Chad Hilton
Hometown: West Jordan, Utah
Major: Accounting/Business Management
Engagement Track: Leadership
Sigma Chi Fraternity
At the beginning of my second semester of college, I had the opportunity to join the Sigma Chi Fraternity here at Southern Utah University. The fundamental purpose of the Sigma Chi Fraternity is the cultivation, maintenance and accomplishment of the ideals of friendship, justice and learning within our membership. Sigma Chi believes in continuously pursuing our seven virtues which are high ambition, courtesy, fidelity, courage, integrity, wisdom, and self-control. Our fraternity best serves its purpose by developing, implementing and monitoring programs that create leadership, build character and promote positive relationship skills that enable our members to become productive and caring participants in their families, colleges and communities.
Sigma Chi believes in creating leaders of men and provides many opportunities within the organization to gain leadership experience. I used a leadership position called the Kustos to fulfill the requirements for my EDGE project. The duties of this position are to preserve the privacy of the chapter room and ritualistic paraphernalia, assist with chapter meetings, and to set up and help facilitate the activities we do for the men that are in the process of joining our fraternity. As a separate responsibility, this position also sits on the executive council of our chapter. The executive council is a group of all the leaders within our fraternity that organizes all the events that take place throughout the year, and makes decisions for the chapter as a whole.
The inspiration for me to do this project stemmed from several motives. First of all, I joined Sigma Chi to grow as a person and to take part in something larger than myself during my collegiate experience. I also wanted to be part of this group of men because I saw what kind of leaders they were and I had the desire to gain leadership experience to help me in my future career and life in general. I also had the desire to be around like-minded people and make new friends to enjoy my time with in college. Once I joined, I wanted to do anything I could to contribute to the success of our chapter, which is why I ran for the Kustos position. I ran for this position because I thought my experiences and skills fit well enough to be able to benefit the chapter more than anyone else at the time.
I really enjoyed the experience of holding this position, but there were definitely a few challenges that came with it. Anytime you hold a leadership position in a group consisting of over 50 members, communication will always be a challenge, and it was no different for me during my experience. Leadership isn't about doing everything yourself, but rather organizing events and activities, then delegating certain tasks to individuals you believe would do the best job. With that, there were several times when it was difficult to get members to participate and contribute to certain events, often times leaving most of the work on my shoulders. Another challenge I encountered was executing a couple activities exactly as planned. Even with all the planning and organization that took place prior to the activities, there were issues with people, materials, etc. that came up right before or during the events. Learning to react and deal with these issues in the appropriate manner was crucial and ultimately helped me have a successful experience with my position.
Any position within Sigma Chi is going to benefit several groups of people if executed successfully. First, holding this position benefited all the active members of the chapter by aiding in the recruitment and teaching processes of the new members. I also benefited our members by actively participating in the executive council meetings where we made important decisions for the chapter. The next group of people that benefited from my position is the 11 new members that we gained. My position actively dealt with each of them several times a week during the semester, and their initiation into Sigma Chi wouldn't have been possible if I didn't execute my responsibilities. Lastly, I would say that holding my position also benefited the community as a whole. By aiding in the recruitment and initiation of the new members, there are now 11 more men that will be able to contribute to the leadership of Southern Utah University and the Cedar City community through the experiences they had and the things they learned.
I also benefited from holding this position in many ways and learned a lot of things that I never would've learned if I didn't take advantage of this opportunity. Holding this position taught me valuable leadership skills that I never would have obtained elsewhere. One of the specific things that I developed during this process is how to plan things out in detail ahead of time. By doing this, I was able to able to execute the tasks more easily as they came, along with making it easier to deal with problems as they came up. Another thing that this position taught me is how important it is to be organized. I have always been a pretty organized person, but I learned that organization is crucial to being successful in a leadership position. One last way that I benefited from holding this position is learning to speak up when I believe my opinion is valuable to a group of people. This is something that I have struggled with in the past, but this position helped me gain the confidence to do so.
