IFC programming receives award

By Gwen Daniels

Published Feb. 26, 2008

This weekend, the Mid-American Greek Council Association confirmed what thousands of MU students already knew.

MU’s Interfraternity Council was recognized by the MGCA as one of the top fraternity councils in the Midwest.

IFC took home the Council Management Award at the MGCA Association Conference awards banquet Saturday night.

Members of MU’s IFC, Panhellenic Association and National Pan-Hellenic Council attended the conference.

The award recognized IFC’s programming last year under then-president Jim Barry.

To be eligible for the award, current executive board members worked with last year’s executive board members to submit two binders documenting the council’s programming, budgets, agendas and curriculum.

IFC had to submit evidence of 26 criteria ranging from Web site maintenance to financial structure.

“The award recognizes council management, so we had to document the president’s meetings we had last year and the advisor’s meetings, setting goals and deadlines and holding ourselves accountable,” Barry said. “We had to show our risk management programs, the New Greek Education programming we had throughout the year and our programming through formal recruitment. We had to show our financial records, keeping a well-balanced budget throughout the year.”

Barry said during his tenure as IFC president, he made it a goal to apply for the award.

“Throughout the year, we tried to keep an up-to-date log,” he said. “It was an ongoing process.”

When President Bryan VanGronigen began his term this year, he took over the process with the new executive board.

“It was a lot of hard work and everybody put in their part,” said Vice President of New Member Development Bobby Thrasher, who helped compile the binders. “It may be overwhelming over time, but it was gratifying in the end when it was all over and we actually did win the award. It was definitely worth it.”

VanGronigen called the application process a collaborative effort.

“The reason that we won this award was because of hard work and dedication of last year’s board,” he said. “The new board really helped put everything together. They were fantastic.”

He said IFC advisers Andrew Hohn and Christopher Jefferson also played an important role.

“Without them, we wouldn’t have had anyone to bounce ideas off of,” he said.

In addition, IFC hopes to improve one-on-one contact with the chapter presidents, VanGronigen said.

VanGronigen said the council received a lot of feedback and ideas from the conference. He said he plans to meet individually with each chapter president this semester.

“The presidents are so busy focusing on their own chapters that nobody really focuses on them,” he said. “It gives them the opportunity to bounce off questions and get feedback.”

The council also hopes to improve interaction between each fraternity chapter and reduce competition between chapters, IFC spokesman Sam Hargadine said.

“We are planning a ‘Fraternity Olympics’ at the end of this semester, which is going to be a great excuse for fraternities to meet other fraternities and get to know each other as a community,” Hargadine said.

Interaction between the four Greek councils at MU is another spot for improvement, VanGronigen said.

In years past, IFC has had limited contact with NPHC and the Multi-Cultural Greek Council, he said.

Communication between councils is key to improving involvement, Hargadine said.

“We want to make sure the other councils are aware of our annual events every year,” he added. “We’ve asked them to keep us aware of what they’re doing. Everyone is welcome to anybody’s event. We all want to stay on the same page.”

The conference itself also emphasized interaction between all members of the Greek system.

For the first time, the MGCA conference was combined with the National Black Greek Leadership Conference, giving members of IFC, PHA and NPHC from across the Midwest a chance to interact.

“People always talk about the fact that we live in a Greek community,” VanGronigen said. “But do we really have a community? While we might have individual goals, we want to hopefully create a vision that will benefit the community as a whole instead of standing in the same place we’ve been.”

PHA President Diamond Scott said the conference emphasized learning about the diverse Greek organizations.

“It’s great to not only learn more about our organization but to learn about MGC and NPHC,” she said. “It was a really good learning experience.”