We cannot wait for Change

President Barack Obama once said "Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek" I think alot of times people get caught up in the fact that change will eventually happen and forget that if they want something changed themselves they need to go out and do it. After reading the chapter on citizenship it is a lot about being an active part in something bigger than yourself and that is what we strive for as sorority women and fraternity men. When you are a part of something bigger than yourself you have to contribute as a citizen and make change.
An individual can do something to create change which can then cause a chain reaction that will eventually contribute to the whole group and get everyone on board. Right now our new member educator wants to changed the new members meetings from Sunday nights to Monday night. this change of dates would be viewed as a single order change. Her reasoning for this is that sunday is used to catch up on homework and many people have other things going on. At the same time Monday is chapter day so new members would be encouraged to come to formal dinner and their meetings would be right after formal dinner creating a meeting environment that is formal much like chapter. Allowing the new members to get in the habit of wearing business attire to dinner and their meetings on Monday to get ready for chapter. personally I feel like this is a great idea but some other members of the chapter do not agree. I think this could eventually turn into second order change, changing the organization fundamental values and assumptions. By making the new member meetings on Monday we place more emphasis on our value of professionalism. Because I know when I was a new member our meetings were on Sunday and I never showed up in chapter attire it was always sweatpants or leggings and a T-shirt. By having the meetings on Monday we can create second order change and get the new members to value the professionalism aspect of being in a sorority and how that can help them in the future. In conclusion, on individual can start change but when they get the rest of the group to support them there is no stopping their idea of change.
Another aspect of change that I think is sometimes forgotten in the Greek community is how powerful the greek community is. In the chapter on citizenship, working together was discussed and how members must identify in some way with the community but not necessarily in the same way. Our similar identification as a member of the greek community can be used to create citizenship by doing greek wide community service events, doing community research, getting politically involved, or being socially responsible. If we as a community take action against something we are passionate about it could be very successful because we are such a large community.