Palmer Greek Council Survey Results

by

Channing C. Bolick, D.C.

Alumni President

Delta Delta Pi Professional Chiropractic Fraternity

Published in the November 2006 Beacon

 Recently a survey that was administrated to the students of trimesters one through four.  My intentions were to gain a better understanding of the wants and needs of the student body in order to get more students interested in joining a fraternity or sorority.  What I did not know is the outlook of the Palmer student of 2006.  From talking to our student members, we learned that without question the academic policies are increasingly less forgiving and the course load larger.  However, being that they are already in the Greek system a larger cross section of opinion was needed.  This was quite a large undertaking and it took my clinic staff and me about 10 man hours to tabulate these survey results.  I found them quite useful and interesting and I hope you do too.  What I’m going to do is list each survey question, then give the results followed by a short commentary about them.  

 In this box the interested column represents the presented of students who were interested.  I simply deleted the 132 not interested students form the ratio.  As you can see “Student Resources” was the most popular response with 24% of the interested students reporting it.

 In this category the vast majority of students 72% have heard or observed nothing negative about any Palmer fraternity or sorority.  While of the negative responses the largest category had to do with parties or alcohol abuse.  I will take this up again at the end of the survey results after you see the answers to some of the other questions.  

 If we look at the ratio of only the students that are interested in attending a fraternal event about 1/3 would like to attend a party or social even and nearly 2/3 are interested in a lecture or workshop.  

 On this question there was on overwhelming opinion that the fraternities and sororities should have a professional appearance.  There were a number of comments about wearing ties periodically and not tee shirts with Greek letters all the time.  I was especially interested in this, because this is one of the very things I was telling our student members at homecoming this year.  When I was a student, pledges wore “clinic attire” during their pledge period, which meant ties if you were a guy.  Also, on Fridays all the members wore their Fraternal Blazer with appropriate “clinic attire” underneath.  This is a point that has been dropped out and I have asked our students to re-implement this.  

 As you can see 45% of the students report a lack of time as their major reason for not joining the Greek system.  This is something I already had an idea about and this validates my directive for our fraternity to significantly shorten the time requirements in our pledging process starting next trimester.  I will give further explanation on this at the end of the article.  

Now, of the students surveyed 60% are interested in some aspect of practice management from how to start a new practice to how to be successful in practice or simply success stories from the field.  This is something that I am well trained in from my years of working with Dr. David Singer who runs the worlds largest chiropractic consulting company for more the 25 years.

 From these results we can see that 57% of all students surveyed find Saturday as the best day to attend a workshop and 45% of the students who were time specific thought Saturday afternoon was the best time.  

 On this one soda or some non-alcoholic beverage was the most popular at 45% and if a type of food was requested 44% of those wanted pizza served.  I did find it curious that 27% of the students surveyed wanted beer or some alcoholic beverage served at the workshop.  I have never attended or heard of a seminar or workshop in the field that serves or allows alcohol during the workshop.  

 Here 89% of the students surveyed feel that tradition should be a big part of the Palmer Greek system.  I would like to further point out that of the 14 “no” responses, almost all of them had some hateful or grossly inappropriate comment.  This is very troubling to me, because Palmer students are the future leaders of chiropractic; a lot more could be said about this, but I won’t.  

 There was a major interest in a party or social event as an after boards function.  Of the 19% that wanted free drink and food; the majority of these responses was primarily for alcoholic beverages.  Now here’s where the other shoe drops:  Remember up in question number two—negatives about the Greek system?  Where 7% reported alcohol abuse and 8% reported party group as negatives? This totals 15% and here on question eight 19% of students are not interested in attending.  I looked back over the surveys and this 15% from question two were also not interested in attending any functions here in question number eight.

 I’m not trying to say that the Greek system should be all about alcohol and parties, but by survey results there is an overwhelming interest in social activities that serve alcohol.  It is each individual’s choice how much alcohol he/she does or does not consume.  Putting Greek letters on your chest does not make you drink any more or any less.  I know for a fact that there are Palmer students who drink as much or more than any person in the Greek system.  An individual outside the Greek system who has lost control would benefit greatly from the brotherhood of a fraternal support system.  Our fraternity has forced students to get help with substance abuse from time to time and go so far as to revoke membership if they could not or would not get control in this area.  

 The big winner here was responses that fraternities and sororities were a mystery or it was not known what they do.  There were also a number of requests for an information sheet listing the fraternities and sororities which describes what they do and the differences between them, there were also requests to have this sort of data sent to their PCC Box.

 Now, this was another point that I already had some idea about.  Palmer College policy has made it increasingly difficult over the last 10-15 years to promote what we do on campus.  For example, there were a number of suggestions about putting informational sheets or other promo materials in student PCC boxes at the beginning of the trimester.  This is something we once did as a regular promotional activity, but after 1994, we were not allowed to do this anymore.  Perhaps this is a policy that the current Palmer Administration would change.

 There is a natural law that favors Black Propaganda:  “Where there is no data available people will invent it.”  This is the law of omitted data.  Old philosophers said that “nature abhors a vacuum.”  Actually the surrounding pressure flows into an area of no pressure.  This is true with a person, group, company, or nation.  Hit by lies the person tends to withdraw.  This vacuum already tends to pull things in.  The person becomes apathetic and does not wish to put out data.  He becomes to some degree a mystery.  To fill that mystery people will invent data.

 I know from some of the answers on this survey especially question number two results came from invented data and/or rumors.  For example, of the students surveyed that they were not interested in a fraternal organization many of them also said that there was no place for a fraternity or a sorority at the graduate school level.  Well, this is simply an ignorant response; there are medical and dental fraternities.  In fact, many post graduate students and alumni form fraternities and sororities.  When I look up the word fraternity in a current dictionary “medical fraternity” is used as an example.  This is why I’m writing this article and releasing these survey results so I can give the student body some true data about the Palmer Greek system.  Palmer College is the fountainhead and we should have a thriving Greek system here that represents chiropractic just like the other major fields of health services have.

Now chiropractic has been under attack from various Black Propaganda Campaigns from the AMA and other groups who don’t like natural solutions to health problems.  Rumors and lies about chiropractic are something you have to handle with the pubic on a daily basis in the field.  It is almost impossible to help someone who has chiropractic negative, unless you effectively handle it.

 There is an exact technology to handling Black Propaganda and whispering campaigns.  If you attend my upcoming workshop, then I will show you how to do it.

 It is my hope that the College Administration will allow the Palmer Greek system effective communication lines to the student body so we can provide true data so that this mystery about who we are and what we do does not continue.  The last thing the chiropractic profession needs is another rumor.  All of the fraternal organizations would be happy to provide this true data if they were allowed effective communication to the student body.

 On Saturday November 11, 2006 I will be hosting a workshop from 1:00 pm to 3:00 pm at Delta Delta Pi Professional Chiropractic Fraternity located at 124 W. 12^th Street 322-0561.  For this workshop, I will present the case study I gave at the Miracles of Chiropractic Awards during Home coming this year, I will also cover many practice management topics to include, How to Start a Practice, How To Be Successful in Practice, How to Confront and Shatter Black Propaganda, Effective Patient Communication and more.  The Delta Delta Pi Alumni Association will host this FREE event and we will provide FREE pizza and non-alcoholic beverages.  From 3:00 pm to 4:00 pm I will host a Chiropractic Round Table Discussion Group.  During the Round Table I will answer any Practice Management or Philosophy questions you may have there will also be other alumni present to give input.  We will have an open forum on any topic relevant to the chiropractic profession.  I have made numerous appearances on radio and television.  I am a well know public speaker and have been a guest author in several books.  I have also been the Alumni President for Delta Delta Pi Professional Chiropractic Fraternity for nearly ten years.  You can learn more about me at www.bolickclinic.com .

 Delta Delta Pi Professional Chiropractic Fraternity was established in 1968 and was named after Daniel David Palmer.  A professional fraternity by definition is one that accepts both men and women as members.  We prescribe to no specific chiropractic philosophy; debate and discussion of all topics is encouraged.  Our pledging process is geared towards learning history about chiropractic, the Palmers and Palmer College .  Members are trained to be more successful taking boards and in general practice.  Faculty and Alumni are typically present at major pledging events.  We provide a social environment and a chance to interact with upper classmen and our alumni members.   A strong alumni association that maintains an effective networking system is the pinnacle of our mission.  Many of our Alumni are current or past officers for their state chiropractic boards and state associations.  We also have alumni that have held political offices in the Senate and House of Representatives.  Practice opportunities for graduating students and preceptorships are available.  Starting the fall trimester of 2006 the Delta Delta Pi pledging period will be shortened to 2 weeks long with minimal time commitments on weekdays. We will offer 2 pledge periods per trimester one at the beginning of the trimester and after mid-terms.  We are making this change to come in line with the current academic climate and needs of the students today.  I hope to see you all at my workshop on Saturday November 11, 2006 .

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Last modified: April 24, 2016