Fraternity President: Leadership Lessons for a Lifetime

By John D. Burkey

Leadership has become more complex and challenging, especially in era of the changes that were ushered in by the COVID pandemic. Through autobiographical information and storytelling, this book provides leadership lessons the author learned as president of a college fraternity at the University of Illinois. Each chapter draws connections of how those lessons helped the author's leadership as a large school district superintendent.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Feb 8, 2023
• ISBN: 9781667879239

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Fraternity President

Leadership Lessons for a Lifetime

©2022 John D. Burkey

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

print ISBN: 978-1-66787-922-2

ebook ISBN: 978-1-66787-923-9

To my wife, Niki and children, Andrew and Kate

Author’s Notes

Much of this book was written a number of years ago. On a Christmas vacation in Hawaii in 2014, I was reflecting on how I was much better prepared to lead the political challenges I was experiencing as school district superintendent because of my fraternity leadership experience. I just started writing. Much of this was written in the early morning hours, before my family got up, at a table by the ocean at our resort in Hawaii. I didn’t completely finish it and put it away. During the pandemic, I made it a goal to pull it out again, edit, and complete it.

The book is part leadership, part autobiographical. The autobiographical elements put the leadership elements into better context. It is the story of how events in my college fraternity helped shape and develop my leadership skills. These skills were key as I held leadership positions in education both at the school and district levels.

I had to decide how to handle the real people who are mentioned in the book. Should I name them directly, or use pseudonyms? I landed on using real names, but only first names. This is done consistently throughout the book.

Just as I was completing the final edits on the book in August of 2021, I attended a wedding. Two people who play prominent roles in this book were there. The wedding was for my fraternity brother Bill’s daughter. Drew, also a fraternity brother, was seated at the reception next to me. Drew’s daughter is now a student at the University of Illinois and we had a conversation about the environment today versus 35 years ago when we were there. He commented that things with fraternities seemed to have moved backward. Certainly, from media reports, there have been some egregious actions that have taken place in the fraternities in 2000s. While some of these events may be outliers and not representative of the entire Greek system today, they are incredibly unfortunate and outright wrong. They do not mirror the fraternity experience I had when in college. When we were involved in fraternity life in the latter half of the 1980s, there was a lot of promise and serious steps were taken in fraternities across the nation to eliminate hazing and irresponsible drinking.

This is not a book of research. It is simply the story of my experiences and the influence my college fraternity experience had on the leader I became.

Contents

Author’s Notes

Forward

Introduction: Fraternity National Conference, 1994

Chapter 1: The Improbable Journey to the

Presidency of a College Fraternity

Chapter 2: The Path to Becoming a

School District Superintendent

Chapter 3: Getting the Right People on the Bus

Chapter 4: Strong Relationships Are Crucial

Chapter 5: Setting an Example

Chapter 6: Personal Reflection is Essential

Chapter 7: Do Not Take Things Personally

Chapter 8: Defeat Will Make You Stronger

Chapter 9: Provide Special Focus to People

in the Organization Who Are Often Marginalized

Chapter 10: Navigate Change, but Respect Cultural History

Chapter 11: Listen Carefully to Your Critics

Chapter 12: Postscript

Appendix

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Forward

The journey of life and leadership takes many paths with obstacles and crossroads along the way.

For many of us joining a fraternity was such a crossroad in our life. Our fraternity experience led us along a path to greater service as an effective leader. 

This a story of how one man’s fraternity experience honed his leadership skills and how he applied them in the crucible of education. More importantly, wherever learned, these lessons are instructive in all aspects of our lives - be it family, friends, church, work, or civic engagement.

In a time when our country needs better leadership, the fraternity is one place that builds it in a positive way. Indeed, in my 28 years in my role I have seen many great leaders who rose from the fraternity experience. 

This book presents just one example of many.

Mark E. Timmes, CEO

Pi Kappa Phi Fraternity

February 6, 2022

Introduction:

Fraternity National Conference, 1994

The time was the summer of 1994. I was 27 years old and was ready to embark on a dramatic and exciting leadership challenge. I was about to become a middle school principal. I had been a middle school teacher for four years and had just completed my Master’s degree in educational administration from the University of Illinois, and was about to enter this great leadership opportunity.

It was only four short years earlier that I had completed my undergraduate degree at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. During my time at Illinois, I had served as the president of my fraternity, Pi Kappa Phi. Even though four years can seem like a long time to a twenty-something, it did not seem like that long ago to me. In those four years, I had stayed very connected to the fraternity, even serving as president of our local chapter’s alumni association.

In early August of 1994, I attended the national conference of my college fraternity. A number of guys from our local fraternity house went, including both alumni and current students. The national conference that year was held in Atlanta, and it was a typical conference. We attended sessions about leadership, heard some great keynote speakers, and caught up with old friends. It was great to see all of these current college students, many of whom were new to fraternity leadership, learning about the leadership challenges they would soon face. I could so well remember being in their shoes.

I drove to Atlanta with my good college friend, Drew. When driving home from the conference, we spent a night in Champaign, Illinois, and stayed in our old fraternity house. It would be the last time I would ever sleep in that house as it was subsequently torn down. That evening, he and I went out to COD’s, a bar on campus that many from my fraternity frequented as undergrads. COD’s has also been subsequently torn down.

This campus bar was much different on this August evening in 1994 from the way Drew and I remembered it. During the school year, when we frequented it back in the day, COD’s would be packed with college students. Packed. Actually obtaining a seat would be completely out of the question, and the college student patrons would herd together like cattle. It would become hot and sweaty and very loud. At 1:00 AM at the end of each night, large klieg lights would come on which was the signal that it was closing time. Over the next 20 minutes the herd of college students would exit into the dark night on Daniel Street. For some strange reason, as undergraduates, this all would be a great time. Fortunately, this summer night in 1994 at COD’s was very different. There were only a few patrons, and Drew and I were able to sit at the bar and talk.

Our conversation covered many topics, but it quickly turned to the theme of leadership. Both Drew and I had grown together as leaders of Pi Kappa Phi and we had both served, at different times, as president of the fraternity. As such, we shared a perspective on fraternity leadership to which few could relate. At the time of this conversation, Drew was an accountant at a major firm in Chicago and quickly climbing the management ladder, and I was set to begin as principal of a middle school. In our respective careers, we were on the verge of taking on major leadership responsibilities at a very young age.

As we continued our conversation that warm summer night, fresh from the fraternity leadership conference and getting ready for leadership roles in our professions, we discussed a central essential question: Had our respective experiences as a fraternity president helped to prepare us to assume substantial leadership positions in our careers? Our conclusion that evening was strikingly clear. The fraternity presidency had definitely been a driving force that helped make it possible for us to become prepared as leaders in our respective professions.

Over 25 years have now passed since that conversation in 1994. During the intervening quarter century, I have served in a variety of leadership positions culminating with the superintendency of one of the largest school districts in Illinois. From this perspective of 25 years of educational leadership, I once again went back to that same question: In what ways did the experience as president of Pi Kappa Phi provide me with invaluable leadership training? The result of my analysis is the core of this book.

Along with the leadership analysis, there is a fair amount of autobiographical detail. There is no groundbreaking research in this book. It is simply the story of how my experience as a fraternity leader helped to prepare me for career leadership challenges. Being the president of a fraternity is a CEO position, the senior leader in the organization. No one who is not in that position fully understands the role.

Part of my motivation for completing this book is that fraternities have come under heavy criticism recently. Much of it is deserved. There are egregious examples of abhorrent behavior that get showcased in the news. But my fraternity experience was not like that. Fraternities also get a rap of sometimes not representing diversity. Our fraternity was very diverse, and two of the three years I lived in the house, my roommates were students of color. The fraternity really helped expose me to people with backgrounds and viewpoints that I had not been exposed to in high school.

To be certain, the social aspects were a significant part of our