On Tuesday November 9th, PHA, IFC, and FSLSA hosted a mental health awareness event. This event was located in Glass Hall and also had a zoom option available to students. Senior Emily West, is the Director of Social Awareness on the Panhellenic Executive Board and she took lead in executing this event for the FSL community.
“I wanted to tie in IFC because when it comes to mental health issues, people never think of how they can relate to males,” West said. “I feel like that also adds to the stigma of mental health of not wanting to reach out and get help, so making sure that we are starting to break down that barrier so that guys know that mental health issues happen to anyone and it’s okay to get help. I decided to bring in FSLSA because they are all about furthering social awareness in our community.”
Tammy Dixion, from the Missouri State Counseling Center, was the speaker for this event and she discussed a holistic viewpoint of mental health with students. Dixion had previously spoken to the Pi Chi’s during PHA recruitment, which is how West knew she would be a great speaker for the event. The goal of this event was to reach everyone involved in the FSL community and express that it is crucial to take care of your own mental health, along with making sure those around you are supported with their mental health as well.
“As a senior, I have seen people go through freshman to senior year and they have their own struggles and I had my own struggles so I think that talking about it and not being afraid to talk about it makes a huge difference,” West said. “If it wasn’t for having the strong support system that the FSL community has, it would be hard to have this conversation. I think people have been open about it, but I am hoping that this conversation leads us to bettering as a whole and making sure people in our community are okay.”
Moving forward, the goal is to have the FSL community along with the Missouri State community be more engaged with conversations regarding mental health. Making sure that everyone is supported and taken care of is a priority, and the event was a step in the right direction of making this happen.
Many of the students in attendance commented on their experience. Panhellenic President, Emma Drace said, “The most impactful part of AFLV was the break out sessions. I learned a lot about how we can become a more diverse community and how to include everyone. I learned about the biases of sororities and how to break down those walls, especially during recruitment. I am looking forward to using the activities that we participated in and to show the rest of the community how we can grow!”
communities. I think everyone there was really transparent about the great things happening in the FSL community but still acknowledged that there is work to be done to continue to improve Fraternity and Sorority Life nationwide.”
management, Self Authenticity and How to Be a Leader. Corey was very insightful on how to find your passion in college and work towards it. He also gave 20 tips on how to manage your stress better while balancing classes and your social life. I left Corey’s talks feeling inspired and ready to make an impact on
the new members I will be working with this term.”
This year AFLV featured a variety of speakers. Lawrence Ross spoke on campus racism. James Robilotta, who has joined our community for the past couple of years to speak at Missouri State’s New Member Day, authentically spoke on how to inspire open communication and how to form tighter bonds that cause members to be more engaged. Joe Biden, Former Vice President of the United States, was also among the keynote speakers. Biden engaged attendees in a frank conversation about sexual assault on college campuses and the ongoing prevention work being done through the It’s On Us campaign.
Daniel Tedder, VP of Membership Development on IFC, said, “My favorite part of AFLV were thepersonal growth opportunities that were available to us at the conference. Whether we wanted to develop our abilities to work within the community, personally, or professionally, AFLV provided the opportunity and the space to do that. The conference really felt like a starting point for our executive board. As a group, we became very close and learned how to work with each other. We [were] able to bounce ideas off of each other and build strong relationships.”
Madison Henry, VP of Recruitment on PHA, reflects on her experience at AFLV saying, “AFLV was an amazing experience to meet other leaders of fraternities and sororities across the nation! I spent most of my time going to educational sessions over values-based recruitment; therefore, I learned a lot of ways to make sure that we are giving PNM’s a fully values-based experience… Sororities were made to empower and develop women, and it’s our job to make sure that we are pushing our FSL community to be the best that it can be.”
