Throughout college I learned a lot from my major, but also a large part of my learning experience was through my sorority, Alpha Xi Delta. My sorority was able to grow me into a more confident leader on my campus as well as in my jobs. It shaped a large time of my college experience, as I served as Member Development Vice President for all of 2020. Doing this during COVID-19 was especially difficult, but it taught me how to step up and become a leader for people during a difficult time. 

During my time as Member Development Vice President, I oversaw academics, ritual, programming, all of our new members, and some finances. I was able to help girls in our chapter improve their grades, get academic resources, and provide incentives for people who had exceptional achievements in academics. Overseeing ritual was so special as I was able to help plan ceremonies and initiate our new members. Each week I was able to run the new member meetings and present a PowerPoint with information about our chapter as well as doing fun activities and teaching them how to develop into strong women on our campus. I also managed a budget for my team and oversaw four directors and a myriad of chair positions.

One class I was able to connect this back to was my HPEB 300 course: Introduction to Health Promotion, Education and Behavior. Although it may seem odd to connect my time as a sorority leader to a health promotion class, my skills I learned as a leader tied into this class. In this class we had to complete a series of projects with my group members and these projects included creating goals and a plan for a health intervention. (Artifact 1). The way my group came up with interventions was using the PRECEDE-PROCEED model. PRECEDE stands for Predisposing, Reinforcing, and Enabling Constructs in Educational Diagnosis and Evaluation. PROCEED stands for Policy, Regulatory, and Organizational Constructs in Educational and Environmental Development. It involves the identification of desired outcomes and program implementation. In the PROCEED part of the model, implementation is done to design intervention, assess the availability of resources, and implement the program. Process evaluation is determining if a program is reaching the targeted population and achieving desired goals. Impact evaluation is evaluating the change in behavior and outcome evaluation identifying if there is a decrease in the incidence or prevalence of the identified negative behavior or an increase in identified positive behavior. As seen in this artifact, our team came up with SMART goals in order to implement a plan to help a community that had an issue with type 2 diabetes. (Artifact 2). We were able to come up with ways to effectively begin to help those with type 2 diabetes and prevent more type 2 diabetes cases in the area. Promoting this positive change in a hypothetical instance gave an outcome of decreasing the negative choices that affect those with type 2 diabetes or that can lead to type 2 diabetes. This relates similarly to creating prevention and probation measures for those struggling with academics in our chapter. I was able to help create a prevention and probation system (artifact 3) that was able to help girls who were struggling with academics. Members were placed on prevention if their GPA was in between a 2.5 and a 2.75. On prevention, they would meet with our academic achievement director or chair once every other week in order to help them pull their GPA up. They also had to submit extra academic points. Members were placed on academic probation if they earned below a 2.5 and were on social probation, had to meet with our academic achievement director weekly, and had to submit academic points. During my time as Member Development VP, I also set up an academic mentor program for girls who were struggling. Members in our chapter who were doing well were able to be matched with a girl in their major who was struggling with certain courses. Similarly, I came up with these interventions in a way that would have an impact and we saw changes in behavior and had strong positive outcomes of girls coming off academic prevention and probation.

During my career as a nurse, I want to make a difference in community health. In order to do this, I will have to educate my patients on ways to help them improve a disease they may have, how to prevent disease, or even just how to live a healthier lifestyle. I will use the PRECEDE-PROCEED model in order to assess the population I am working with and things that may predispose them to a higher possibility of certain diseases in their specific community. I will then be able to help patients create obtainable (SMART) goals, evaluate if the change is being achieved in the population I am working with, see if it is making an impact, and see if there is a decrease in the incidence or prevalence of an issue in the area. The skills I learned from creating a real intervention in my sorority, as well as a hypothetical population health intervention, can help make a difference in my patients' lives as well as the community.