NIC Blog
Fraternal Coffee Orders
Tags: Hazing, National Hazing Prevention Week, NHPW, brotherhood, fraternity hazing, fraternity brotherhood, Living the Ritual
What’s your Fraternal Coffee Order?
Like many early morning risers, I need my morning cup of coffee to get my brain going. This morning, I happened to notice the side of my Dunkin Donuts coffee cup and think how interesting it would be if we approached fraternity life with a similar paradigm.
We all talk about drinking the fraternal Kool-aid, but what if we invested as much time into our organizations' values as we do in our coffee orders.
We all know those people (maybe you are one of them) that order the Triple Grande two-thirds caf., 2 pumps vanilla 1 pump Toffee Nut, Half-Skim Half-Soy, 185 degree, Extra-Foam, Upside-Down Caramel Macchiatto at Starbucks.
Now, what would your Fraternal Coffee Order be? Mine would go something like: one Large, 4 pump Truth, 2 pump Courage, turbo shots of Integrity and Accountability, with extra Brotherhood, a packet of Excellence, and no hazing.
What if our members could rattle off their Fraternal Coffee Orders just as easily as they could their normal drink orders. That would require us to educate our members better on the true values and principles of our organizations.
Some of our members are trying to order items not on the Fraternal Coffee menu: alcohol abuse, hazing, sexual assault, etc. They want to be able to order the Grande, 2 pump Frat Star, triple shot of Black Out, with extra Hazing, and no Accountability. Sorry, but we don't offer that here.
What if No Shirt, No Shoes, No Service became No Accountability, No Integrity, No Membership - respectively.
What if you could wake up each morning and pour yourself a fresh cup of liquid courage with extra shots of values and principles that would help you confront your brothers' poor decisions. The good news is that you can. It's all in your organization's Ritual, Creed, Mission, Values, and Principles.
This week is National Hazing Prevention Week. Take the opportunity to revisit your organization's values and principles. Examine your own Fraternal Coffee Order and make sure it is in line with those espoused values. Then, try to help your brothers with their order.
After that reflection, you might need some ideas to help start building brotherhood. The NIC offers a resource called the "Best of Brotherhood Building". Get your FREE copy by emailing andy@nicindy.org this week (September 19-23, 2011).
