Council Surge is an engaging, solution-focused program that allows fraternity and sorority leaders to drive change by realigning their actions with their core values.  This program encourages participants to come together and work as a cohesive group to bring about positive change when it comes to the operations, communications, and functions of not only their individual group but the councils and the greater community. This program is like hiring a consultant to come in and work with you to directly target your biggest challenges and understand the opportunities to turn those challenges into positive action.

The first part of the program is all about value alignment. Participants will be asked to examine their understanding of their own personal values and how they use them to help them lead most successfully. The entire group will then come together to determine a set of common community values they can use to hold each other accountable. A carefully created assessment tool and set of activities help participants understand if they are living up to these values.

This understanding of the state of their community is the driving force to the second part of the program, which is all about action. Through the discussion of organizational habits and the application of a valuable framework to turn those habits around, participants are provided an understanding of how to address the at times, chronic issues in their community.

The program culminates with an action plan for success, helping participants see change is possible, and that they have a community of peers to help them progress. This workshop is great for building cohesion across member organizations like fraternity and sorority organizations and councils. Each part helps you see the common issues your peers in other organizations are also facing, in hopes to build a community that helps each other fight through the challenges together.

Learning Outcomes

As a result of this program, students will learn:

• how to communicate the values of their organization and ways to put them into action,
• how to diagnose the positive and negative habits of their organization and determine values alignment,
• how to understand the state of their community and peer organizations in hopes of inspiring a community of collaboration and cohesion, and
• how to apply a framework to address the chronic issues preventing success,
• how to determine to create a plan of action to advance their organization

Primary Topics

• Community Building
• Fraternity & Sorority Life
• Officer Training
• Public Relations & Marketing
• Recruitment
• Values

What CAS learning and development outcomes does this workshop focus on?

• Practical competence
• Cognitive complexity

Workshop Details

• 4-hour interactive workshop, including a 10 minute break
• Includes a participant workbook and a post-assessment
• Often part of a community wide training series or leadership retreat

Who is this ideal for?

• Fraternity and Sorority Life Councils and Organizations
• Student Organization Executive Boards
• Student Governments
• Residence Hall Associations
• Programming Boards