This summer’s Grand Council meeting from June 10 to 12 in Skokie, Ill., offers undergraduates and alumni one of their final major opportunities to discuss Sigma Chi’s new Preparation for Brotherhood pledging program prior to its presentation to all chapters at the July 28 to 30 Balfour Leadership Training Workshop at Bowling Green State University. Administered as a pilot program at roughly 50 chapters since fall 2015, the program’s curriculum would be put into place at all chapters starting this autumn.
“We tout ourselves as the premiere leadership organization in the Greek-letter world, but not having a uniform pledgeship means that some of our brothers aren’t living up to that standard,” says Preparation for Brotherhood committee chairman Jim Holcomb, CAL. STATE-SACRAMENTO 1994. “Preparation for Brotherhood is our best bet at keeping our practices in line with our ideals.”
According to the Fraternity's tentative Grand Council schedule, the event's participants will spend much of the morning and afternoon on June 11 learning about the Preparation for Brotherhood program and discussing its merits. In particular, the event's organizers have scheduled a one-hour period during the day's general session to provide an overview of the program and why Fraternity leaders want to implement it. Following that, two breakout sessions bookending the day's lunch period will give Grand Council attendees the opportunity to discuss the program's merits amongst themselves while considering its effects on the Fraternity's pledging process.
The Preparation for Brotherhood program would institute for the first time in Sigma Chi’s history a uniform education for the Fraternity’s pledges. Pledge education in the program is facilitated in large part through Sigma Chi U, the Fraternity’s new online learning platform where pledges can access information complementary to the material in their Norman Shields and test their knowledge and comprehension of the lessons. The program is currently in its beta phase of testing.
For more information about the Preparation for Brotherhood program, contact Jim Cogdal, BRADLEY 2003, senior director of membership development at Sigma Chi International Fraternity Headquarters, at (847) 869-3655, ext. 253. For questions about Sigma Chi U, contact Chris Brooks, COLLEGE OF IDAHO 2006, Sigma Chi U administrator at Headquarters, at (847) 869-3655, ext. 266.
