NEWSLETTER | proconsulsigmachi

Trevor Fedoruk

Hometown: Riverside, CA

Major: Political Science

Engagement Track: Leadership and Engagement

Pro Consul “Vice President” of The Sigma Chi Fraternity

This project took me a little over a year to complete. The opportunities that holding this position gave are unmatched by any other organization with similar standards and structure. Holding the Pro Consul position in the Sigma Chi Fraternity taught me many lessons along with helping me develop very valuable leadership skills. As Pro Consul I had many different responsibilities like, attending the Balfour Leadership Training Workshop “BLTW”, being on the Judicial Board, educating our new members with the Post Initiation Training "P.I.T.", Executive Committee "EC" meetings, and coordinating with all of the positions to make sure they were achieving what they set out to accomplish.

The first thing that I needed to accomplish before really digging into this position was to attend BLTW. While at this conference I collaborated with other Pro Consuls to put together an action plan to bring back to my chapter. One of the biggest things that I implemented was the use of agendas for our Executive Committee meetings. By doing this I was able to create a more transparent relationship between EC and Chapter. From here I took care of the education of our pledges moving from pledge-ship to being an active brother, which is a very important task. Then every Sunday I ran and coordinated our Executive Committee meetings. Two of these jobs were on going and changed depending on the dependence of brothers who held positions and brothers who needed to be dealt with in the form of a punishment due to their actions. Those jobs were being on the Judicial Board and overseeing all of the applied positions.

After seeing two Pro Consuls come and go in this chapter, I saw how this position changed their leadership skills and their lives. This only drove me to want this position more and more. Using this position, as my EDGE project never even occurred to me, I wanted this position before I even knew I could use it as my project. All I wanted was the opportunity and the skills that would be obtain from holding this position. After only talking to one of my brothers who worked in the EDGE center is when I learned that if I were to obtain this position I could use it as my EDGE project. I also really wanted to make some improvements with this position and by making our Executive Committee more respected and transparent with the rest of chapter.

Some things came as a bit of a challenge when I began this position as Pro Consul of the Kappa Iota Chapter. One of the biggest challenges from the beginning was establishing a good relationship between our chapter and executive committee. This came as a struggle because our last executive committee inadvertently created a stigma that they were better in a way than chapter. Getting back from that was a bit of a struggle but we were able to do it with the hard work and trust of all the brothers. Another one of the challenges that I encountered was handling the judicial committee. The only reason this was a struggle is because there was no set way of running it, it was always left up to the Pro Consul to decide how he wanted to run things. After I established a system with the assistance of a few brothers including our president our judicial board ran smoothly.

Being the Pro Consul you are essentially what people call the man behind the scenes. The Pro Consul does a lot of work that goes un-noticed that benefits the chapter while the Consul stands in the spot light. That’s fine with me, I had no problem standing behind the scenes, because I knew the job that I was doing was benefiting all of the guys in chapter. One specific role that the Pro Consul has is handling the Post Initiation Training or P.I.T. sessions. What this role enquires is taking the pledges and teaching them the information they need to know in order to be a contributing and active member of chapter. All of these young men benefit from these teachings, I know this because I went through the same thing and you really learn a lot and gain a new perspective on this experience of being in a fraternity.

This project gave me a new perspective on how to help run a lead such a great fraternity. By far this is an experience that I will be benefiting from for years to come. Just from the leadership conference that I attended alone gave me great new leadership skills that I would not have received otherwise. Then as the Pro Consul you see everything in a new light, you have to take in accounts from all sides, you have to be able to see the right from the wrong and based off that decision do what is right in the best interest of the fraternity. Being one of the leaders in any organization is beneficial, but at the end of the day if you don’t take advantage of the benefits that come with the leadership role that have been bestowed upon you, it just becomes a waist. I can confidently say that I benefited from this experience as the Pro Consul of the Sigma Chi Fraternity and the Kappa Iota Chapter.

“Looking back on my time as Pro Consul I can confidently say that I will never be able to experience something so special and life changing again”