It Takes a Village

 by Carolyn McCambridge, NCD Counselor, TBΣ |

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #0099FF;”]W[/dropcap]riting an article to sum up six years doing the best job in the sorority is indeed a tall order. Despite all the experience and preparation you can have before assuming the role, there still exists a tremendous learning curve to master. I cannot say for sure whether I have succeeded in the mastery of this job but I assure you mastery was never my goal.

My goal was and has always been to best live up to the true definition of a Counselor – one who advocates, offers advice or gives instruction in directing the judgment or conduct of another… or in my case over 400 others. My hope is that in the last six years, I have been an advocate for my students and  helped to guide the district onto a path of strength, sustainability, musicianship, and understanding.

If I’ve learned nothing else in the past six years, I have learned that, at the chapter level, we have a great organization made up of dedicated, loyal, hardworking women and men who want nothing more than to do what needs to be done for college bands on a daily basis. It seems silly to think we should ever stray from this vision for this is why our organization exists and service the cornerstone of our desire to join it. It happens, however, far too often and it is when we stray and try to become something we’re not that our foundations start to crumble. We are not a social sorority or fraternity, we are not SAI, heck – we’re not even Kappa Kappa Psi.

Carolyn McCambridge

We are Tau Beta Sigma and when we remember that, embrace it, and keep our sorority’s core values and purposes in mind, we do d**n good work for our bands. We must take genuine pride in all that our fellow brothers and sisters within the sorority accomplish and let that be our driving force in making our chapters, the district and organization preeminent within the realm of college bands.

Rest assured this task is not easy and and a constant challenge for students. There is a fine balance that exists between work and play, authority and friendship, common sense and stupidity, empathy and ignorance. It is a harmonious blending of all of these that keep our chapters and our bands running. If we are to continue to remain relevant in the future of college and university bands, we need to think intelligently, face our challenges head on, and perceive them as opportunities to grow in our mission. When our students are free to use their creativity, leadership, and talent to overcome the obstacles they encounter, then those students exemplify everything our sorority stands for.

This would be something we can truly celebrate and something we can cheer about. Let’s cheer about improving the quality of musician within our bands, cheer about raising the funds to furnish new instruments, cheer about ensuring the longevity of a craft that brought us all together as sisters and brothers. These are things we can be proud of and will keep us energized, focused, and looking toward the future of college bands and our sorority.

Active TBΣ Counselors

In the past six years I have been fortunate enough to laugh, to cry, to challenge and be challenged, and watch with quiet pride as Sisters and Brothers to do the work we ask of each other. Sometimes they have been successful; sometimes they haven’t. Sometimes I’ve been successful in supporting them; sometimes I haven’t. But as my tenure as Counselor comes to a close, I know that our Sorority is in good hands because it is in the hands of women and men who love college bands, love music, and love our sisterhood.