Student perks up Delta Mu Delta ‘virtual coffee’

By Rick Vacek
GCU News Bureau

Alisen Vrabel did everything except brew the coffee.

Which would have been a little tough for a virtual event.

The Vice President of Grand Canyon University’s Eta Chi chapter of Delta Mu Delta, the international business honors society, completed all of the other planning and execution for its “virtual coffee” Wednesday morning.

“She did a phenomenal job,” said Dr. Moronke Oke, an advisor for the chapter along with Dr. Helen Hammond. “She worked on the slides, created the flyer, collated the RSVPs and was in charge of progressing the slides, so she set the pace.”

Vrabel managed events of this nature in high school but never on a completely virtual platform. “It ran smoothly and we received great feedback,” she said.

Eta Chi recently was named the No. 1 chapter in the United States, and Oke noted that holding the event on Zoom opened it up to people outside Arizona. The guests from afar included two members of the Delta Mu Delta national leadership team, Executive Director/CEO Jeff Arnold and Dr. John Lewington, chair of the Membership Committee and a member of the advisory board.

It began with a welcome address by Dr. Randy Gibb, Dean of the Colangelo College of Business (CCOB), and then surveyed attendees with these three questions:

• Are you a leader?
• Have the leaders in your life had a positive or negative impact on you?
• Do you know your purpose yet?

The leadership theme continued in a talk titled “Living, Leading and Learning” by Dr. Dionne Arceneaux, a CCOB adjunct.

Her main points:

• Living: “Allow God to reveal your life’s true passion, then pursue it unapologetically.” There are experiences throughout our lives that reveal our purpose. Our journey helps us to discover (identify something previously unknown) and uncover (reveal something that is hidden) why we are here so we can live our purpose out loud.
• Leading: “Leading from a position of serving helps us lead at an entirely different level, much higher than the masses.” She also said, “If serving is beneath you, then leadership is beyond you.”
• Learning: Learn the benefit of failure. A failure teaches us what does NOT work and where changes in our approach, our plan or our habits are needed. When we can see the benefit in a failure, we can recover quickly, dust off and get back in the game. When we remain open, we can be surprised where, how and from whom we learn.

The event also included a 3-on-3 networking of attendees and a question-and-answer session with Arceneaux.

“We are blessed to have Dr. D as part of our college and sharing her insight with our students,” Gibb said. “She truly represents a ‘Lopes First’ approach — fun event for DMD!”