KKPsiAA: The Tempo
A Journey Through the Road to Wisdom: Part 1
(upbeat music) - Hello and welcome back to another episode of The Tempo, the official podcast of the Kappa Kappa Psi Alumni Association. We are your host, Saf. - Mark. - And Tori. On today's episode, we're excited to bring a special focus to our alumni with a deep dive into the road to wisdom. This initiative adopted at the 2017 National Convention in Orlando, Florida, marks a significant evolution in our fraternity's educational approach. One that began long before its official launch. For nearly 15 years prior, our membership education remained largely unchanged, but as campus cultures and band environment shifted, the National Council recognized the need for a fresh approach to meet these new challenges. Enter the road to wisdom, a dynamic curriculum designed to elevate musicianship, leadership, and service among our members. Over the next four weeks, we will explore the eight key lessons of the road to wisdom, providing you and alumni perspective on how this program can empower our new brothers and enrich their band experience. Stay tuned as we embark on this enlightening journey together. - The purpose of the road to wisdom is to ensure that every future brother, regardless of their initiating chapter, receives the same national standard of education and training. The road to wisdom begins with a note to the vice president of membership, which congratulates them and explains the document. This section includes graphics, outlining the do's and don'ts, customizable content, and a blueprint for excellence. It is followed by an orientation meeting for the membership candidates, which provides an overview of the National Membership Education Program, the road to wisdom, and outlines what to expect from this process, including the risk management policies. So, I think Mark is the only one who has not gone through the road to wisdom out of our group here. - Old. - Yeah. (laughs) - Old. - Old. (laughs) - I was going through in 2012 to 2013. So that was-- - I'm holding mine, so. - Backband. (laughs) - I did go through it in 2020, but it was interesting because of COVID. So, it was all virtual, but like we still got to do it, but it was, I think, a little bit different than people who've gone through it in person, like Tori has. - We, my chapter, I'm not sure if other chapters do it, but my chapter had a point of trying to schedule the MC lessons at a time that the bigs could go to, to be there and like support and be like, "Hey, we're here, we've been through this with you." And I remember my big Nathan leaning over my shoulder while I'm answering some of the questions and I just like panic and stop writing. (laughs) (laughs) - All right, we want to talk about lesson one. Our work matters. - So, pretty much an overview of this first part here. We talk about our mission and value, excuse me, mission and vision statements. So, our mission is Kappa Kappa Psi is a diverse fraternity dedicated to advancing college and university bands for the benefit of its members and society through meaningful musical experiences and enrichment, transformational leadership development, purposeful service to bands and support to band members and lifelong fellowship and community. Likewise, our vision, Kappa Kappa Psi empowers and influences the vibrant and diverse college band movement through purposeful programming, unified messaging and excellence in service and operations. So, the question we were posing is, how do the mission and vision statements apply to us as an alumni of the fraternity? - Well, I think that our mission and vision statement continues even after you've graduated. We're still very much connected to our chapters and our bands. A lot of us still come back for alumni days or serve in some capacity. So, I think even after you're gone, you're still empowering and influencing diverse college band movement, participating and programming when you can and serving when you can. I was gonna say, even if you're not specifically involved in case I have a lot of this stuff is pretty, what's the way to say transitional into your workplace as well. Although I may not be serving the bands at my normal work, I'm definitely working towards leadership development among my peers and other people I work with, creating friends along the way and creating a sense of community. Et cetera. So like, I feel like no matter what, there's always something that sticks from with you if you take the opportunity to really step back and look at it. - Yeah, especially, sorry. I was gonna say, especially the transformational leadership mentioned in the mission statement, that's definitely something that we probably use at our professional lives. - Yeah. The idea that like with the transitional leadership, like I have very seldom not found a brother that's always willing to like step in and help, even if they're not told. Like, suddenly you're in a room full of chairs that need to be moved and half of the people moving them are brothers. It regardless of what the situation may be, if that makes sense, right? - No, it does. I have a hard time sometimes in my band plays 'cause at some point I need to let like my student leaders be the leaders, right? And although that's like one exception to the rule here. 'Cause I have this urge to just want to do the thing just because it just feels like the right thing to do. And sometimes I have to find the place. I thought I was gonna say something, I wasn't. - I think it's interesting 'cause talking about this, like we have three different like time frames of being an alumni. Like Mark, you've been an alumni for longer than all of us. Tori's very new to the alumni, alumni world. And then I'm like somewhere in the middle. And so I think it's kind of cool that even though we are all, oh my God, English is hard. We're all in like a different timeframe of our alumni journey. We still like can all find a way that this is still, the mission and vision is still like something we use on our day-to-day. So I think that's pretty cool. - Yeah, absolutely. - Let's talk about our preamble. - Our preamble is, be it known that Capacapasite National Honorary Band fraternity for college band members is an organization operating exclusively in the field of the college and university bands. And for the following several purposes. As an alumni, do you remember the five purposes and which one speaks to you most? - I don't know them, like I cannot think of them word for word right now, but I do know the gist of every single one of them. (laughs) - I know, something along the lines of promote the welfare and existence of band. I don't know, I know welfare is a word. - Yeah, and then you have honoring outstanding band members through membership. There's stimulating campus leadership, fostering relationships between bands and providing, I think it's pleasant social experiences. And, yeah, cooperating with like other music organizations. That is what I remember off the top of my head. (laughs) I would say for me, I think I really like fostering relationships with other bands. I think that's always really fun, like getting to meet other bands especially, like on game days, if both bands get to come. And just having, 'cause we all here for the same reason, like we love, we love band, we love music. And so, I think it's really interesting to meet people from other bands and to learn a little bit about their culture and their chapter and how we all have different, we all go through different things in our bands, but at the same time, it's very similar, you know? Like, we live very different lives, but we still connect on like this one specific thing, which I think is really cool. So, I love that, I always loved meeting people. - Ooh, okay. So, after all that, the first one (laughs) it's probably the one that I'm gonna speak to the most. - No, no, no, really. To promote the existence and welfare of a college and university bands, definitely remember that verbatim. I love, and I'm so proud to have been in marching band and involved in marching band stuff, and being able to like, most is not like the most self-conscious term, but I love being able to be proud of the fact that I was in band and walk around in gear and merch and just feel like I was part of something much bigger than myself to our university and whatnot. And that we all kind of feel the same way and every individual in different schools have like their own sense of pride and their own traditions and whatever. But even now, being able to like, faucet that onto the high schoolers that I teach, even though it's not as big as college, like they're still starting in band for the first time and finding that moment that makes it all click for them. You know what I mean? Like, hey, I'm in the marching band. Hey, I'm involved in music. I'm involved in just a little bit, something more is probably my favorite part and just making them know that it's okay to be acceptable or it's okay to be like nerdy and proud. - Yeah, I mean, you're like a part of a team and it's like you get to wear your gear and you're like, yeah, I represent the university or I represent my school, like I'm cool. I play an instrument, you don't. (laughs) - How about you, Tori? Which one do you like? - I think the one that always stood out to me the most was the fifth one. Partly because I understand I am a hard person to get along with. In the best of times, still have an attitude. So it stood out to me because of how just how you act as a brother affects how the chapter looks and how the organization looks as a whole. In a way kind of forced me to reevaluate how I talk to others, especially not just in letters, but outside of letters because I was still a brother regardless of if I was wearing them or not. And it was kind of humbling to be like, hey, stop being mean, but not just like stopping mean, but to also, to try to be like a helpful person out in and outside of the chapter, as well as making sure that chapter is based or spaces were enjoyable to be in. 'Cause that was one of the things that like we did talk about a lot, but going into my last year as an active member was worried about the chapter going back to being big enough that clicks were going to be a problem. But I think it did manage fairly well to not get clicky and we still all got along with each other when our chapter almost doubled in size by last year. (laughs) - Anyways. - That's good. I like the way I'll show some of you. - Yeah, we all have different reasonings. - So then our creed is we, the brothers of Kappa Kappa Psi believe that service to the college or university band program fosters responsibility, loyalty and leadership, that a spirit of brotherhood is enhanced by the participation in a band program. That music is a universal language and truly the greatest of the arts. And that through fraternal participation, each member will strive for the highest. So it's a little big words are not on my plate this morning, but why are we so proud and confident in saying that music is the greatest of the arts? What does that mean to us? - I think that the creed says it for us, that music's a universal language. You know, like everybody understands music in some way. We all feel music in some way. And I think a lot of people turn to music for, you know, if they're sad, they're happy. You know, music is always there and everybody can understand it. And I think that's why it's just, it's the greatest. And also to the part of it that's like fosters responsibility, loyalty, leadership and a spirit of brotherhood. You cannot perform in a band if you don't have any of those qualities. You like, you have to be responsible to practice your music outside of rehearsal or you have to be somewhat loyal to your section and not try to play above them or be a leader in the sense that like, know your music or play your music with your section but not in a way that makes your section sound wrong or that kind of thing. Like it's literally your band is your brotherhood. - Wow. - Yeah. (laughs) - Music. - Yeah. - Music's brought this fraternity together. - When I am at school and I, so this is my fourth year at the same program and I've seen obviously the kids who were freshmen or sophomores and you know, grow throughout the past few years and it's the line that reads that a spirit of brotherhood is enhanced by the participation in a band program is really cool to see develop over time because you really get to see those freshmen, in this case it's high school so it might be a little bit skewed 'cause it's brand new. But those kids who came in who were not really widely accepted maybe when they first started who were very on their own very sheltered or very shy, you know what I mean? That a sense of brotherhood is just enhanced by just being in the program itself is really cool 'cause now they're the ones in the section that get to instill that on the people that are brand new as well and they're accepted now. They're the ones who found that click, not C-L-I-Q-U-E but that click in their brain that was like, oh, this is what it means. This is how it applies. Like, I understand now, you know what I mean? You don't get that when you first join in. So I've seen that spark, I guess is a better way to say it and it's really cool, I love that. Just by being there, you know, you have that, a sense of camaraderie and that sense of fellowship and brotherhood on that. - That's awesome. - So talking about our national brand, we have our four pillars. We've got musicianship, leadership, service and brotherhood. Why do you guys think that our leadership as alumni is really needed past graduation? - I think it could be along a similar sense that kind of like what I was saying, we've been down that road for at least one more time than the people that have just joined. Some of us two times, three times, four times, right? However many years you've had, you've understood what it takes to get to where you are and being able to be that source of trust or that source of that role model for those people. Is more prominent than I think even you may realize, right? So when I was joining in, for example, like the, we had a few members who were doing like a fifth year of college, right? Or sixth year, like sometimes that just happens. And instead of being like, why are they still around? Like why are they still here for five years? Like come on, move on. You know, like things happen and a lot of those things are out of control, right? It's not just, you know what we do need next year, but the sense that like I seriously looked up to those people because they could have their funny personal selves, like they're, the way in my, I used to see it like, oh my gosh, like they're, you know, being a typical college student, right? We're all people here. So I guess me saying this is not gonna sound weird, but like, you know, everyone swears. Everyone talks about, you know, personal things. Everyone has that moment where they step out of the zone of being like, not every single moment is a, I have to be professional. Like they're a person underneath all of their case items, but then they still could very easily step into that case mode or some of it just overlaps and it's like, no, I'm gonna be here for this, whatever happens or, hey, like you need me no matter where I am, no matter what time it is, you know, give me a call, I'm gonna be there. Just stepping in when it doesn't seem right. Like they're not in a, perhaps like a specific title, like a leadership title in a band program, but they're still doing the things that, you know, those people in the title perhaps are not doing or they're doing something different, you know, it's like everyone has a place and a role. And I love the fact that even as alumni, in this case, so the people who are older on the other side of things have such a big role because they're still, they did all that stuff. And they're still doing those things. To my stance, you know, it's hard for me to not do those things, but they're still doing those things whether or not they need to or not. And the fact that it's kind of like, what do you call it, like a, you're instilled with this sense that we want to do more just because we do, you know what I mean? And I think that's really cool and it's really important, but it also has a much bigger effect than we probably even realize. Especially for out of college or out of university, we might not have that direct hands-on thing like the kids in the college do now, but they still look up to us, right? We're still doing those things whether or not we realize we are. And I think it's pretty cool, and I lost my train of thought, so that's the end of that statement. - I agree 100%. I definitely feel the same way. I think that alumni really serve as a representation and an embodiment of our pillars even after we leave school. And I think, you know, your act is, if you stay in touch with your chapter, they can really see that, you know, like the musicianship and leadership service, brotherhood, those don't just end when you graduate, you know, like, we're leaders in our day-to-day lives. We're adults, we have jobs, you know. Musicianship is still very prominent in a lot of people's lives, whether you play in a band or not, or just listen to music, like regardless, you probably still have an appreciation for it, and service, you know, service doesn't have to stop with just, or end with college bands, you know. You can serve-- - Yeah, absolutely. - You can serve in so many ways in life, you know, whether it's different organizations or just volunteering, and brotherhood is everywhere all the time, you know, this is, you're part of this for life. And I think that alumni really embody these pillars and are representative representative, representative, that these pillars don't just end when you graduate, you know, and I think that it's, yeah, we're role models for the actives, you know. - I, you kind of hit my train of thought anyways. So part of where my train of thought was going is, but like connecting both of what you said, we occasionally would have, none of that is English. My chapter would have business meetings every week. Without fail, we'd have business meetings, except sometimes in order to remind ourselves that we can have a little fun sometimes, we wouldn't have our business meeting, and especially if there was just like a period in time where like there was a lull and we didn't have like events or stuff like that going on, we would instead do, we called them hybrid meetings, but they weren't really hybrid meetings. They were, we're gonna do some goofy team building exercise, kitty cat distractions. And one of them was we had to, I have a train of thought, and it's going somewhere, I promise, but it was my fifth year as a college student, as an active member, it was my third year, but the, we did this thing where like you write, we got two note cards, and we wrote our name on one side, and then we, on the other note card, we wrote what we thought burnout felt like, and we wrote that, and then our president had us shredded up into little pieces and throw it on the floor, and then we took our note card that had our name, and we passed it to the left, and we went in a big old circle, and everyone had to write something about us on that note card, and it felt really nice that like three or four of the comments that I got on my card, and I think I might even still have my card, even though it's over a year old. One of the kids that was in, that was one major, and then he changed this major to the major that I finished with, he said that I was part of the reason why he changed, and he looked up to me as someone that like, if he ever needed help that he could come to me, and like that kind of thing, like (laughs) made my little heart melt a little bit. But it was like the idea that like, even as an active, you can have other active look up to you, and now being alumni, like I could have totally finished my degree in four years. I did not, and I think it's kind of like, combining both of what you said, like I have active that still look up to me, and I still care about them so, so much, and I want the best for them, and I feel like it's like, I like the idea that because it took me longer to finish, that they have someone to look at, if they are considering dropping out, considering going inactive, you know, all those decisions that come with being a college student. I went off on a tangent, but I had a point, I got there eventually. (laughs) - No, it's a good point that, I mean, we're all role models for our chapters, and for our brothers, and I think that's really important. (laughs) - Whenever we have tea for each other, we used to tell each other to spill the beans, or spill your beans. (laughs) Anyways, off to another question, did y'all ever have to memorize the Greek alphabet? - Of course. - Oh, yeah. - I never memorized it, I kind of just went off of vibes. (laughs) You know, I feel like this letter goes up to this one, I might be right. (laughs) So we were chatting about this before the other day when we were planning for this podcast episode, but it sounds of it. Both of your chapters didn't have any specific way to memorize it, or like plan thing. It was just go with it and memorize it. So, our chapter is so proud of their silly little song that they've had to help memorize it, that there were like hand signs and like a whole like dance with it. - Do you remember it? - It was great, it was uh-- - You have to sing it, you can't bring it up. You can't bring it up and not sing it. - It's like, I'm gonna quit right now. - I don't remember any of the, some of the hand signs, I remember how it was. - Sing songs. - Okay. And it's just one of those things that just sticks in your head, so it's alpha, beta, gamma, delta. (speaking in foreign language) And we hold up our pitchforks because Omega is the chapter down at U of A, which is our arrival school. So we like in protest, hold up the pitchforks against the Omega sign. - We are 100% making a reel of Mark singing and dancing. - That song. - No, no, no, no. As a representative of my chapter and my district, no. (laughing) - I'd love to get someone that can animate it and still a little bit. (laughing) - I miss like-- - It's okay, we'll get someone to do like a little stick figure and then put your head on the stick figure body and then do like a little dance. - Compare it to the video that's out there somewhere in Facebook of my whole chapter, or my whole class doing it 'cause they like recorded us. - I-- - The complete irony of me going into that and thinking, I'm not gonna remember that as a freshman. And because in middle school, I memorized the Greek alphabet by just reciting it as fast as I can 'cause we had a competition like a Greek day, field day, and one of the challenges was like, can you recite the Greek alphabet as fast as you can? - You were like-- - So that was the only thing prior. Yeah, the only prior knowledge was, I can just get through this as fast as I hecken can. And that was how I memorized it. And then I came in, I'm like, "I'm not gonna memorize this song." And here I am, like the only thing I know is the song. So, thanks, babe, I'mma crumb. For something, I guess. Anyway, next question, uh, uh-- - Oh, we're out of questions. - Next. - Yeah, next we're talking about lesson two. Lesson two, our service matters. And in this lesson, we talk about our first purpose to promote the existence and welfare of the college and university bands and to cultivate a large and wholesome respect for their achievements and activities and achievements. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. - Hey, that's my favorite one. - That's your favorite one. So-- - Yeah. - Okay, guys, when people ask you about your band program, what do you say? How would you describe your band program? - I'll say that perhaps I'm not gonna talk about my band program specifically, but I will say that I am very happy and proud to see that we're so inclusive of other types of musical qualifications at ASU. I know that when I was going through and just during my time as an active, we were very conscious of the fact that people who aren't in the marching band may want to be in Kappa Kappa Psi. And we really tried to push towards that inclusivity in the school of music. Now more so than ever, I'd say there's a really solid portion that to my knowledge question mark aren't in the marching band 'cause when I hear about things being posted about like, oh, service this and make sure we're doing this and all that, like I catch on that I'm like, they're not just talking about the marching band, are they? Or like when people voice their opinion on who is or isn't, like there's actually more of a substantial portion that aren't in the marching band as a primary class. And so I like that. I'm gonna say that as Arizona State's thing that as much as I want to say that the marching band is a prominent force, which it is, we're doing well to include the school of music and other things too. - It's interesting for ODU, it's, I don't want to say the opposite. - What's, where's ODU? - Old Dominion University, but you said where is it? - Yeah, yeah, where's it? - Norfolk, Virginia. - Okay. - It's not necessarily the opposite, but for a long time there was a requirement to be in marching band for at least a year. And that was put in place by our sponsor/director of athletic bands. And so we struggled for a long time with getting that balance of finding people in the school of music because we had that requirement of having to be in marching band. So our chapter is predominantly people in marching band. But we're trying to find that balance to do the service for the school of music and the band program and try to like find a mix of both. And I think we've seen progress in that in the past couple of years. But yeah, it's a little bit different for us 'cause we are predominantly marching band. So that kind of, our service tunes a little bit more to that in the program, yeah. - I'm gonna actually talk about the band, but not just the band. So my school is fairly small. I think it's considered a D2 school. I don't really know how that works. (laughs) My school is fairly small, but it's like the music program is kind of cracked. The, I know it's like, I don't know if it's necessarily a regional thing, but like my school is known for its music program. And it's within a couple hours of several other like really, really big schools, like Texas Tech is an hour and a half away, but people still come to my school for the music program. Text program is still great, but my school is known for its music program among other programs, but. And like there was not just the marching band. A couple of years ago, the MC service project was helping out one of the pet bands that would play the volleyball games, but there's also, I think two jazz bands. There was horn choir, brass choir, trombone choir, tubium on how to big ensemble. I think there was also flute and clarinet choir separately. Almost every single studio had their own form of choir or ensemble or something like that. And then there's like the jazz bands and all of that. And it was like, my freshman year, there were three bands. All of them were a mix of music majors and non-majors. For the most part, the top band was mostly exclusively music majors, but the second and the third band was a pretty decent mix. And it was COVID changed that a little bit. 'Cause my sophomore year we started out with three bands and then we went down to two. But obviously like enrollment numbers and stuff was COVID were kind of funky. But the music program had a lot of crazy good players. Still has a lot of crazy good players. And because y'all talked about it, my chapter was predominantly music majors, which I haven't heard apparently that's weird. At least from the people that I had spoken to at both district and national conventions, like that's not necessarily the norm for other chapters. I think in of the 30 odd people that were in my chapter, there was my last year being active. I think there were three or four non-music majors. - Wow. Yeah, that's a pretty big percentage of music majors. I think usually there's a mix, but that's a pretty big percentage. - The demographics and stuff from my chapter were all kinds of skewed too. My chapter was mostly women, I think, at one point. It was like a 55-45 kind of situation, or math. Yeah, 55-45, it was almost an even split, but it was just like barely more women than guys. And also a couple non-binary friends. - Demographics were all kinds of funky, but yeah. - Since you were talking about your chapter, let's talk a little bit about our individual chapters and bands. - Seize Segue Queen, alright. - Thank you. (laughing) Mark, you wanna tell us about your chapter? - My chapter is being on the crown chapter of Kappa Kappa Psi, and when written in the Greek letters is the B.O chapter on the script, it's just funny. We were founded on November 13th in 1949 and a fun fact about our home chapter. I will say that it's not about my home chapter, but we used to have. The biggest thing that I can say is the best fun fact is that our very old sister chapter was the Sigma chapter of Tabeta Sigma. And back in 1977, they were the first women to join Kappa Kappa Psi, who were sisters. And so then we started that trend, the revolution at the 1977 National Convention win. Case I allowed women to become full members in Case I. - Yay women. - That's among our chapter history that we learned when new members are taking the classes. One of the classes that we love to do is called our A Mountain lesson, 'cause big mountain here in Tempe, A Mountain. And one of our alumni leads that lesson and has been leading that lesson for a very long time and she's awesome. Shout out to Leslie Anderson, but she leads it and she gives us like the college friendly PG version of what happened. There's rumors that there were deeper things underway, but really the biggest thing was that at the time, the two chapters were having a hard time getting along and so the director of bands at the moment or the sponsor just said, you gotta pick one because things aren't working out. So they picked Capacabasai and the sisters came over and then Sigma kinda just stopped, so. - Interesting. It's kinda cool to be, to have history though, that's a part of like a monumental time in the fraternity. - Yeah, it's one of my favorite lessons, not just because of the fact that we get to not do it in a classroom in a high-come-outon, but it's just really colorful in its history and there's just so much to unpack and so much. - So much Beta Omicron lore. - B.O. lore. - Yeah. Yeah, B.O. lore. - Tori, what about you? - My chapter is the Alpha-Sci chapter of Capacabasai and my chapter was founded in, founded on October 25th, 1947. Jumping off of your impact. Even though the org as a whole became co-ed in the 70s, we did not get our first female member until 2007 or 2011. - Wow. - Yeah. - That's crazy. - Just by happenstance? - Nope. - No. (laughing) - I mean, that's okay. I mean, yeah, I understand. - That one, I think, I don't know all of the details on that. Most of what I have been told is through word of mouth, so who knows how true it is, but basically up until that point, any time a woman wanted to join, they were pretty much told we have a TBS chapter here, go join TBS and I don't know what changed that year. She eventually became the chapter president. The composite photos from that year were kind of cool. Apparently that year for the year that she was president, that they were taking composite photos, the group photo, she told everyone to dress in all black, or concert black, sorry, and she showed up in blue. So she stands out, it looks really cool. - Sam, what about you? - My chapter is the new row chapter of Capacabasai and in Greek letters that is the N.P chapter, no problems. - No problem. - My chapter was founded on April 19th, 2017. I guess that's kind of my fun fact is like, we're a baby chapter in the grand scheme of things. - Wow. - Yeah, we're still pretty young, but oh, special appearance via cat. But even though my chapter is young, I think my chapter has really grown and I'm really proud of how many brothers we've brought in and how much the chapter is striving. And from the alumni side, I still see the chapter grow a lot, which is really great. So yeah, I mean, super, super proud of my chapter. Shout out to the noble new row brothers. - That's cool. Is there anything you wanted to add on like a fact about your band specific history? Not just chapter related? - Yeah, band history. Well, I guess ODU has an interesting sort of history with the band and even the football team. They had a football team way back in like the 1930s 'cause we used to be like a, we used to be a part of college of William & Mary, like we were the Norfolk campus. And so there was a small football team that lasted for I think like 15 years or something. And then it kind of just disintegrated because we were an extension of a school. So it was like, why do we have a football team? And so we actually did not have a football team again until 2009. That's when our football team officially became like the Old Dominion University football team. So that's when our marching band was formed, 2009, which isn't that long ago. - No. - Yeah, so still kind of a baby band. It was founded by Dr. Alexander Trevigno, who was our director up until this past year. So yeah, I remember my first year marching. It was the 10 year anniversary of the band. And he showed us this video of kind of like how the band came to be over the years. And at the time when the band was formed, there was no like band room in the stadium. And so they actually rented a house on campus. And that served as where we kept instruments and uniforms. It was literally like, yeah, like a few bedroom house near the school of music. And we've only grown since then, you know, with our new stadium and stuff. But yeah, it's really cool to be a part of something and see how it's grown over the years. But yeah, baby band, baby chapter. - Nice, that's cool, anything special, Tori? I was just trying to fact check. - I was just trying to fact check. - 'Cause I knew that my school was over 100 years old, but I couldn't remember how old the band was and the band turned a hundred and twenty ten. The marching band. - Nice. - Which is nutty. - That's wild, that's not too off from me either. 'Cause in 2015, we celebrated our 100 year as well. - Wow, my band is so young. - Oh my gosh. - I think it was an elementary school when they turned a hundred. So I was a little disconnected once. - That's awesome. - I know my school had a TBS chapter and you talked about your school having one at one point. Do you know if they have a TBS chapter now? - You're talking to me, no. That stopped in the 70s, yeah. - Yeah, Odu only has Catholic outside. - We do not have a Tabita Sigma chapter. - My school actually does have a Tabita Sigma chapter. Shout out Zai. I love those girls, they're great. Absolutely, hearts. I think, I don't remember a whole lot about their founding, like dates and stuff, but they're a single letter name. So they've been around for a minute. I do know one of the things that happened whenever I was going through lessons, one of the things that we did that was kind of cool was we had honorary members that were also sisters. They were sisters originally and then they became honorary's of our chapter. So we had one of our honorary's come in and talk about our sister chapter during our MC lessons. It was pretty cool. I don't remember a ton, if I'm being honest. However, that was four years ago, I've slept since then. I love the chapter dearly. They are absolutely pretty much any time we were like, hey, KSI's doing this thing, can y'all help? They'd be like, where do you need us? And it was pretty much every single thing that we needed their help. They were always there and easy to depend on. They're great girls, not all of them are girls, but. Great sisters. Ah! (laughs) English, not happening. (laughs) Yeah, at ODU, we don't have a tall bay of the sick mode, but we have other music orgs there. We have a Faimu Alpha, and we also have Phi Buteruda, which is the national percussion fraternity. It's not everywhere, yeah, but shout out to Beta Phi and Phiota tall, yeah. I think my school recently got a chapter, 'cause I remember they're just a random composite set showing up on the wall one day, where you're like, okay, and no one ever questioned it. I never thought to read the letters, that might be what that org gets. Yeah, it's their letters are PBR, Phi Buteruda. And yeah, I mean, they are percussionists. They do very similar things to us, and they're all super great, but all of the music orgs at ODU are, we like to hang out and we work together, we do service projects and stuff like that together. And so we have pretty good relationships. We have a lot of brothers who are also in Phi Mu Alpha or PBR. We have, I know I can think of one that's in all three, so like trifecta. But yeah, and we used to have a Sigma Phiota chapter, but it disbanded, I think, in like 2019 or 2020. Yeah. - I know my school has a Phi Mu Alpha chapter. They've also been around forever. I can't remember what their chapter letter names are. I'm pretty sure their chapter name is Iodopi. 'Cause they also Phi Mu Alpha at my school does a big band, and it's called their, they call it 3.14 big band. I'm pretty sure it's Iodopi. We have a lot of double brothers between KSI and Phi Mu Alpha. We, at one point, they were, I don't remember exactly what the verbiage was, but at the time they were calling it a colony for Sigma Alpha Iodopi. And apparently it's happened more than once where there's been a colony, but it never actually came into being a full chapter. Efforts were being made, and then whoever was in charge of it ended up graduating, and it just didn't get off the floor, unfortunately. But there's also, so my school has, there's KSI and TBS, and then there's also Mu Phi Epsilon and Phi Mu Alpha, and then there's also, they're not a Greek org, but they get included in all of the Greek org stuff that happens. So like, there's the four Greeks, and then there's also music therapy organization, which we just call MTO. So anytime the Greeks are doing something, we always have invited MTO, 'cause a lot of the MTO people are also in the Greek stuff. And like, for example, I think this year they're trying to do an org Olympics. There used to be, it used to be called formal, 'cause there was four Greek orgs, so formal, and it was like basically Greek prom for the music orgs. And then this year we still did an org formal, this past spring semester, which was a lot of fun. Pretty much all of the orgs, it's hard to find someone that's not in one of them, especially with how small the school of music at my school is. - The last part here in lesson two is about service project planning. So obviously service is a very key component of Kappa Kappa Psi's national identity, and especially a cornerstone of the national brand. It's an integral part of the operation as a whole for each of our local chapters. But on the alumni side of things, if we're a part, if any of us are a part of an LAA, what kind of service projects have you participated in? Or if that's not as applicable, what kind of service projects stood out to you during your active membership? I'll say that off the top of my head, I can't think of very much that the WDAA has done, and the BOAA is relatively new and off the ground. So in comparison, I'd rather point out things that happen when I was active. We did quite a bit from what I can remember. I always used to love taking pictures and stuff, and videos and just documenting all of the things that we did, which then led to me being a historian, my junior year, and senior year. But one of the ones that always stood out is Rosie's house, which is like a local academy, so to speak. And we helped clean out their band room, clean up their space, just make it more presentable. And there was a lot of us at the time. Our chapter was pretty big. And it was a great afternoon to do all that stuff. We've done little service projects here and there for creating things that the band could use or the chapter could use. Anything from signage to just the utility for taking pictures at degrees, like those little things. There's quite a bit that we used to do. And it's not all coming back to me right now, but what about you guys? Any LAA or alumni specific things or what about your chapters? - Yeah, well, I am the founder and president of the Hampton Roads Alumni Association. We're still very new. We just formed at the beginning of this year. So we're still kind of getting on our feet with everything. But I know that we do have a lot of hopes to do some service projects. A lot of the alumni from my chapter are music, education, teachers and stuff at different schools in the area. I know one brother is actually the band director at my high school, so shout out to him. But yeah, we have a lot of hopes to give back to the high schools and stuff, help at their band camps. And I try to support monetarily where I can to support the band programs and them getting uniforms and instruments, and we all know how it is in high school band. But yeah, and we want to help with band camps and stuff at the university. And yeah, if you guys are interested, here's my little spiel to join the Hampton Roads Alumni Association. But I do remember as an active brother, we did a lot for, we tried to do both marching band stuff and school and music stuff. So of course, we do the normal things, polishing instruments. I was on uniform staff and music staff and I was grad staff, so I always had a lot of tasks that the chapter could help with, especially like after we got our uniforms back from dry cleaning, putting them all back where they're supposed to be organizing the band room before band season, cleaning up afterwards, because we all know post-game day tornado goes through the band room. And so we would also do stuff like supporting the school and music with set up and breakdown for concerts and recitals and stuff like that, organizing the music library, which was kind of task. There was so much music in there. Yeah, so we would do different stuff like that. I am in a group that is in the process of becoming an LAA. The Alpha-Sci Interest Group for becoming an LMI Association is, it's my comparison. We're getting there. We're recruiting more and more people. I think our numbers are up to like 20 now, which is, are something like that? I think, I might be full of it. So like, it's a work in progress, we're getting there. We're not an official AA yet. We're an interest group for the time being, but we've already started doing some stuff to help the chapter. One of the things that we've done so far is the week of summer band, my school does this thing. The mascot for my school is the buffaloes or the buffs and they do this thing called buff branding where it's like, you're a buff now, congrats, ha ha. And it's like the weekend before classes, but band kids don't get to do that 'cause they're in summer band in rehearsals. So we do this thing called buff banding and it's basically after your very long summer days, every night there's some kind of event going on. So there's, right before the week actually starts it's icebreakers and then there's like game night or bingo night or movie night or something like that. And one of the things that they do is called watermelon nukem and it's nukem and watermelon and we provided the watermelons for nukem this year. In terms of other service projects from whenever I was like an active member, my two favorites were the really big ones that we did every year. In February of every year, there's a solo ensemble competition that happens in both the case I chapter at my school and the TBS chapter at my school basically run it. We are like the room monitors and the runners and the office staff and all of that and we're the hired help that takes care of the whole events for one of the professors at the school, Dr. Krause, who is one of our biggest supporters. We love that man. We did a sticker fundraiser one year and he made, he let us make a bunch of stickers where that were his quotes. Dr. Krause is one of my favorites. I love that guy. And then the other event that we do at the end of the spring semester is the Southwest Music Festival, which is also a competition for middle school, mostly middle school and high school bands and also choirs and jazz bands and all kinds of little ones. But it's like they can get trophies or they can get medals and stuff like that, but we also run that event. We step in and we're the runners or the room monitors or the go fetchers or those people, but those are two of my favorite events. And for the solo and ensemble one, every single year, I'm, you know, 20, 21, 22, having a 14 year old call me ma'am. I know it's Texas, but I know it's Texas and I know it's a respect thing, but that was the only thing about someone ensemble that I just liked was getting called ma'am by people that were barely younger than me. End of story. No, no, no, it's funny. One of my biggest things is I don't like being called a, sir, but I think that just kind of stems through three years of the same style. I get called ma'am and misses since I'm married now and I'm like, that makes me sound old. No, that's all great. Like, I love that we all have different service projects that are like unique to our chapters or unique to our LAAs. Like, I think that's so fun. And everyone should join an LAA once you graduate. It's great. Yeah, you can stay in touch with your brothers, keep serving. We have a lot of LAAs, so if you want to be a part of an LAA, head over to the website and look at the directory. There's contact information. Western District people, hit up Mark. [LAUGHS] We have pretty much-- Hit up Mark. You can join WDA. And that concludes the very first episode in our Little Road to Wisdom mini series. We invite you guys to join us next week for lesson three, chapter matters, and lesson four, our leadership matters. As always, we'd like to thank the National Alumni Association and Kappa Kappa Psi, National Honorary Ban fraternity for making this podcast possible. Have a wonderful day. And as always, a-- A. A. [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] (upbeat music) (upbeat music)