“I would not have had a full college experience if it were not for my participation in Phi Sigma Pi and the Oral Health Student Association. I learned so much in my classes but so much more in my organizations. At times it was overwhelming and I questioned why I was doing so much but it taught me how to manage many things at one time and I knew that was how dental school was going to be. I also learned how to say no to certain tasks and to delegate tasks while still being responsible for the outcome. I always encouraged my committees and my officers to keep an open line of communication with me and each other, always take responsibility for mistakes but don't apologize for your opinion, and if there is a problem address it immediately and take the emotion out of it.”

-Carrie Mae

Oral Health Student AssociationOHSA was a wonderful way to learn about being a Predent and that is how my

membership started. After a few semesters I told our current president that when he graduated I wanted to be president, sure enough I was elected my senior year. I gained more leadership skills while being a member of OHSA. I knew that being president, holding all my positions in Phi Sigma Pi, and finishing my degree was going to be tough so I quickly learned to delegate. While delegating I ran into problems with members and I not being on the same page as I was when it came to completing tasks. I turned to our bylaws and attempted to clear up the confusion. I implemented Robert's rules of order, specified officer’s duties, and made a mission statement for our organization. These changes were a success bringing in new members, getting things done, and helped meetings run smoothly.

Phi Sigma Pi National Honor FraternityMy membership in PSP was very beneficial to me and hopefully I was also

beneficial to PSP. While I was t-shirt chair I got to use my creative side and design shirts, sweatshirts, water bottles, and stickers for Phi Sigma Pi, that was the fun part. The not so fun part was dealing with the money, all the lists, and keeping up with and distributing the actual merchandise. For example, before anything was ordered I would have a poll on who would buy it because we could not afford to lose money on merchandise, I would do this with every item then order that number plus about 2% more. I always ordered more for people who see it in person and then want to buy it but I also anticipated that some people that initially ordered it would drop out, which always happened. My goal was and is to always do better than the previous position holder and to do better than the previous year. My goal was always accomplished.

During my time as Web Administrator it was my job to market Phi Sigma Pi to ETSU, Nationals, and other chapters. This area was where my performance was the

weakest. I had control over or FB, Instagram, Wikipedia, and Email. I tried to implement a "Brother of the week" program so that we could highlight an individual each week on our social media but it was a member fueled program so if no one sent me their vote on a specific brother I could not post it and I did not have time to make the post myself so this may have happened a few times. Another problem with the social media accounts is that you had to reach out to people to follow you and not many people accepted the invite. The only thing that went okay with the web admin position is that I worked with the historian a little bit and we built up and partially corrected the family trees on wikipedia, this was really important to one of our alum advisors so we tried to keep up with that.

Inter Chapter Relations was the position that put me on the executive board. I loved being on the Executive board. E-board is where all the decisions that were not required to go in front of the chapter were made. It was hard to go to an extra meeting a week but it was worth it because I learned so much. We made decisions on excuses to expulsions and it really felt like I was making a difference. Being ICR chair meant I was in charge of handling events and issues with other chapters. We did a pen pal event with a chapter in Georgia and a tailgating event at ETSU when Kennesaw State University came to play our football team. The main responsibility of ICR is to be the regional delegate and help plan the regional conference. The regional conference was planned by other ICR chairs in our region, kids just like me, so that was a challenge. In the end we pulled it off with a successful conference at Western Kentucky University with about 5 events everyday including a 5k, a speaker from HOBI our national philanthropy, and a formal with dinner and a speaker from our national office. I was even able to sell $500 in left over merchandise from previous t-shirt chairs stockpiles and even sold everything left over that I had ordered making us a $300 profit. I was able to sell it at a higher price then promised to my chapter so that was great.