the chapter believed in me, I was determined to do my best not to let them down.
My Greek experience can be summarized like this: I’d somehow stumbled upon a group that, for some reason, loved and embraced my introverted, sheltered nerdiness. They didn’t expect me to change anything about who I was. But they saw something in me that I didn’t see in myself. They wanted to help me develop those unseen sides of myself that would end up carrying me to professional adulthood, cheering for me and supporting me as I became a strong, confident, young professional. In other words: I found a group that accepted me for who I was, and helped me grow. This is one of the most fortunate happenings of my whole adult life.
I remember my first officer leadership retreat, where Claire Gwaltney, a amazing national leader for our organization, helped me understand just what I needed to do in order to do my job and fix things. Mrs. Gwaltney was one of the many mentors I found in this group who helped me become a professional, learning how to command a room using assertiveness and confidence rather than aggression and demands. These were new concepts to me. I didn’t know if I was fully capable of learning this skill set. Was I worthy of making decisions and taking charge? I remember staying behind in the chapter room afterwards, alone, in an office full of disorganized files, crying because I was so overwhelmed and unsure of where to start getting things corrected.
I looked at our framed charter hanging on the wall, and in that moment I committed to myself that I wasn’t going to let anyone take that away from us. I thought about all the women who’d come before me, who’d worked hard, and who’d had to do things they didn’t think they could do, and I decided then that I’d do whatever I needed to do to save the chapter. I didn’t do it alone. Our other new officers were just as passionate and hard working as I was, and we were fired up about our new mission. We got to work.
I was intimidated as hell to start making decisions and requests that impacted our senior members. I remember a few eyebrows raised at the first few chapter meetings when I was an officer, standing up to speak and laying out exactly how we were collectively going to turn things around and keep our chapter alive. I probably had post-its and charts.
Little by little, I started to embrace the challenges. Things started to get better, and exciting. This is also when I learned the beauty of good time management skills. Every Sunday night, I planned out my schedule for the week, making sure every hour was accounted for and every task on my list had a time and place to be completed. I still do that on really busy weeks.
I remember my fellow new members congratulating me and telling me how amazing I was and how thankful they were that I’d taken on the job. They were in high level officer positions, too, and we were working so hard as a team. We started to gain some confidence. Gradually, my self esteem grew.
I learned that not only could I do hard things, I enjoyed them.
Alpha Delta Pi offered me national-level, high quality leadership training opportunities, that I took advantage of, meeting others in similar positions across the country and learning together with them.
I soon learned that Dawn Victor-Herring, the woman AJC mentioned to me, was a national leader from our very own chapter, and she was amazing. Today, DVH is our Grand President, having climbed the ladder to the very highest leadership position our organization has. She was a first generation college student with a very similar background to mine. She is a truly phenomenal woman, and I’m lucky to know her. To be compared in any way to her is one of the biggest compliments a person could give me.
A little blurry, but this was us just last weekend, at our chapter’s 50th anniversary event.
Eventually, I became chapter President. I learned how to run an efficient meeting. I learned how to manage conflict. I learned how to make difficult decisions. When I was a manager, I used to get compliments all the time on my meeting management and people management skills. I liked to say that being President of my sorority taught me everything I needed to know about how to do those things very well.
As a full-time working professional, it quickly became clear who had taken advantage of opportunities like the ones I had as a young adult, and who hadn’t. This is why I used to encourage my students to get involved in something, anything, on campus. It’s an excellent training ground for how to lead in the future.
I enjoyed leadership so much that I started volunteering for leadership positions elsewhere on campus as a student. I became a university hostess, a tour guide, president of a service organization, involved with student government, and part of too many organizations to list out here. I purposely put myself in situations outside my comfort zone, trying things I might fail at doing. And I made so many friends, both Greek and not, who supported me, cheered me on, and helped me find even more amazing opportunities for involvement. As a result, my college experience was transformative.
Eventually, I realized that anyone who thinks they can hold me back, keeps me thinking small, or tells me I’m not worth it, has no place in my life. I broke up with the boyfriend and did not get married or have a kid until later in life, after I accomplished a few more goals I had for myself, like earning a PhD.
By the time I left office, my last semester in college, our chapter had stabilized, was no longer in danger of being closed, and we’d desegregated, initiating the first Black woman in a Panhellenic sorority at UNA. I got to hand over the President’s pin to one of my lifelong best friends, Allison Vacca, who took the office after me. We both had tears in our eyes during the passing of the guard, grateful for our friendship, the friendships we shared with others in the room, and so proud of what we’d done together with our other sisters.
Today, my heart breaks when I hear stories about the bad instead of the good relating to the Greek system. I hate thinking about the systemic racism still inherent in a number of groups and the even worse racist past that plagued our organization, and others, for far too long. As an alumni and historian at heart, along with others who share my feelings, we are doing what we can to acknowledge our past and do better moving forward. I hate hearing about organizations whose members promote underage drinking and engage in other dangerous or harmful behaviors. Alpha Delta Pi at UNA did the opposite. I was treated very well as a new member, never once hazed or forced to drink or party, and never asked to do anything that made me compromise my ethics. The fraternity men I met were gentlemen, many of whom became trusted friends. They treated us all with respect. The Greek system helped me in so many ways. I wouldn’t be running a business today if I hadn’t had the opportunities I had through sorority. Reconciling my experiences with what I hear others experience sometimes is difficult, to be honest, and requires me to do things like write it out, as I’m doing here.
I wish all Greek systems were as friendly and open as the one at UNA, which wasn’t cutthroat or competitive or elitist and facilitated cross-group friendships. We were all there to serve our campus and community, and have some fun, too. I just feel so fortunate that this was my experience, and as an alumni try to pay it forward by involving myself in volunteer opportunities with the group that perpetuate and support similar experiences for others.
Student life on college campuses is changing, along with today’s student population. Some may question the relevancy of the Greek system, particularly for the reasons I outlined above, and that’s also heartbreaking because I know how helpful the Greek system was to my young adult development. I think it still can be just as helpful to others who need an outlet for growth. I saw many of my own students blossom as part of a Greek organization, so I know it’s still possible. As I reflect on all of this, I think the Greek system will survive, and thrive, if it retains its focus on leadership development and community service, and changes policies to become more inclusive, rather than divisive, racist, and elitist. The more we as alumni can do to support those efforts, the better.
At our chapter’s 50th anniversary celebration this past weekend, I looked around the room and noticed that I wasn’t the only one who benefited from the leadership and other opportunities provided by our sorority. The room was full of women who grew up to become leaders in their communities and fields, representing areas from education, to finance, to STEM fields, to healthcare, to public service, and everything in between. ADPi helped us all. I was most proud to see my sisters in rewarding careers, all of us successful in our own ways.
The fact that our chapter is still around, and thriving, after 50 years, knowing there were serious ups and downs and struggles, also makes my heart happy. I’m forever thankful for the women who supported me in my very first leadership roles, helping the leader inside me grow and develop, too.
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