MAYOWA AINA
Kappa Kappa Psi Honorary Band Service Fraternity, Gamma Chapter
"We, the brothers of Kappa Kappa Psi, believe that service to the college or university band program fosters responsibility, loyalty, and leadership; that a spirit of brotherhood is enhanced by the participation in a band program; that music is a universal language and truly the greatest of the arts; and that through fraternal participation, each member will strive for the highest" (Kappa Kappa Psi Creed)
Kappa Kappa Psi is a National Honorary Band Service Co-ed Fraternity that I have been a member of since Spring 2013. We, as a national organization exist to promote the continuation and preservation of college and university band programs through service to the bands, our community, and through music. As a chapter, we are a completely student-run organization that hosts dozens of projects each quarter and completes hundreds of hours of service each year. In my time as a member I have served on the Executive Council as the Corresponding Secretary and established and co-lead our Publications Committee in addition to participating in various events, conferences, and conventions throughout our district and the nation. Music has always been a large and important part of my life. Through this organization I have been able not only to give back to something (music) that has given so much to me, but also gain valuable and transferable skills.
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"The Drum Major Instinct" Workshop
Vision...
This year I was extremely proud to serve on the Executive council for the second year and establish our overall goal or vision for this year: “creating a culture of leadership.” Every year the Husky Marching Band leadership goes on a leadership retreat, and as a supporting group the leadership of Kappa Kappa Psi is invited to go along. This year, the workshops revolved around identifying what we want the culture within the band to be and how we as leaders can make establish and foster this culture. This year for Kappa Kappa Psi we wanted to address issues of chapter participation, integrity, and follow-through so we decided that fostering a culture of leadership work make service and leadership not just things we talk about but thing that we do.
From this goal stemmed a series of discussions about goal setting, leadership, and action plans that we could use to create the kind of culture that we wanted. It also provided us with a point of reference that we could check ourselves against. I think that this vision has allowed us to really have some effective, critical, and nuanced discussion about our impact on our band programs and what we could do better and how we can be better.
Idea Generation...
One of the most interesting aspects of our organization is the emphasis on innovative, new, and unique projects that can fulfill any of our outlined purposes. These fall under the broad categories of service projects, social events, brotherhood events, fundraisers, or promotional activities - each of which has its own committee that every one of our 60 members sorts themselves into. At the beginning of each year we set different goals that challenge us to come up with new ways that we can reach more people, foster brotherhood within the chapter, and overall better serve our campus band programs. These goals range from improving standing projects such as our annual Jr/Sr Day in which we invite high school juniors and senior to come perform with the Husky Marching Band at the Spring Game, or coming up with new projects like ‘Dogs in HUB’ in which we invited a number of therapy dogs and their handlers to set up in the HUB and provide just a few moments of relaxation and play time for college students right before finals week. The Gamma Chapter has been an amazing outlet for me to try out new ideas and watch them succeed or fail. This process of idea generation, workshopping or iteration, recruiting a team to put together a prototype, etc. has helped me realized that I am capable of coming up with new and good ideas that are benficial to people. I am much more open now trying new things, and confident in my ability to navigate new or uncertain terrain.
One of my greatest accomplishments was establishing the publications committee which is responsible for promoting chapter and band events via social media and producing a series of newsletters geared towards various audiences. At first, I realized that I needed more help and support from the chapter in this area, since all of those responsibilities fell to me as the Corresponding Secretary. More importantly though, I realized that this could be a way for members who had difficulty attending service projects or committee meetings to contribute to the welfare of our chapter on their own time thereby helping some members to “pull their weight.” Additionally, I knew that there were a number of members who were writiers and designers and creative. This committee helped those members to use their talents and what they are learning in school to benefit our chapter, and by extension benefit our bands, and also provide opportunity for other members to learn new skills such as Photoshop, social media strategy, advertising and marketing, and written communication. Being able to see the publications committee grow and take on a life of its own has been extremely fulfilling and helpful to our chapter’s image and correspondence with other entities.
Motivation...
As a member of a service organization, sometimes projects come up that fulfill a dire need within our community but are neither convenient or very fun for our members, so this has been a safe place to experiment with motivational practices strategies to keep people inspired. Our biggest battle as a chapter is promoting chapter participation. With ~60 members in the organization the mentality that “someone else” will organize the music in the music library or set up for rehearsal or show up at 4am to load equipment can sometimes creep in, especially given that we are all college students and are spread incredibly thin as it is. To stifle this mentality the leadership and members within the chapter have practiced a number of motivational strategies including bringing in guest speakers to talk about the importance of the work that we’re doing, taking time to do a reflective activity that encourages each person to think of reasons why they joined and what they can contribute, and doing lessons on our fraternity values and commitments.
Most recently in an effort to promote “active” membership, two other members and I put together a workshop on the “Drum Major Instinct” that teaches people to desire not only to be leaders of the band or in life and academics but also in generosity and service. Additionally, we had the opportunity to lead this workshop for the entire district delegation (~150 people) of Kappa Kappa Psi and our sister organization Tau Beta Sigma at our yearly District Leadership Conference, held this year at the University of Oregon.
Conflict Negotiation...
Being part of a group of nearly 60 vastly different people that spends a significant amount of time together, while taking on intensely personal work can lead to disagreement. Further, serving on the governing body of this organization taught me skills necessary for conflict negotiation and mediation. As a mediator in various types of disagreements, the ability to asses a situation and proceed with the proper approach is a crucial skill that could drastically affect the outcome. For example, we have learned to preface all discussion with the disclaimer that what is said during disucssion does not leave the room, particularly in the case of eletions. This disclaimer came about during an election year when a candidate was told many of the comments made during discussion regarding the candidate’s ability to succeed in the position. As can be imagined, this disclosure of sensitive information damaged each member’s ability to freely express their opinions, ruptured the relationships between some members, and created a tense and uncomfortable atmosphere that ultimately impacted our ability to function. To address the immediate conflict between members the leadership, myself included, spoke with each of the most directly affected parties and mediated conversation with them. We also held an optional open forum about a week later to give members an opportunity to openly discuss this or any other negative attitudes that they may feel towards the chapter, and finally we incorporated the disclaimer into the code of conduct and held a series of events to help rebuild trust and foster brotherhood within the chapter once more.
Today the chapter is back to a place where people feel comfortable sharing their ideas and engaging in productive conversation. Through this and other instances of navigating conflicting opinions and ideas, I have learned that discretion, minimal bias, and honest effot are incredibly important to achieving the best solution for the group overall.