The Interfraternity Council

The University Kentucky has a very large greek community. This greek community does a lot of things for the University of Kentucky both socially, with philanthropy events, and with academic life. In this Greek community their are 21 social fraternity on campus. But as great as these fraternities are there must be a certain body that governs them and represents them in front of the school. The Inter Fraternal Council does this. The Inter Fraternal Council is a Greek elected body whose job is to govern and to help fraternities on the University of Kentucky campus. As a greek student I here a lot about the IFC and some of what they do but after seeing the council in action I am seriously considering becoming a part of the IFC.

The Kentucky IFC is controlled by a their own constitution. This constitution lists the bylaws and regulations of the IFC. The constitution reflects the IFC core principals which are membership, recruitment, scholarship, and philanthropy. The council consists of all the chapters on campus that are both voting and non voting chapters. The chapters are able to vote based on their standing within the council. The main council is composed of the President, executive vice president, seven other vice presidents, and chief of staff appointed by the President.

The IFC's president is obviously the most important position on the IFC. The IFC president is the face of the greek fraternal community on campus. Before the meeting I attended I interviewed the current president of the IFC. The current president of the IFC is Michael Gant. Michael Gant says “the job of the president is to oversees the executive council and to interact with all the chapters on campus.” The president is suppose to maintain good relations with all the chapters on campus and to refrain from favoritism. He also says the point of the IFC is to help the fraternities on campus with scholarship, to regulate and to provide programming and support. Michael Gant was elected President by the individual chapter presidents. There is a lot of pressure on President Gant and is responsible for a large part of the greek community. He is the face of the fraternities and he does not take his position lightly. “I look forward to the challenge of being president and the responsibility that comes with it and I am ready to take it head on.”

Before the meeting I talked to an old member of the IFC, Seth Fortenbery. Seth was on IFC for two years and has a lot of experience on the council itself. Seth has served two very high positions on the IFC since his junior year. He was vice president of community outreach and executive vice president. Both jobs are very important but executive vice president is second in command of the entire IFC. As executive VP his job was mainly to prosecute fraternities in front of the judicial board similar to a district attorney. “It was my job to be the bad guy and it was not fun but the job but it was necessary to maintain order within the fraternities and the council” said Seth. The IFC realizes they have a very important job. Seth said “Greek life is a huge part of the University of Kentucky that is a fact, and the IFC wants to continue that.” The IFC did that this past fall semester with the biggest rush sign up in the University of Kentucky's history. “Not only do we want to major part of the campus here but we want to be a positive part of campus. We do this through philanthropy work and by maintaining a high standard of scholarship”, said Seth. The IFC tries to do this by making their be a GPA requirement and encouraging the fraternities to have GPA requirements. Also, all the fraternities on campus do some kind of philanthropy work. Seth says that “The members of the IFC want to make sure that the campus is better because of the greek community and we want to provide great opportunities to the Greek students” said Seth. Seth said that the IFC works hard to maintain great relationships with all the major and minor groups on campus. Seth said if the Greek community wants to get anything done on campus it has to be friendly to all groups and to be willing to work with all the groups on campus and especially the University itself. In fact the IFC has a strong relationship with President Eli Capiluto. That is part of the reason why the greek community has a strong relationship with the campus.

Before the meeting I also spoke to the vice president of inter fraternal relations, Clay Marilla. Clay has served on both sides of the IFC. He was president of his fraternity and represented them in IFC meeting. He is now on on the executive council. Clays job is to make sure the relationships between fraternities is strong. Clay says “In meeting a lot of times it seems that the executive council and the presidents of the chapters are against each other. I like to try to bridge the gap between the two because I understand the struggle of both sides”, said Clay. It is crucial to the IFC that the fraternities listen to them and work with them on issues if not greek life will fall apart on campus. It is important also to realize that the IFC ensures that fraternities are not working against each other. If their is no trusts between fraternities no one will be willing to get anything major done. Clay say “Its my responsibility to ensure fraternities are working with each other and doing what is best for the greek community as a whole.” Clay's position is essential to the council and Clay knows it needs to be taken very seriously.

The IFC meeting itself takes place every other monday running from 4:30 to 5:30. The meetings take place in the student center in one of the lecture halls. The way an IFC meeting is run has changed over the past few years. The IFC meetings used to be set up in a circle. They would have the presidents and the executive council sitting at these tables and they would put these tables in a circle. This type of arrangement stood for something. The arrangement stood for the equality everyone had on the council. Every chapter gets to vote and it does no matter the size or how much money a chapter has. But over the past few years this set up has changed. It is now has just a standard lecture hall set up. At the front of the room their are three tables where the executive councils sits and the President and executive vice president sit in the middle. The individual chapter presidents then sit in rows facing the executive council. The set up is similar to a lecture hall with the executive council being in the position of the professor and the chapter presidents as the students.

I got to the meeting and it opened with the announcement of visitors at the meeting. This meant that I was introduced to the entire council. Michael Gant stood and said “I would like to welcome David Hymes to this meeting. David is doing a project on the IFC and is here to observe todays meeting.” The IFC made me feel very welcome and where not annoyed or bothered by my presence at all. The next order of business was the taking of roll. After that is when the meeting really gets going. The next order of business is the individual positions on the executive council gives a report about issues effecting their position. The environment during this was very serious and there was no joking around. It felt as if I was in government meeting or a meeting of congress. Things got especially serious when the topic of risk management got brought up. The IFC really does not want o see any chapters make any mistakes and get in trouble and in the meeting the President and the Judicial board chairmen made that crystal clear. I really thought before this meeting that fraternities were in competition with each other but after the meeting it really seemed that everyone wants the best for everyone. Seeing an official body like this argue and make decisions was very interesting. The next pray of meeting is when the UK advisor for the IFC Vinny Sandy stood up and talked about how hazing is not tolerated and if any fraternity is caught hazing they will face a stiff penalty. The council soon enough started discussing proposed by laws o add to the constitution. The one I saw them discuss the proposed push back of fall rush. I did not realize how serious the university was on their anti hazing initiative. It was interesting to see that they had their university advisor so active in meeting. It really made it seem like the university really did care about greek life. The last order of business for the meeting is the final comments by the President, in which Michael Gant discussed Dance Blue and encouraged everyone to get as many people doing it as possible. The meeting then closes and everyone then shakes hands and departs.

The University of Kentucky's IFC has a very large responsibility. Its job is to do whatever it can for the 21 social fraternities on this campus. After observing their meeting and interviewing some members of their executive council I feel confident that they are willing and able to handle these big responsibilities. This experience has also really inspired me to join the IFC in some way and to help the greek community at the University of Kentucky.

I believe peer review is a very useful activity and can really improve grades on our papers and projects. They provide a way for students to see how they can improve without the paper actually being graded. It helps sometimes to have a fresh set of eyes to look at your paper to give yourself ideas and to see if your paper flows well. I think effective peer review occurs when their are groups of two and no more than 3. This way someone is not rushed to read your paper and can put their full attention toward it. I would like the most analysis as possible and having smaller groups will help that. I also feel that one class dedicated to peer review would be for the best for the class as a whole. By giving an entire class period you allow students to peer review effectively. I also think it dose not matter if students pick their groups or not. I think students put the same amount effort into everyone papers. By having a friend do it you know they will try but a random person may provide insight that you and a friend may not think of. But either way I think peer review will be fine either way. Peer reviewers should look for grammatical and mechanical errors but they should focus on the structure and how the paper flows. I want to mainly know if I am headed in the right direction or if there are any major corrections I need to make.    

Batman

For my scene depiction I have chosen a scene from The Dark Knight. The scene I have chosen is the interrogation of the Joker. The scene is very intense and it comes close to the climax of the film. The scene opes with a The Joker sitting in a dark, poorly lit interrogation with a metal desk in front of him. The scenery is dark and dreary and is very intense. James gordon enters the room and asks the Joker where Harvey Dent is. After reeving an inadequate answer he leaves and the Batman appears behind the Joker in the shadows and the lights all flip on. Batman then beats up the Joker and the Joker tells him where to find Harvey and rachel but the catch is he can only save one of them. The scene is key because it appeared that they had the Joker defeated and finally had him in custody. But this was just part of the Joker's plan. The Joker is all about making batman break his only rule of not killing. The joker gives him a choice of who to save giving meaning he is practically killing the other. The scene brings a sense of panic because the Joker is just as dangerous in custody as out of custody and to truly solve the Joker he needs to die. But the Batman can not do this and must fight the urge to kill a defenseless Joker. The scene is truly good vs evil and puts Batman's morals to the test.      

project plan

For my project I am choosing to study the Interfraternity Council (IFC). The IFC governs over all the fratenities on the University of Kentucky's campus. I am in a fraternity and I diffidently interested in joining IFC. In my fraternity I have the current President of the IFC, the old vice president, and the current Vice president of inter fraternal relations. I can interview theses people and get all the information I can. In fact I have contacted all of them and have interviews scheduled for this week. I also have plans to attend and take pictures of their meeting on monday. I hope to learn how the fraternities on this communicate and how they are managed and the school's involvement with them. 

After watching my speech I learned several things about my public speaking abilities. The first thing I learned is that I need to prepare more for my speeches. Before this speech I did not prepare nearly as well as I should have. I only ran threw a couple times before doing the speech. I also next time need to get rid the note cards entirely. The note cards although they provide a sense of security but without them the speech is much more professional and flows a lot better. During my speech I did not even use them very much, in fact it felt awkward and uncomfortable to hold them and when I looked down with them I would lose almost all my momentum. Also I need to work on slowing down and developing my points. In my speech I did not go into as much detail as I wanted to. I barely talked about my career and I did not even mention the kind of doctor I wanted to be. I also need to watch my time more. I went under the time which is not excusable. There is no way that speech should have been under three minutes. I also need to look around more in my speech. My eye contact was sub par I kept staring in the same places and alienated a large portion of the audience. I feel that I have a lot to work on for my next speech and it will be better.