Written by Jamie Nicholls, ΓM, The Academy 2023 attendee

Learn about Jaime’s experience at The Academy: Cleveland earlier this year. 

“Before the event, our president communicated with us the date of the Academy, along with the sign-up deadline and all our transportation plans. Alpha Sigma Alpha also sent out extensive emails to us providing the agenda for the day, wardrobe ideas and any final details that we needed to know, which was SUPER helpful.  

I think the keynote, Dynamic Chapters, was very interesting to engage in. I liked how we were changing the focus from how many women we bring to who the girls are that we’re bringing in. It changed a lot of our perceptions on the purpose of recruitment and what the main goal is: to find women who exemplify AΣA’s core values and mission and help them grow into more empowered women. Another aspect I loved hearing was “people bring in people”, so we need to be our true authentic selves to attract other authentic women. 

During the educational blocks, I was able to both share my years of experience as well as hear others’ experiences, their chapters’ procedures and opinions on different matters. I loved that no one’s way of running their chapter was considered the “right” way, as every chapter comes from different geographical locations, chapter sizes and backgrounds. It was an amazing way to share information with everyone. 

I really enjoyed attending the Equality, Equity and Social Justice workshop. This was my favorite workshop because we were able to discuss not only hard topics relating to the country and the world but were able to connect our thoughts back to our chapters and our rules. We discussed housing policies and accommodations, financial responsibilities as a sorority member and the stereotypes that come with being in a sorority. I think this workshop allowed for new conversations, new ideas and new equitable ways of running chapters of different colors, shapes and sizes. 

My favorite part of the Academy was being able to connect with sisters from different chapters. I loved being able to hear about them not only as Alpha Sigma Alpha sisters, but as people. This event was an amazing way to connect with women you never would have met otherwise, even chapters from the same state. It was interesting to think about how all these women entered Alpha Sigma Alpha’s sisterhood, all these women completed their initiations and ceremonies and committed themselves to lifelong sisterhood. Looking around the big conference room was almost emotional because it was so amazing to see so many beautiful, inspiring, hard-working women come together to become even more empowered and bring this knowledge back to their chapters.”