NIC Blog
Becoming a Fraternity Man
Tags: Futures Quest
Undergraduate fraternity membership is your last chance to be a boy, or your first chance to be a man...
Recently while facilitating a program, one of our facilitators shared the above thought with the participants and I immediately thought about how this relates to what the fraternal experience is all about. What is the purpose of fraternity? This is a big question and there are countless answers. Fraternity can be about different things for different men. One might say that fraternity is about building connections with your peers and finding a group of individuals to connect with in your community; or building leadership skills and improving yourself; or broadening your network; or improving your social skills; or improving your skillset related to your own career aspirations. Each answer can be correct and I can go on and on.
Beyond this initial question, this thought struck me as one of the tenets of the work that we strive to do through NIC sponsored programs. There are many reasons why men seek out fraternity. We all have members who have joined our organizations with the desire of extending their adolescence, but have found so much more within the fraternal experience.
One specific program that is designed to work with men as they move along the journey from adolescent to fraternity man is Futures Quest. The Jon Williamson Futures Quest has been developed for fraternity members who have joined a fraternity in the past year and are looking to move forward in their journey as a fraternity man. The central question of Futures Quest is "What does it mean to be a fraternity man?"
While the answers to this question may be varied, they are certainly easy to come by. Being a fraternity man is about living each day as a new opportunity to fulfill your oath and commitment to your organization and values. It means that you are making the conscious choice to live your ritual and let the lessons that you learned in your ritual drive your actions as a man, as a brother, as a son, a husband, and as a father, etc. Futures Quest gives participants the confidence and skills necessary to make that choice, because it is a choice. It is a choice that you must make today, tomorrow, and every day that follows.
Futures Quest is for the new fraternity member who is looking to have his fraternity experience help him be a better man. If that is you, or if you know someone who embodies that ideal, we want to help, because that is what fraternity men do.
To learn more about the Jon Williamson Futures Quest, go here.
