When undergraduate participants arrive in August at the 2015 Balfour Leadership Training Workshop (LTW) at Ball State University in Muncie, Ind., much will be similar from the workshops of previous years. They will still meet in large- and small-group settings, and they will craft strategic plans for their chapter’s futures. One difference will be notable, though: Some will have the option of taking part in a curriculum track that will provide more education on the Ritual than ever before.
Called the Ritual division, Balfour LTW attendees will have the option of spending three days gaining an in-depth knowledge of the Ritual and the lessons that brothers are meant to take away from it. While other divisions are designed more specifically for Consuls, Magisters and similar officers, the new division will enhance one of each chapter's five paid-for Balfour LTW participants' understanding of the Fraternity's Ritual and its practices.
“The Ritual division will have two major goals,” says Mike Codina, CALIFORNIA-SAN DIEGO 1993, who is the division’s chairman. “The first is to teach our undergraduate brothers the nuts and bolts of performing the Ritual. By doing that, we’re able to convey its importance to new brothers.
“The second goal is figuring out how to best translate the messages and lessons of the Ritual to brothers in order to teach them how to become better men,” he continues. “If a chapter’s brothers are using the Ritual as a leadership tool and focusing all of their efforts on adhering to its lessons, that will lead to their chapter becoming great.”
Codina emphasizes the division’s need to recruit those Sigs who have a true passion to learn more about the Fraternity’s Ritual, and who wish to engage with like-minded undergraduates and alumni.
“We want to reach those brothers who were profoundly affected by the Ritual, and want to share that feeling with others,” say Codina. “If you felt the Ritual was impactful and want to learn more about it, that’s the kind of brother that we want. Those are the brothers who are going to go back to their chapters and help their brothers live their lives in better accordance [with] the Fraternity’s values.”
To learn more about the 2015 Balfour LTW, contact Matthew Coffin, DEPAUW 2013, at matthew.coffin@sigmachi.org.
