On Saturday, Omega Delta Phi Fraternity Inc. hosted its bi-annual National Leadership Institute. Originally NLI was scheduled to be in Houston Texas however due to COVID-19 pandemic, NLI was switched to virtual. The planning of the leadership institute was overseen by the Director of Conference Jose Figueroa.
“Houston had amazing promise this year,” VP of Membership Engagement Irwin Barcenes said. “But due to unforeseen circumstances we had to provide an experience to the undergrads and venture into planning territory we never had experience with before. This year we had a learning curve of creating a Virtual Conference! An exciting new field that we can evolve in the future.”
The event began with introductions and roll call by Barcenes along with a breakdown of the conference and what to expect.
National President Tony Pagliocco delivered the State of the Fraternity address. In this address, it included reports by marketing, finance, operations, and leadership & development teams. The first half of NLI ended off with a Q&A session and final remarks by President Pagliocco.
After the first half, the next portion began with a presentation of the MyODPhi internal portal delivered by the VP of Technology Jesus Apodaca. Some workshops presented were topics such as Title IX, Diversity & Inclusion, marketing strategies, and intake.
After the workshops, the conference team hosted the “Greek Olympiad” where brothers tested their ODPhi and greek knowledge. The winners, Larry Wells and Arnulfo Hernandez, were awarded the top prizes. In addition, Director of Academics Richard Villarreal hosted the Omega Ceremony in remembrance of our brothers who have passed on.
“Despite it being virtual this year, I still felt like I was there with everyone for this,” Richard said. “Brothers were still able to speak about our honored brothers and you could see the reactions from brother’s faces of how deep this ceremony was. The love and respect for each other was there, and the memory of our honored brothers was embedded into this virtual conference. ”
The leadership institute wrapped with awarding the Knights of Round Table which, is the highest honor given to an undergraduate brother.
Here are the recipients:
Kenyatta Brisco (Texas A&M University)
Erick Rodriguez (University of Houston)
Omar Amezquita (University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign)
Ivan Garcia (University of Wisconsin-Parkside)
Hector Rojas (Kansas State University)
Pablo Huerta (Texas A&M International University)
Hugo Guerra (University of Texas San-Antonio)
President Pagliocco gave the closing remarks which drove home the importance of brotherhood and accountability. Barcenes said he was pleased with the outcome of the leadership institute.
“Our goal was to create a brotherhood experience, along with providing crucial information for the success of every brother,” Irwin said. “I wanted the feeling to be as close to in-person conferences as possible. I am glad to see that was the case, even though some of us were thousands of miles apart, we were able to bond and have fun as brothers always do. In my heart, I believe we achieved this. This is something different, but the bonding and love of the brotherhood were apparent.”
National Conference 2021 is set to take place in Phoenix, Arizona.