Academic Workshop
 

I am the scholarship chair of my sorority, and I want to have some type of academic based workshop. Some of my sisters have problems maintaining the GPA requirment of my sorority, and I hope that a workshop will help them improve. I've looked at workshops that my school offers, but I cannot find anything helpful. Do you have any ideas for an academic based workshop?

Our scholarship chair (and our academic advisor) have put on interesting workshops such as a time management workshop, stress management workshop, and a resume/cover letter/internship interview workshop. I believe the last one had the highest attendance, but the other two were fairly interesting and informative as well. She also set up an online DropBox for all of us to share resources such as class notes, study guides, and other materials from other sisters who have taken certain courses before.

Ask in your university or college career services center or student services office. Often there is someone sitting over there that would love to help put on a presentation for you. I have seen chapters ask a well liked professor to do this as well.
Another idea is to have a dinner where every sits by major - sometimes talking to someone just a year older can really help with strategies for time management or class projects.

If they actually show up for class that's about 90% of the battle. I can't tell you how many academic careers I've seen turned around by students just making the simple decision to go to every single class regardless of whatever else.

The second part of it is learning to be effective at studying. For a lot of folks, simply doing the reading isn't going to cut it. Learn to outline, do flash cards, find whatever works.

One thing which helps is accountability to the group. When my chapter does their roll call, they announce how many classes they missed in a given week. Those men who consistently say two or three classes a week are typically not going to do well academically.

We also have a very active academic committee which oversees the mandatory study hall hours assigned to men who have been academically unsuccessful. We've been #1 or #2 in grades for as long as I can remember, so whatever we've been doing has been working.

LOL...I skipped class all the time, but I completely see where you are coming from Kevin. For a lot of students, forcing them to study hall when they haven't even bothered to go to class isn't going to help since they won't know what to study. If class attendance is a problem, one of the chapters I advised had sisters on academic probation get their profs to sign that they were in class every day. This did two things. It made them go to class and it brought them to their professors attention so they were known. They spoke to them every class period, clarified issues of confusion, could ask for help if needed, etc. Hopefully if they were still in danger, the professor would let them know early enough that they could get additional help.

I agree with the two posters above. If women aren't maintaining their GPA's, some random presentation isn't going to fix that. If women are right on the bubble (i.e. your requirement is a 3.0 and they are above a 2.5), they may need just a little nudging in terms of the things Kevin has suggested, and they may need some carrot/stick incentives to come into play. A workshop for this group may be effective, but I'd start by asking them what they are having trouble with.

If women are really doing poorly, you (and ideally an advisor, as well) would be wise to chat with them one-on-one to try to find out what is going on. Women who seriously under-perform may need a referral to campus counseling, an academic advisor, or something like that.

Also, something that worked in my chapter was to pair up girls to go to class. I had an 8am class I hated attending, but when my 8am buddy came by my room (I have no idea if you have a chapter house) to announce it was time to get to class, I was more likely to go than if left to my own devices. We weren't even in the same class, just walking to the same general area of campus.

In the meantime...
 

Here are some tips:
http://www.greekchat.com/gcforums/sh...ad.php?t=41413

I totally needed that! I had 8am classes EVERY semester and hated getting up that early!

Me too, but you're probably a lot smarter than your run-of-the-mill chapter member. When I approach these issues, I'm looking at what's going to work for everyone, i.e., the lowest common denominator.

--and it certainly wouldn't have hurt you or I to have attended a few more undergraduate courses.

I agree completely. I skipped a lot of med school classes as well. It may have helped to go, but then again, I daydreamed through most of them. The same goes for study hall. You have to go AND do some work. No playing on your phone or watching a movie. A little motivation is needed. I think that giving members concrete expectations for how they should treat their classes and school work from the first day they pledge is a great way to get them in the mode of putting school first. Make new members see that skipping class is not acceptable to the chapter and have older members model that to them from day one. This makes it a chapter culture. My chapter was much like yours. We were always top in grades, and we never had study hours for anyone. Didn't need them. We all knew what we had to do to keep up our end of the bargain. At one point we had over a 3.0 GPA at a school that had less than a 2.5 all women GPA.