The executive members of Auburn's Interfraternity Council attended the Southeastern Interfraternity Conference in Atlanta in order improve fraternity operations on campus the weekend of Feb. 12.
"This is an annual conference we go to every year where all of the IFC executive councils from every school in the Southeast come together for a three day conference," said Johnny Blankenship, vice president of public relations for IFC. "It features guest speakers who discuss all different areas of greek life like recruitment, public relations, drug and alcohol abuse -- all sorts of areas."
Blankenship said the event was more than just a fun trip to the Peach State for the executives.
"As far as the greek community goes in the Southeast, this is the greek event of the year," Blankenship said. "It's a well known event. It's been around since 1966, so it's not a new thing by any means." Each member of IFC was able to attend information sessions designed specifically for their position.
IFC President Tyler Sample said the focused information sessions were the most beneficial part of the conference.
"I went on the president's track, which was mainly talks and meetings with all of the other presidents," Sample said. "That lasted for about five hours on Friday. It focused on what we can do to better ourselves and our positions and how to work with the rest of the executives."
Blankenship said he thinks the public relations sessions he attended opened his eyes to newer, more effective methods for representing the fraternities on campus.
"I guess I think, for me in particular, the info session on social media and how that can play a big role in recruit at rush process, as kind of portrayer of good stuff that fraternities do," Blankenship said. "That's one of the things that we can use to promote the good things that frats do. I realized before I went to the conference, but once I got there and saw it in action and how effective social media can be in portraying positive stuff now I think it's something we just got to take advantage of."
Field Asbury, the treasurer of IFC, said the Auburn representatives made a good showing at the conference.
"I ended up leaving with people asking me how we'd done things at Auburn," Asbury said. "I didn't think we'd done a lot to prepare, but we were one of the most prepared groups there."
Not all of the weekend involved listening to lectures for the members of IFC.
Blankenship said there was ample opportunity to fraternize with members of other universities fraternity councils and those experiences were just as helpful as the information sessions.
"It's always healthy to come together with people that you wouldn't normally get together with who are doing the same things as you," Blankenship said. "All of these schools are going through challenges that were going through in Auburn. We wouldn't have the opportunity to sit down and discuss these issues without the Southeastern IFC Conference."
Sample said his experiences with the other attendees could benefit Auburn's greek life.
"I thought it was really great to get to talk to other leaders in greek organizations from other schools in the Southeast, get to share ideas with them," Sample said. "We're having problems with on campus. I spoke with president of Alabama's IFC -- we're struggling with judicial stuff and he had suggestions."
Asbury said, in the end, the people of Auburn's campus will benefit from the executive's excursion.
"It's always a good time when you can get out of the University," Asbury said. "It was a business trip and we really handled a lot of business. I came back with incentive and motivation to go forth and have an impact on the campus and the University as a whole."
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