Austin Arias
Austin Arias is a leadership expert who uses personal stories and experiences to help students have an impact on their communities, grow personally & ensure their organizations have a lasting legacy.
TOPICS
- Authenticity
- Community Building
- First-Year Experience
- Fraternity & Sorority Life
- Leadership
- Officer Training
- Orientation
- Organizational Development
- Personal Growth
- Recruitment
- Values
KEYNOTES
- The “Balancing Act”: Person, Student, Student Leader
- Make Your Founders Proud
- Ready. Set. Recruit
- Your First Year Advantage
WORKSHOPS & CUSTOM PROGRAMS
Getting to know
Austin Arias
Austin Arias is an educator, speaker, facilitator, and consultant. Austin helps students, organizations and higher education departments realize their potential to make an impact. As a former over-involved student leader, Austin understands first-hand the passion students have to make an impact on their campuses and ensure their organizations have a lasting legacy. He turned his passion as a student leader into a now nearly 10-year career working in higher education.
Austin has been fortunate to work for and travel to college campuses across the country to help students maximize their leadership potential and build stronger, more inclusive organizations. He has advised fraternities, sororities, programming boards, student organizations, philanthropy groups and supervised groups like orientation leaders on how to be most effective, work through difficulties and make a deeper impact. He strongly believes our missteps can be opportunities for growth and will lead to success.
A brother of Pi Kappa Phi Fraternity, Austin believes strongly in the power of the fraternal experience. He is fortunate to not only risk management education volunteer for his own organization but also for Kappa Kappa Gamma Fraternity for Women and Sigma Kappa Sorority.
Austin received his Master of Science degree in College Student Personnel from Illinois State University in 2013 and his Bachelor of Arts in Mass Communications from the University of South Florida St. Petersburg in 2011. Austin has served as the Assistant Dean of Students at The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, Director of Student Involvement at William Peace University, Associate Director of Leadership Development at the University of South Florida and Senior Training & Development Manager at Kappa Delta Sorority.
Austin resides in Nashville, TN where he spends most of his free time with his rescue dog he named after a fraternity founder, traveling and enjoying everything the music city has to offer.
Austin creates a space where students feel they can be honest with themselves, their identities, leadership experiences and state of their organizations. He accomplishes this through integrating humor, life experiences and what he learns about the campus community he is working with. He wants to challenge with care, asking students the tough questions with the hope they can be honest with themselves. Austin hopes to provide students with tangible, strategic practices they can integrate into their daily lives that will allow for personal, professional and organizational progress.
Austin’s approach is honest, but comes from life experiences. He understands the perils of a student leader, the difficulties to learn from missteps as a person and a leader and the want to be successful. When an audience member leaves his programs, he hopes to provide them strength, the tools to allow them and their peers be successful, the motivation to care for themselves, and the confidence to be the leader they are capable of being. Austin has been fortunate to work on a variety of college campuses from private to public, from small to large.
PROMOTIONAL MATERIALS
To help you promote your event with Austin, CAMPUSPEAK has created promotional templates you can use. In this folder, you will find resources for social media, a promotional poster for printing, and press photos you can use for your event.
Link to Promotional Materials
LOGISTICAL MATERIALS
Below you will find logistical resources for the day of your event with Austin.
In-Person Event AV Needs (PDF)
Speaking Introduction (PDF)
SEE WHAT PEOPLE HAVE TO SAY About Austin Arias!
KEYNOTES
The “Balancing Act”: Person, Student, Student Leader
As student leaders, we want to balance it all – academics, involvement, and a personal life and we often put on the act as if we do it all so well. It seems all three need your attention at the same time. You do not want to let you or anyone else down. In “The Balancing Act,” we will talk about ways to be a person, student and student leader and how all three can work together in harmony instead of balance. You will understand how to better prioritize, keep mental health a focus, ensure you do not waiver from academic pursuits and learn how to lead your organizations effectively through building a collaborative, values-driven team all working toward organizational success.
Learning Outcomes
As a result of attending this program, students will learn:
- how to recognize the common practices of student leaders that prevent growth and development for themselves and organization, like struggling to say no, lack of delegation, and competition,
- how to incorporate person-first behaviors into one’s daily life, while still upholding their responsibilities as students and student leaders,
- strategies for how to integrate person-first behaviors into our daily lives, while still upholding our responsibilities as students and student leaders, and
- how to create a culture of positive student leadership on their campus, utilizing their advisors, mentors and/or supervisors.
Ready. Set. Recruit.
For too long, our recruitment practices have been focused on outdated techniques that don’t accurately represent our values and the lifelong benefit of joining a fraternity or sorority. Plus, we have shifted away from building relationships during the process. Our campuses have changed, so the same set of events, recruitment training, and marketing techniques no longer work. It’s time to assess what you are doing and use your purpose to reframe your work.
Let’s create more meaningful, inclusive experiences to explore membership, focus on building authentic relationships that foster belonging, and create a framework more current members can buy into. Reimagining your recruitment into a values-focused growth strategy will help you find those ready for membership more effectively.
*This program is applicable to student organizations, fraternities, and sororities and will be customized based on audience.
Learning Outcomes
As a result of attending this program, students will learn:
- how to assess their current recruitment tactics and understand their effectiveness,
- how to create a culture of recruitment strategy in order to maximize chapter and council success, utilizing all members to create collaborative action,
- how to be more inclusive throughout the recruitment process to acknowledge the identities of all potential new members, and
- the importance of relationship building and meaningful conversation in both recruitment and creating a sense of belonging for potential new members.
Make Your Founders Proud
What would it look like if we refocused our community’s actions to actually be in alignment with what our founders intended? Would your founders recognize your organization today? Make Your Founders Proud challenges leaders to take a more critical look at the state of their communities and chapters to determine what must change to ensure their legacies continue. It’s time to get to the root of the issues and create actual solutions. Through honest dialogue and tough conversation, this program encourages all to look beyond competition and ego, take accountability for their actions, and understand how they can help create a more sustainable, inclusive, and forward-thinking fraternal movement. We have the potential to be the organizations our founders always hoped for. Let’s make them proud.
Learning Outcomes
As a result of attending this program, students will learn:
- how to identify the current issues plaguing both their community and fraternal movement,
- how to understand how those issues affect the health of their membership and organizations,
- how to address concerns around diversity, equity, and inclusion in their community,
- how to more effectively build relationships with one another to inspire collaborative action, and
- how to determine a plan of action to confidently tackle their community’s issues and opportunities for success.
Your First Year Advantage
Your first year of college can be filled with challenges and excitement. You want to find your people, explore your interests and get settled into your major. While it may feel overwhelming, let’s help you realize your first-year advantage. The time is now to set yourself up for success. Through sharing his own difficult turned rewarding college journey, humorous stories and experience from his everyday work, Austin helps students embrace their new adventure from the start. Students will walk away with a toolkit they can use right away to explore but not overcommit, find belonging and create an action plan for success.
Learning Outcomes
As a result of attending this program, students will learn:
- how to recognize and address common feelings preventing first year success,
- how to create first year action plan combining personal wellbeing, academics,
and involvement, - how to better identify which opportunities are best for them, by recognizing their interests, talents and identities, and
- how to best utilize campus resources and peers along their journey.
WORKSHOPS & CUSTOM PROGRAMS
Refocus Your Board Workshop
Designed for Programming Boards, Student Governments & Governing Councils
As a vital part of your campus community, it is essential your board is a cohesive group with a clear vision. The hustle to make it all happen can cause us to lose sight of our purpose and our role in helping our peers find belonging and each other grow as leaders. Also, instead of repeating the same events, traditions, and initiatives, maybe it’s
time to be bold and do something new!
Refocus Your Board will help you RECALL, RETHINK, and RECREATE how you approach your organization, how plan programs for your campus, and serve your student body.
Learn tips, tricks, and tools from an organizational expert your group can use now. You will leave this interactive workshop with a strategy to keep your organization on track, bolster your marketing and outreach efforts, and build dynamic events or initiatives your students want to see. This is great for campuses of all sizes and officers at all levels.
Learning Outcomes
By attending this featured workshop, participants will be able to:
- determine if their board is operating effectively with a clear understanding of their
purpose - learn how to improve their overall event and marketing strategy
- articulate opportunities to better meet the needs of their community
- understand the importance of teamwork and relationship building in their success
Organizational Coaching
Are your organizations struggling to shift their culture and continue to evolve? Is collaboration non-existent? Do we need to reframe your recruitment strategy? Bringing in Austin to provide coaching to your organizations, councils and governing bodies that will provide them with steps they can take to diagnose chronic behaviors preventing change, reframe their programming and set a meaningful plan for the future. This can be done as a full-day of coaching sessions including a pre-assessment, small and large group discussions and planning sessions and debrief with professional staff. This can be added on to a keynote experience.
Curriculum Development & Facilitation
Austin is a skilled leadership educator with years of experience developing learning outcomes-based curriculums for student leaders for training and on-going leadership development. Austin can develop a curriculum that elevates your student’s development and training, rooted in leadership theory and models, best practices, and alignment with the institutional need and goals. Curriculums can include a series of workshops or one or multi-day retreats, including in-person or virtual delivery methods. This work includes an intake form to understand your needs and can include pre-and-post assessments for attendees and a debrief call post-program with the campus professionals. As a trusted facilitator, Austin can also facilitate your program too.
AUSTIN’S BLOGS
The following are past entries Austin has written for the CAMPUSPEAK Speaker’s Voice Blog
