A Seat for Every Sister: Inside Our Launch of At The Table
Carey Unger, Nu Omicron (Vanderbilt U), International Vice President
As we enter this holiday season where our tables are filled with guests and we are surrounding by those that we love, we are reminded of how important connecting, listening and belonging are, and how living out those values fills our cups. And boy are the Executive Board members’ cups full! Earlier in November, we launched our first “At The Table”, a virtual townhall experience that invited all members to pull up a chair and join us in an opportunity to explore one of our Ends. To mirror the joy of the season, we chose “Sense of Belonging” as a place to start.
Under the Governance model of leadership, the Board is charged with staying connected to our membership, ensuring that membership feedback is informing our decisions and helping shape the direction our Fraternity is headed. When this townhall concept was born, we envisioned a new vehicle to share with members what topics the Board and professional staff were grappling with and discussing around the table at our board meetings, while simultaneously gaining feedback from members on these key topics, all within the framework of our Ends, which guides all of our work.
With almost 90 people in attendance, including both collegians and alumnae members, Hillary Brewer, Sigma Gamma (Appalachian State U) Chief Communications Officer for the Foundation of Fraternal Excellence and North American Interfraternity Conference, shared key research that FFE has done to help us better understand the profile of collegiate women that are joining sororities today, what is important to them, and what keeps them engaged. We then pivoted to allow AOII’s Executive Director Kaya Miller, Gamma Theta (U of South Florida) a chance to share what changes the AOII professional staff have made to recruitment strategies, retention efforts and leadership development in response to this important data, and what the results of these efforts have been. We rounded out our panel with some brief comments on how the Executive Board and professional staff have been challenging ourselves to redefine engagement at the alumnae level as well. At the risk of being a spoiler, I highly encourage you to go and listen to the recording of the panel, located in the AOFiles section of AlphaLink.
After the panel, each board member hosted their own personal table where we got to dive in deeper with participants on a variety of topics, including what Sense of Belonging meant to them, how it has changed over time, and any feedback participants had for the Board about ways to continue to improve in this space. I thoroughly enjoyed the time I spent with the sisters in my room and have such gratitude for the emotions they shared about being accepted, finding a new family, sharing strong emotional connections, making an impact in the life of other sisters, showing up for each other’s milestones, creating memories, and finding comfort in the authenticity of it all.
As we reflected after, each Board member had the same gratitude and excitement about the small group conversations they lead. The opportunity to connect on this level with our membership fills our cups. As we ended, participants described their feelings with words like invigorated, fulfilled, heard, excited, and engaged, to name a few. With such congruence in how everyone felt the evening went, we feel like our first time At The Table with our members was a resounding success. We appreciate all of you that took the time to spend the evening with us and encourage everyone who couldn’t join to watch the recording. Please also watch for the details of our next event which will happen in the first quarter of 2026, focusing on our Leadership End. Until then, enjoy this season of joy and wonderment.