Adam and Christopher interview Mike Dilbeck, an alumnus of Lambda Epsilon Chapter at Texas Christian University. Mike is a professional speaker, former General Fraternity staff member, and chapter advisor for the Lambda Epsilon Chapter. In this episode, Adam, Christopher, and Mike talk about the Fraternity's partnership with Mike to create the DignityU curriculum. During the conversation, Mike talks about his Sigma Nu experience, the importance of dignity, and why chapters and our Fraternity benefit from the conversations that come out of this workshop.
The Gavel Podcast is the official podcast of Sigma Nu Fraternity, Inc. It is dedicated to keeping you updated on the operations of the Legion of Honor and connecting you to stories from our brotherhood.
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The Gavel Podcast - Ep 18 - Dignity with Mike Dilbeck (Texas Christian)
[Intro Music]
0:00:42.2 Adam Girtz: Hello, and welcome to the latest episode of The Gavel Podcast. I'm Adam.
0:00:46.7 Christopher Brenton: And I'm Christopher.
0:00:48.1 Adam Girtz: The Gavel Podcast is the official podcast of Sigma Nu Fraternity and it's a show dedicated to keeping you updated on the operations of the Legion of Honor and connecting you to the stories from our brotherhood.
0:00:58.6 Christopher Brenton: To find out more from the Fraternity, you can always check out our website at sigmanu.org. You can also find us on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter @SigmaNuHQ or by searching for the Fraternity.
0:01:08.2 Adam Girtz: Christopher, did we have to fight anybody for @SigmaNuHQ so we can be that on every platform, or was that just open?
0:01:16.1 Christopher Brenton: I'm pretty sure that it was open. We were pretty quick anytime... We are pretty quick anytime a new platform opens up, which TikTok is a good example of this, that we go out and try to scoop up the handles as soon as we can just so that way no one takes it. But yeah, I know that we had @SigmaNuHQ from, I think Twitter when I first came on staff a decade ago, and so I know that that's just kind of been the origin of our handle. And of course, Facebook doesn't really have handles in the way that it's currently come to be known, which that being kind of the original platform outside of MySpace, which predates the organization being involved in that so I'm not 100% sure but...
0:02:14.8 Adam Girtz: That leads me to two other questions. Were we on MySpace?
0:02:17.2 Christopher Brenton: I do not think so.
0:02:20.4 Adam Girtz: And now are we on TikTok?
0:02:24.7 Christopher Brenton: We are on TikTok. We have not published any videos.
0:02:27.6 Adam Girtz: Gotcha, okay.
0:02:28.1 Christopher Brenton: And I don't know when we will. For any of you TikTok fans, hey, news@sigmanu.org, N-E-W-S at sigmanu.org, if you have any ideas for TikToks you'd like to see from us. To be honest, it is an undertaking, and the Fraternity does not want to just put out videos for the sake of putting out videos but want to put out content that people are going to consume and enjoy and want to receive. And the other platforms really enable us to share stories about the work of our brothers, the achievements of our alumni, etcetera, and so we really tap into those current platforms for that purpose. TikTok is a little different, I think, in what it enables us to do and so we're still trying to figure out what that might look like for the actual organization.
0:03:25.7 Adam Girtz: Well, you heard that right, folks. Email news@sigmanu.org. If you want to see me and Christopher do “The Money Don't Jiggle Jiggle” Dance on TikTok and post that for everybody, just let us know.
0:03:37.4 Christopher Brenton: The hilarious thing is how quickly that is going to be dated for any listeners who are not listening to this within maybe a month of this episode airing.
0:03:47.0 Adam Girtz: I'll just come back in and every so often splice it and put in whatever the most recent trending dance is. Well, Christopher, really love the conversation that we get to have today. We've been able to do a couple of different conversations with subject matter experts that have helped Sigma Nu come up with our programming that we have, Ross Szabo with our Behind Happy Faces program, New Notably, and others, but today we get to talk to Mike Dilbeck about DignityU, a program that he created in conjunction with Sigma Nu. So very, very excited to talk to him about that. Could you just give us a quick rundown of like, I guess what is DignityU, what is human dignity, why are we talking about this?
0:04:40.1 Christopher Brenton: Yeah. Well, first of all, we are so fortunate that we have this educational framework. I'll use that term to describe the LEAD Program. Back in, I think, 1988 when we launched the LEAD program the first time, we became one of the leading organizations, if not the first organization to adopt a comprehensive four-year educational curriculum for our members and ever since then, not only has the LEAD Program won awards for its quality and its outcomes, but we've been able to continuously enhance the program and the curriculum that we're offering through these additional workshops that we've been able to secure with partners, with subject matter experts. And that's exactly what we've gotten with the DignityU program. So in our interview you're going to get to hear from Mike Dilbeck, he is a public speaker as well as an engaged alum of the Fraternity.
0:05:44.6 Christopher Brenton: So Mike, not only was he a former staff member working for our General Fraternity staff, but then he left the organization to go on and work in the larger fraternity industry to create programs and videos to help tackle some of the educational initiatives that were really important at the time and are still important today, including one called Response Ability. But most recently, he set out to create this program on Dignity and thus, the DignityU curriculum was written, you'll hear more about that, but essentially, the program is attempting to address this idea of human dignity and respecting kind of your fellow man or your fellow member of the Fraternity, in our case, but just people in general.
0:06:40.7 Christopher Brenton: You're going to hear Mike talk a lot about this idea of like, we are trying to build others up not tear them down in our conversation that we're having with them and being recognized in like how are we being torn down maybe in conversations, or how are we tearing others down, how do we build the skill set that allows for us to engage in conversation with civility and to be a respectful brotherhood, recognizing the brotherhood and the fraternity as a really unique space where we get to challenge each other, challenge ourselves, to grow and develop as young men for our society.
0:07:23.9 Adam Girtz: Yeah, I think a really awesome tool, like we've talked about, or like we talk about in the interview, just an excellent, excellent tool for communicating what is a very complex and wide-ranging set of conversations that can be had into a very simple lens. You treat others with dignity and respect your own dignity or you look for respect for your own dignity. So pretty neat, really great conversation. Let's dive into the interview.
[Transition Music]
0:08:15.9 Adam Girtz: Hello everyone. Welcome to our interview. Very pleased to have with us today Mike Dilbeck of our Lambda Epsilon chapter at Texas Christian University. Mike, really happy to have you here.
0:08:25.2 Mike Dilbeck: I'm honored, really honored.
0:08:26.7 Adam Girtz: Awesome. Mike, care to just tell us a little bit about yourself and what you're up to, what you do?
0:08:33.9 Mike Dilbeck: Yeah, my name is Mike Dilbeck, of course, as he said, I'm Lambda Epsilon pin number three. So I was... I'm one of the founders of the Lambda Epsilon chapter, the initial iteration of it. There's a brand iteration of it now, which I can talk about as well. But of course, I went to TCU. I'm a proud, very proud die-hard TCU fan and, go Frogs, and honored to be a fellow alum from that chapter with our Executive Director Brad Beacham. And I am currently the chapter advisor for the new chapter that was established in 2016. And not only am I a professional speaker on the subject we're going to be talking about today, a couple of other subjects as well, but I am also a professional fundraiser and marketing executive for a non-profit here in Dallas, Texas.
0:09:22.9 Adam Girtz: Awesome. And to clarify, that is the re-chartered Lambda Epsilon chapter and not our Nu chapter.
0:09:28.2 Mike Dilbeck: That's right. [chuckle]
0:09:30.0 Mike Dilbeck: Oh, that's right, yeah.
0:09:31.5 Adam Girtz: That's something we have to clarify sometimes.
0:09:31.7 Mike Dilbeck: Oh, that's true.
0:09:33.2 Adam Girtz: Yeah.
0:09:33.5 Christopher Brenton: Yeah, N-U and N-E-W.
0:09:35.4 Mike Dilbeck: That's exactly right.
0:09:36.0 Christopher Brenton: It screws us up on every episode, I always have to spell it out for people.
0:09:39.5 Adam Girtz: Yeah. Our email that we have people send stuff to is news@sigmanu and we have to clarify, yes, it is N-E-W-S. [chuckle] Well, so Mike, tell us a little bit about your Sigma Nu experience starting with, I guess, why Sigma Nu?
0:09:57.5 Mike Dilbeck: Well, it's interesting. I was not a fraternity man for the first three years of my college experience and had gone through recruitment, of course we called it Rush at the time, and didn't get the group I wanted, it was not a great experience, didn't join, had many fraternity friends but just chose to get involved in many other campus activities. I think, down deep, I think I was probably getting more involved to show the fraternities it didn't take me that they missed an opportunity, if I tell the truth now however many years later. But then on my senior year, well, let's say the first of two senior years, I...
0:10:35.5 Christopher Brenton: Victory lap.
0:10:35.5 Mike Dilbeck: My victory... Well, this is the first one, not even the victory lap. I was approached by two other men that had gone through not a great fraternity experience and wanted to start a new fraternity, and they had been told to find a senior that was active and on campus and had whatever level of respect they could get and somebody that had been around the block with the administration in the school and knew the ropes and everything. So somehow some way they found me and long story short, they invited me to join, I thought, "Why in the world would I do that? I'm a senior, fourth year senior... Or first of two years senior and I'm just focused on getting out of here, and why would I do something that I didn't do three years ago?" But then there was something about it that...
0:11:24.5 Mike Dilbeck: I think I remember, and I tell this story a lot that one of the founders said, just think about what you want your legacy here at TCU to be, and I really didn't have anything to show for my legacy. And so that really struck me, struck a chord, and I thought about it and I said what I didn't think I would say and I said yes. And I joined and I was colony commander and then chapter commander once we got chartered, and then came on staff for Sigma Nu as Assistant Executive Director for two years and then I left that and started my own company. While I was on staff for Sigma Nu, I did all the communications and one of those being... A new phenomenon back then was this thing called video, crazy, and of course back then it was a way different thing than it is now. And so we started getting into video work and we had just launched the LEAD program, so I did all the LEAD videos, I did a promotional video, did fundraising videos and became quite well-known in the fraternity and sorority community for doing that and I started getting a lot of questions from headquarters about how they could go do and about what we did.
0:12:34.5 Mike Dilbeck: So I left staff and started my own company, and for, on and off for 30 years basically, produced films and videos for national fraternity and sorority organizations. And then in 2008 I produced a film that had about 30, I think, national fraternity and sorority sponsors called Response Ability, which some of you may know about because it's part of the Sigma Nu curriculum, and Sigma Nu is a founding sponsor of that program, and it was on Bystander Intervention. And that propelled me into a speaking career, which I still do today. And then in 2016 or 2015, I moved from Chicago to Dallas. It happened to coincide... I'm just giving you the whole gamut. It happened to coincide with this re-chartering, or going for the re-chartering, of Sigma Nu at TCU and I was on the presentation committee for that, agreed to be chapter advisor and chairman of the Alumni Advisory Board, which I've been ever since we started. And that's kind of the... That was a long-ass answer to your question. [laughter]
0:13:41.1 Adam Girtz: Hey, that's the Sigma Nu story though. You've got a good one. That's what we want to hear.
0:13:47.5 Mike Dilbeck: Yeah, that's it.
0:13:48.4 Christopher Brenton: Yeah. Well, and too, I think it's remarkable just to have had you involved with the Fraternity for so long, to have you serve the organization as a staff member and then to transition into a post-staff career where you're still advancing the work of the Fraternity, the work of the industry in general and then going on to now serve as a chapter advisor, it's great that we've had the opportunity to keep you involved for so long.
0:14:15.0 Mike Dilbeck: Well, thank you, Christopher. It's mind-boggling to me, and I think we all have those moments like, "God, if this wouldn't have happened, what would my life have looked like?" Had I not said yes to Sigma Nu, yes to that invitation to join, what would my life had looked like? I wouldn't even be... Obviously, I wouldn't be sitting here with you today. I wouldn't have done all the things I've done, I wouldn't have started my company, I wouldn't have made hopefully the impact that I've had on the national fraternity and sorority movement and I just... I can't imagine my life had I not said yes and had the experience I had and gone on staff and then started my company then became a professional speaker. I think I've spoken on over 350 college campuses to tens of thousands of students. That just would not have been possible. And I'm not saying everybody who says yes to Sigma Nu is going to have a life and a career in the fraternity and sorority community, but I happened to take that path, which I never thought I would, didn't even see it in my future and I have Sigma Nu to thank for it all. That's why I give back today.
0:15:18.0 Christopher Brenton: That's awesome. Well, you mentioned Response Ability, which was their earliest program that we partnered with you on, and the most recent is DignityU. So many of our chapter advisors or chapter officers who may be listening are likely familiar with that program. That's kind of been a signature program that our consultants will put on for chapters as they travel. We also have plenty of resources available online for chapters who want to bring that experience to their own chapter, even outside of the consultations, lots of resources that we are really appreciative of you for putting those together. And we'll talk more about where you can access those resources into this program. But I want to kind of dive into the topic, especially for those listeners who may be unfamiliar with this program, it is not too old, it was only a couple of years ago that we launched it for the first time, and so a lot of our older alumni who may not be serving in a volunteer capacity may be unfamiliar with the program.
0:16:18.0 Christopher Brenton: So I guess diving into the essentials to understand Dignity or the genesis of DignityU at its basic level, it's really tackling this idea of human dignity. Mike, why do you feel this is such an essential topic for our society to understand? And then maybe walk us into a larger conversation about how DignityU came to be.
0:16:44.6 Mike Dilbeck: Well, I won't say too much about Response Ability and the Bystander Intervention program that it is, but it was the foundation for this next conversation called DignityU. And Bystander Intervention is basically, in layman's terms, say something... See something, say something. Whether it's hazing, drug and alcohol abuse, sexual violence, bullying, shaming someone else, offensive behavior, hate speech, whatever the gamut is, if we see something happening to someone else, we have a responsibility, safely, to intervene in some kind of way. So I spoke about that and we did that program for about 10 years and then I thought, "What is the next conversation? What have I learned out of the last 10 years? What did people talk to me about? What have I seen out of students and even adults as I've done it for companies?" And it was this conversation about dignity. And so it was just the natural evolution of this conversation on Bystander Intervention to the impact that behavior can have on someone's sense of self-worth and value. We all have an experience of ourselves in life, and is that going to be a positive, affirming, empowered experience like, "Yes, I am worthy, I am valuable, I can do anything I want to do, I can conquer anything I want to conquer, I am invincible"?
0:18:07.4 Mike Dilbeck: Or is it like, "Really, I'm not loved, I'm not valued, I'm not worthy, I'm not seen, I'm not heard"? That unfortunately, if many of us tell the truth, is at some level the experience we have in life. And I'm not saying at a great level, I'm not saying at a low... I mean you can identify, anybody listening to this can identify whatever level they have that experience. And what has led to us feeling that way? What has been said to us? How have we been treated in life? How... What if... If we've been treated in a certain way, did anybody else intervene on our behalf? So that may have even exacerbated or put a distinct level of impact and pain on what we just experienced when like, "Woah, not only did this person treat me a particular way but nobody stood up for me. I really must not be heard. I really must not be valued in life." And many of us, we... Yeah, the common question we ask people, "How you doing?" and people go, "Fine. I'm doing great. I'm doing fine." And...
0:19:15.0 Adam Girtz: Yeah, the expectation is not that you say anything other than "Good", it's...
0:19:18.5 Mike Dilbeck: You have to, because it creates awkwardness if you don't.
0:19:21.6 Adam Girtz: Yeah.
0:19:22.2 Mike Dilbeck: And there's been times I'm like, "Do you really want to know?" Watch the question you ask because I may tell you how I'm doing and it's not great right now. But we typically say fine and that's how we cover up for the disempowered lack of worth, lack of value experience we have of ourselves. So when we look at specifically the fraternity experience, and we can even start with how we treat our new members, are we empowering them? Are we building them up to be the leaders we want them to be or are we tearing them down?
0:20:00.5 Mike Dilbeck: Are we telling them "You're a low-class, second-class citizen. You are not worthy. You have to earn your right. You have to earn your respect. You have to earn this. You have to earn that"? As a chapter advisor, how many times have I heard the word earn, which just is like nails on the chalkboard to me? And then therefore we don't build them up and we don't empower them as leaders and then we wonder like, "Why do we not have the engagement and the leadership that we want to have?" Well, let's look back to the new member program. Let's look back to them as candidates. How did we treat them? And then you can go up into the grades, the labels, and how do we treat each other, even as sophomores, juniors, seniors? How do we treat women? How are we seen as the way we are on campus? Are we known as...
0:20:53.2 Mike Dilbeck: Have we treated women with dignity and respect or we treat them otherwise? I mean I could go on and on and on, and especially when it comes to hazing, the impact that that has and the lack of dignity that it has to it and how our members walk out feeling after being hazed. So again, I could go on but that is dignity. It is the inherent value and worth we have or don't have as a human being.
0:21:21.6 Christopher Brenton: Yeah, what I think too, just as I'm reacting to what you shared as well as just my knowledge of the program in general, I can't help but feel like how timely and relevant this conversation is and it becomes increasingly relevant every year. Unfortunately, it feels like we're moving [chuckle] in the direction opposite of where we really want to be going, but that does make this conversation more important. But I've always felt like fraternity and sorority, but looking at it from our experience, fraternity is such an important experience for collegiate members to have a space where they can get to know people with different perspectives, different upbringings, different cultures, etcetera, to be able to challenge others and be challenged. And this dignity conversation I think is such a perfect space for them to really explore that and to understand that.
0:22:27.5 Christopher Brenton: Because unfortunately, I feel like that social piece is in such decline just because our lives are becoming increasingly online. There's plenty of people who would argue that the Gen Z and the generation that comes after that, they're gaining skills that we just don't understand because we're not net natives, we didn't grow up online, and so we're not as used to just having this social experience that is online. But I definitely think for our collegiate members as they're engaging with each other in chapter, to be able to have a space that is, not intentionally trying to rhyme here, but filled with grace that these men, young men can develop and can learn to be respectful but then also appreciative of each other, to learn how to challenge each other, to maintain and honor the dignity of their fellow brothers. I just feel like fraternity is such a great space for that. I'm glad that this program exists to have that conversation or facilitate that conversation.
0:23:30.3 Mike Dilbeck: Yeah, of course, I'm biased but I totally agree. And just to add a layer of directness into what you said, I'll be even more specific, is let's just tell the truth. Let's just assume that, everybody listening to this, we're in the same room or the same fraternity or... Let's just tell the truth because I believe in telling the truth. Fraternity, especially traditional white, predominantly white fraternities, we don't necessarily... The safe space, hot bed for a powerful conversation, even disagreement, is not inherently part of our culture. It's just not. I mean if we... Unless we tell the truth about that, we have our head in the sand. It's just... There is a particular culture that we need to break out of in order to be the fullest, what I call fraternity the way it's designed, and it was designed by our founders. And the reason they even founded Sigma Nu to begin with was out of a commitment to honoring other people's dignity by creating, being the fraternity that was founded on no hazing. Let's just start there. Why did they do that? because they wanted to honor the dignity of every man, or anybody who identifies as men, coming into this organization. So having said the way I just said it, which may have perked some ears, let's... Are we going to have straight, no pun intended, conversations including sexual orientation, including race, including ethnicity, including gender expression?
0:25:13.2 Mike Dilbeck: Are we going to have those kind of conversations in a safe space environment where perspectives can be honored, where backgrounds can be brought into the conversation, where differences can be respected so that each and every person, even if there's disagreement... because Brad and I have had this conversation a lot of times, and you're like, I'm not even saying, don't disagree with one another. Disagreement is healthy, even argument can be healthy. But look at how many times, especially Chris, where you said in today's environment, how that's not being had without tearing someone down. It's like we've turned into this society where we can't disagree without tearing the other person down and having it be a personal attack to where that person leaves the conversation, the disagreement, even the argument, feeling less about themselves and what they entered it.
0:26:07.7 Christopher Brenton: Yeah.
0:26:07.8 Mike Dilbeck: That's what we need to transform. And if someone's gay or they identify as transgender, they need to be honored, they need to be left empowered and built up and "Here's a place at the table for you. Just because you're not a white, affluent man, cis man, then we have a place for you." I know this is going to push some buttons, I get it. I know the fraternity I'm speaking into. I've worked for them. I'm deeply embedded in them. I know what would... The work we have to do. But we have to do that work.
0:26:43.6 Adam Girtz: And what a great place to start with Dignity, right? My experience as a consultant to traveling on the road, I delivered this workshop, DignityU, for about 25 chapters over the course of a semester, and I did that a couple of different times with a couple of different workshops, and really this one I think was personally my favorite, and in my experience, spawned some of the best conversations that I've had with young men around the country out of really any workshop that we're able to deliver. And really, I just... My impression of it by the end was how wonderful of a building block it is. It is the perfect central building block for every other conversation that we can have. Because if you start from a place of, "I have dignity and that dignity, I deserve to have my dignity respected, therefore I should... " You treat others that way as well, it's such a great place to start, because like you said, it doesn't... There's no implication that because I have dignity that you have any less dignity and it's not a zero-sum game. We all can have that level of respect for ourselves and for others.
0:28:01.9 Adam Girtz: So yeah, then once you acknowledge that, then we can go to so many other places with that conversation that you really... I just think it is essential. It is that first building block of everything else. So Mike...
0:28:16.2 Mike Dilbeck: Can I say something though?
0:28:17.2 Adam Girtz: Oh please.
0:28:18.7 Mike Dilbeck: I just have to say this. I will make the argument... Now, there's not time enough on this podcast for us to really dive into this, so I'm just going to kind of lay this out there. But I'll make the argument, and I have some evidence to show for this as I've traveled the country and spoken on this just like you all have done the workshop, unless you have your own personal dignity and self-worth and value, you're not able to show it to others. You have to start there. Now, this program is not necessarily designed to look at the self, like looking at you, it's mainly designed... So I'm just kind of getting is like maybe we should have started there, but it's totally fine the way it's designed now. But I think something to take as a starting conversation for everybody is, "How do I even look at myself? Do I have my own self-dignity? Do I look at myself as valuable and worthy? Then how can I make damn sure that others look at themselves that way?" because unless you have some connection to what dignity, in other words, value and self-worth even look like, how would you even know how to ensure that somebody else experiences that?
0:29:35.6 Adam Girtz: Absolutely. Well said. So for our brothers who maybe haven't experienced this program, or if an alumnus is listening and was in school before this program was out there, how can understanding dignity better help our collegiate members be better brothers in Sigma Nu and better members of their campus community? What is the takeaway from it?
0:30:00.5 Mike Dilbeck: Have it be... In every interaction you have, and I'm talking like every interaction you have, whether it be at another Sigma Nu, with a candidate, with a stranger, with a sorority member, with just a fellow student on campus, in life as a fellow adult, with other parents, with other co-worker, any human being you have an interaction with, period, are you going to leave that person and their experience of that interaction being lifted up or torn down? And if you are simply mindful of that in every interaction and be very interested in the experience that you've left that person with, you're not always going to succeed, you're not always going to leave people lifted up, some... Tell them the truth. Some conversations are fairly neutral and just transactional and... "What time are we having that meeting?" "Oh, 2 o'clock." "Alright, see you later." I mean, that's not necessarily a conversation that you're going to lift somebody up or tear them down at it, I guess you could tear them down but...
0:31:07.4 Adam Girtz: Didn't you know that meeting was at 2:00? Come on. [chuckle]
0:31:09.3 Mike Dilbeck: "Yeah, you dumbass." And there's a lot of proof of that. I mean it can be that simple.
0:31:18.0 Adam Girtz: It can, yeah.
0:31:19.7 Mike Dilbeck: It can be that fricking simple. How do you respond to somebody on social media? How do you comment on someone's post? Just, oh... Especially even behind these platforms that don't require a name, how are you interacting sometimes anonymously to people behind the screen, the computer screen? That's some of the most... So social media and social interaction has to include that as well. That's a whole another conversation. But just being mindful. I don't mean to make it sound so simple, it's not going to fix everything. But if you just commit to yourself for being more mindful in every interaction, like slow down, because many of us get in such a hurry and we're having interaction after interaction, it's just like, get through this one to get to the next one. And someone doesn't feel heard or appreciated because you did go so quickly or didn't treat them fairly or respectfully, you may not even know it because you've gone on to the next one.
0:32:22.3 Adam Girtz: Yeah, I think it is simple, it's a simple lens on a very complex issue or an infinite set of complex issues, right?
0:32:32.8 Mike Dilbeck: Yeah, absolutely.
0:32:35.1 Adam Girtz: So Mike, if I were a collegiate member and I'm listening to this podcast and I think, "Wow, I love this idea, I want to talk to my brothers about this," how do you start a conversation like that? If I'm not a chapter Commander, I'm not not a president, how do I talk to my chapter? How do I talk to my brothers about this?
0:32:57.5 Mike Dilbeck: Yeah, Adam, this is not... I'm so glad you asked it the way you did, because what I want to make clear, and I think this is one of the most powerful things about this program, it's not just a leadership program. It's not for the leaders, it's not for the exec, it's not... It's for everybody. It's a human being program. It's not even just for college students. It's not for fraternity members. It's a human being conversation. And you can just... Again, as I said before and I don't want to be redundant, but just start with you. Just start with you. Don't be so concerned about what everybody else is doing and how they're treating people, start with you and be an example of how you treat other people. And continuously ask the question, and it's very simple, that's why when I do this keynote across the country, the... It's called DignityU; Lifting up or tearing down. because it's that simple. Are you lifting the person up, or are you tearing them down? It's layman's term. It's not technical terminology, it's not academic, it's just, am I going to lift this person up as a human being? Am I going to make them feel better about themselves?
0:34:02.0 Mike Dilbeck: Am I going to give them the dignity and respect and everything that they deserve as a human being? Or am I going to make sure that they leave feeling worse about themselves that, what I may perceive is a dumb question they asked, or that they're lower than me in the fraternity, so they deserve to be spat upon or done whatever we... " Just all that whole world, just be more mindful of what kind of human beings are we creating in the world? And what kind of world are we creating that we all get to live in? And I'm concerned for that world currently.
0:34:37.7 Christopher Brenton: Yeah. Well, and I would add one additional point too, and this is really advice to any chapter officers, LEAD Chairman, Commanders that are listening, Lieutenant Commanders, the purpose of the LEAD program, the purpose of any of our educational curriculum that we offer is for personal and chapter development. And development is an ongoing process. There's no expectation that perfection is achieved after doing a program once. And with this DignityU program, with any of our LEAD sessions, the topics that you are engaging in are likely conversations that need to happen frequently, more than once.
0:35:26.7 Mike Dilbeck: Oh, preach.
0:35:27.7 Christopher Brenton: And so it's so important, I think, that if a chapter is recognizing the importance of this conversation, we would hope that they would, that this is an ongoing conversation that has to happen at least once a year so that you're engaging every one of your members as they're coming into the chapter, and then you're constantly churning the chapter into itself and making sure that you're having blended conversations with seniors and freshmen and everyone in-between. But then also you recognize that where you're at your freshman year or your first year in the chapter, where you're at in your last year in the chapter, you're going to be at a very different place in your maturation, in your, just personal social skills.
0:36:11.4 Christopher Brenton: And so continuing to use this experience as a way of benchmarking your growth and identifying, how am I implementing this work? How am I doing a better job of, again, recognizing the dignity of others, recognizing my own dignity and how I advocate for myself or how I have conversations with others?" I just want to really empower officers to recognize like, hey, you're not just checking this off the... You're not just checking a box, you're not just throwing this out there and saying, hey, we did it once and we're done, it's recognizing that this curriculum is a part of... Or sorry. All of our educational curriculum is a part of an ongoing process of personal development for our members.
0:36:56.4 Mike Dilbeck: 100%. It is not a quick fix, it's not overnight, it's not a one-time, one-and-done kind of opportunity. People pay thousands of dollars to bring me in to speak and I'm very quick to tell them, "I'm not going to come in and fix your problem. It's not... I can't do that." Now, will I open up a conversation? Is this program, this workshop designed... It's really designed to simply open things up and give you a structure to ongoingly have this conversation and revisit it. And whether that be in... Sitting around the chapter room, just brother on brother having conversations, or whether it's a more facilitated, more structured conversation, just having it be a part of the conversation in the chapter, and are we honoring the dignity of our fellow, let's just start with the chapter, our fellow brothers in all occasions? Now, in the 10 essential elements of dignity, which is part of the program, you'll notice that there's 10 essential elements. There's a variety of things, one of them that I'm a true fan of, I'm a fan of all of them, but that I think we could do a better job at is recognition.
0:38:06.0 Mike Dilbeck: What do we recognize in our chapter? What do we recognize in our chapter meeting? Good deeds that are done. Accomplish, or something that... I don't know, just positive attributes. We're so quick to tear down and send people to Standards Board and the Honor Board and everything, for somebody, for instance, that somebody did wrong. Are we putting as much attention and energy on what people do that is right? And so role models and the role model behavior so that we recognize that as what we're striving for in all situations. So I encourage everybody to focus in on the 10 essential elements and kind of do a self-assessment of maybe 1 to 10, where are you showing this essential element of dignity in your life? And be honest. Just be brutally, truthfully honest. This is not a look-good, feel-good exercise. This is a tell-the-truth, exercise. Create a gap. "Okay, I'm at a four. I want to get to a 10. Alright, I have some movement to do." And then empower yourself to do that movement.
0:39:10.4 Christopher Brenton: Yeah. Mike, we've only got you for a few more minutes here, so we wanted to speak directly to the DignityU program itself. Can you just walk our listeners through what resources are available with the DignityU curriculum? We do have that hosted on our website, so all of the videos and resources that you've compiled, you're going to be able to access that through essentially the sigmanu.org website, there's the Collegiate Members tab, Educational Programs, and you can find the DignityU program. We'll also be able to hyperlink everything to those programs in our show notes so people will be able to find it very easily. But can you just break down what are the resources and materials that are available for officers and volunteers who want to implement this in their chapter?
0:40:02.3 Mike Dilbeck: We did a whole... We did a video on it. It's a longer video that brought together 10 very diverse students to talk about this subject. And it was a real authentic, not scripted conversation, but it was all structured around, I think three different scenarios: Hazing, sexual abuse and speech, hate speech, homophobic speech, and then they had a conversation around those animated sequences. And so that gets the conversation started. So there's... As a structure for all this, there's facilitation guides of different lengths, I think there's 30, 60, 90-minute lengths, depending on what time period you have to do your particular workshop, and it just leads it through facilitation notes, tells you what to do, when to do it, what video to show. There's several different videos, there's handouts, there's exercises, depending on what of the three workshops you have time to do. There's more content based on that timeframe. And it's just all there for you. And if you can do the work and do the preparation, I think you'll find it to be a very worthwhile comprehensive exercise, at least to get the conversation started.
0:41:20.7 Adam Girtz: Mike, on behalf of Sigma Nu, us, your brothers and everyone who's experienced this workshop, I just want to say thank you for the work that you did...
0:41:31.5 Mike Dilbeck: Yeah, you're welcome.
0:41:31.6 Adam Girtz: To put this together. Personally, I've seen the tangible benefit that is created by this program and it's immense. So thank you. And thank you for spending some time with us here.
0:41:45.5 Mike Dilbeck: You're welcome.
0:41:45.7 Adam Girtz: Hopefully that serves to then drive more people who didn't even know that this was a thing to go and check that out and...
[overlapping conversation]
0:41:53.4 Mike Dilbeck: We need a lot of people to know this is a thing.
0:41:56.8 Adam Girtz: Absolutely, I think everyone should. And I think really, you touched on it a little bit, but this is core to what it means to be, not only a Sigma Nu, but a fraternity man and a person. But specifically, or specific to our mission at Sigma Nu, I think this is an amazing tool for us all to get out there and create this tangible benefit for everyone. I just think it really is incredible. So thank you for spending some time with us today.
0:42:25.3 Mike Dilbeck: You're welcome. You're very welcome. I'm honored.
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0:42:58.0 Adam Girtz: Alright, welcome back everyone. Excellent conversation. Really enjoyed talking with Mike. What a charming guy. I guess I've never... I don't think I've spoken with Mike before but really a pleasure to talk with him and to get to express my gratitude to him for working on the program. I've had the pleasure of actually going out and having these conversations with about 25 of our chapters while I was a consultant. So getting to deliver that curriculum and have the conversations that respond from it was really a unique experience for me, selfishly, but really just a cool opportunity to get to see all this stuff at work and remind myself that the values of our fraternity really do stick with our members and they want to live this stuff and this I think gives them a really great way to think about it and a great way to interact with their community. So yeah, really cool conversation. Christopher, any thoughts?
0:44:06.0 Christopher Brenton: Yeah, I am glad that we have the chance to highlight programs like this. You mentioned this at the top of the podcast, but we for a while have wanted to bring awareness to the programs that we're offering. Many of these programs are... Have come about in the last half-decade, maybe full decade, so they're still relatively young or relatively new in the life span of the fraternity. So many of our alumni will not be familiar with them, especially if you're not a volunteer. And so it's great that we get to highlight this, what the fraternity is doing to continue the development of our membership and the continued advancement of our brotherhood.
0:44:53.5 Christopher Brenton: I really think this conversation is so timely, I've already shared some of my thoughts in the podcast interview with Mike. But I will say one reaction to something he shared, he talked about it briefly, I want to go back to the point about, or his point about the founders. I just think it's so interesting. We are now over 150 years old. We're still fighting this fight about hazing and why does it continue to exist? Our founding ideal was a fraternal experience that brought a brotherhood together that was absent of hazing. And it's not an ideal that we've... Unfortunately, it is not an ideal that we've been able to realize. We're still combating it today. It's an ongoing fight, continuing to reiterate to our members that you can establish a brotherhood that values and respects itself, that recognizes seniority and authority, that recognizes power and purpose but also celebrates the dignity of our members and identifies respect for our members.
0:46:09.8 Christopher Brenton: That concept was so essential to our founders who just after the Civil War had fought alongside brothers in combat, had been with them in the trenches, came to college shortly after the Civil War and then there's this idea of like, hey, I have been with these men in the worst possible experience, the worst possible condition, how am I going to ask them to debase themselves or to think of themselves as less than me when we have truly been brothers-in-arms prior to our collegiate experience? And so that was kind of the impetus behind John Hopkins... James Frank Hopkins. Not John Hopkins. In Washington DC, John Hopkins is nearby.
0:46:57.2 Adam Girtz: Yeah.
0:46:57.7 Christopher Brenton: I quickly have to defend myself to all the Sigma Nus. James Frank Hopkins. That was his impetus for why he was so passionate about this because it was his experience. I think that's the exact same conversation that this is facilitating, which is, how do we get our members to identify, "Hey, how am I treating others with respect? How am I recognizing their dignity? Am I seeing my own dignity diminished? How do I advocate for myself?" And I'm glad that a program like this exists to continue that work. Because I think sometimes as a society, we falsely assume, and I mentioned this earlier, we falsely assume that once you do something once, you've perfected it, and that's an absolute fallacy. This is ongoing work. We continue to fight this fight and fight for the values that we believe in, the mission of our fraternal experience and I think this program is absolutely essential to helping our members realize that mission.
0:48:00.5 Adam Girtz: Definitely, yeah. And it was mentioned in the interview that we have this constant churn, we're always, always bringing in new members and that is the one core characteristic of a fraternal organization like this, is every year there are new young men that are stepping on to college campuses for the first time and having, starting out on this, your fraternal experience the last four years or five years, if you're me or Mike Dilbeck. But we have the opportunity then to have this conversation fresh every year with a new group of people, and like we talked about in the interview, to have conversations between your seniors and freshmen every year to help drive this.
0:48:48.8 Adam Girtz: And you said it a bunch of times, but this is truly a great tool for that, so recommend that everyone listening, if you're a member of our collegiate chapter or if you're an alumnus, volunteer, if you're just an alumnus out there listening, go check out this program. All the links for the program are going to be in the show notes, correct, Christopher?
0:49:11.4 Christopher Brenton: Yeah. So there's a couple of different ways of accessing this. Of course, just like we do with every podcast episode, we are going to have comprehensive show notes. Everything that we've mentioned thus far we're going to have hyperlinked so you can quickly find these resources in the show notes of the podcast. We really feel that that is a service that we can provide through this podcast platform to help make you feel like you're able to quickly connect with the things that we're talking about. But if you are accessing this away from the podcast platform, two ways of which you can access it, so you can go directly to the site, we've established a short URL, you can go to www.sigmanu.org/dignityu and that will take you right to the resources. The other way is a little bit more, it's a little bit of a longer journey to get there, but you're on the main website, at the top you'll see a number of tabs that kind of house the individual buckets of resources that we have available. So if you go to the Collegiate Members tab, scroll down to Educational Programs and then scroll down again to DignityU, that's where you'll find the DignityU webpage.
0:50:24.8 Christopher Brenton: Of course, the short URL will go there directly, but once you get to that landing page, we're going to have hyperlinks for all of the resources that are provided through the DignityU curriculum, including the videos, as well as the kind of instructional guides of how to actually walk through the curriculum with your undergraduate members, whether you're facilitating this as an officer or you're a volunteer who wants to facilitate it. So keep an eye out for all of those resources. Take advantage of them, utilize them and certainly feel free to connect with a fraternity or your chapter's leadership consultant if this is a program you would like for us to help you facilitate.
0:51:08.0 Adam Girtz: Absolutely. A longer journey but well worth it for a program that can help spark a lot of really great conversations in your chapter. So Christopher, we are wrapping up season three here, aren't we?
0:51:22.5 Christopher Brenton: Yeah. So for anyone unfamiliar, the way that the podcast, or we've structured the podcast, is every six months we launch a new season, so this is... We're approaching the year-and-a-half mark for the fraternity and the podcast. So this is the last episode of season three, season four will launch with our July episode. And man, I'm really excited about some of the topics we're going to get to do. There's some really good ones and I think that for listeners who've been here since the beginning, trust us, it's going to be brand new conversations, brand new topics that I think you'll be interested in hearing. But for recent listeners, I just feel like the quality of our episodes continues to increase and I'm really excited for what's ahead.
0:52:10.8 Adam Girtz: Yeah, lots of learning that we've done. Whether it's a new platform or different things that we've done to develop the episodes on our end, but also just the incredible conversations that we're able to have, the people that we've been given access to or the people that have agreed to speak with us, we very much appreciate, and I think it's just such a neat experience. So yeah, here's to another six-month season starting very soon. So as we have these final preparations to head into season four, we're always looking for feedback. We'd love to hear from fans of the show or from listeners who have some constructive feedback for us, we'd love to hear it. So news@sigmanu.org, that's N-E-W-S at sigmanu.org. If you have any feedback or just want to shout out some appreciation to us, we'd love that. And I got a cool message from a collegian a little while ago saying he was driving and was able to listen to a bunch of episodes. So that was really cool to hear some of that feedback and to know that people are enjoying this episode.
0:53:27.2 Adam Girtz: So we appreciate you guys for listening. Yeah. And if you have any ideas or if you know someone with an incredible Sigma Nu story or if you are someone with an incredible Sigma Nu story, of which there are thousands, there are literally thousands, yeah, let us know, reach out. Christopher, anything else?
0:53:49.0 Christopher Brenton: I can't think of anything as I say that. I will say we are entering the summer months, so this episode is our June episode. We are... June and July are always busy months for us as we are doing pursuit of excellence review or establishing, or we're identifying award winners, we're entering into consultant training for our new consultant team members. We're working with the council on ensuring that our budget for the next fiscal year is ready to go. We're working with the council to ensure that we're on track with our strategic plans, or sorry, with the strategic imperatives that exist under the strategic plan of the fraternity. So there's so much going on, even though for all of our collegiate members this is the months that they're out of school. But be on the lookout, we're constantly pushing out new resources and information on things that are going on from the fraternity, but otherwise, this is also our time to reset, get regrouped for what will likely be another fantastic year for the fraternity.
0:54:54.3 Adam Girtz: Absolutely, and it will be. 2022, '23, it's our year. It's your year, listener.
0:55:02.5 Christopher Brenton: Yes, absolutely.
0:55:04.6 Adam Girtz: Alright, thanks for listening, everybody. We will talk to you soon.
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