The keynote speaker at the chapter’s April 5 Moms Day celebration told the undergraduates that what the world needs is better men.
Chris Molina, a professional leadership speaker, implored the 100+ fraternity members who were joined by their moms and some dads that the world will depend upon them to set society’s standards.
“I say we need better men because despite what fraternity I have been around, no matter what group of men (in the military and elsewhere) I have been around whenever we have done fraternity the right way, it’s the best thing we can do for society,” Molina said. “Whenever we do fraternity the wrong way it is the absolute worst thing that we can do in our society.”
Molina was a 2015 Purdue graduate after spending more than seven years in the Marines. Now, he’s a podcaster, father, author and leadership speaker on college campuses across the country. He was the chapter’s model initiate at the 2022 Omega’s Centennial celebration.
“Whatever the world looks like in the future, depends on you,” he told his fraternity brothers. “And one thing that I can tell you is not only are you doing the right thing now, not just by joining this organization, but then participating in helping other people and helping your community. That’s just the beginning.”
Molina engaged the 20-somethings in the audience as well as their moms near the end of an hour-long program after an off-campus banquet.
“I want you to remember leaving here and that first thing is that, yes, helping other people and helping your community is very important,” he said. “Helping the brother who sits to the left and to the right of you every single day that you are on this campus, that is just as important, if not more. There are a slew of statistics that show that young men nowadays are lonelier than ever. We need each other.”
He asked the fraternity men in the room to take two things form his comments that day – what positive role they play in the betterment of others and once they find their life’s meaning, to continue to work it for the betterment of mankind.
“I want you to start thinking like the men that we need in our society,” he said. “The last thing that I want you to remember is that there is a myth that comes with the thought of a treasure map – a treasure map that has a dotted line and goes to the X, right?
“When we talk about leadership and being better men and we talk about doing fraternity the right way, they are giving you the roadmap, they are giving you the treasure map. We do it every single day by the way that we guide you, but that’s not the hard part – finding the map. The thing that nobody says about the treasure map – that dotted line and you get to the X. Once you find the X that’s where the work starts. We you find the X, you have to start digging, you’ve got to keep going.”
The fraternity experience is a steppingstone that teaches us to look out for one another and serve others, he said.
“When you graduate and you are no longer around an organization that will continue to build you into better men, that will continue to help the community, it’s on you to do it yourselves,” Molina said.
Then he spoke to the moms in the room.
“There is no doubt in my mind that you are incredibly proud of your sons,” he said. “And there is no doubt in my mind that you somehow, in some way, shape or form, that whatever your love language is, I’m sure you tell your son how proud you are. This is a reminder from me to you to not just love them and tell them so often, but it’s because the best men that I know in my life, the best men I have been able to observe in my life, they have had some kind of mother figure show so much love to them.
“And whether it’s you talking to your son or whether it’s you talking to your son’s brothers, please show them all of the love that you have for them so that there is no question in their minds that there are people who care about these young men in this room.”
Molina was impressed with Pi Kappa Phi as an organization by meeting national staff members and volunteers at conferences where he spoke before he was initiated at the centennial. He spoke of the chapter’s reputation and how he was open to becoming a fraternity member years after his military and undergraduate days.
“I hope this chapter continues to be a chapter that whenever I tell other friends that I have who understand who Pi Kapp is and they understand the fraternity/sorority world, and I tell them, ‘oh yes, I just spoke to the Pi Kapps at Purdue University,’ they will continue to say ‘that’s a really good chapter; a very good bunch of young men.’ “
