By Katrina Brown and Melissa Belflower

This article is from the Spring 2012 issue of CFLE Network, the CFLE quarterly newsletter.

As officers of the Samford University student affiliate chapter of the National Council on Family Relations, we
seek to fulfill various objectives. Primarily we follow in the footsteps of the National Council on Family Relations in its ventures to provide a forum for dissemination of family research and to create a voice to promote programs and policies beneficial for families. (Katrina Brown, president)

Additionally we network in the context of Family Studies to promote academic scholarship of the family in general, fostering relationships between professors, professional guests and students; providing students with mentors and connections for their future careers, possibly as Certified Family Life Educators. We also work hard to provide students with opportunities to volunteer and serve with various organizations throughout each semester and raise awareness of the CFLE designation.

In short, we try to provide a professionally based Family Studies platform as an outlet for all students -
regardless of major or minor. Modeling some of our goals on that of the national organization, and having contact through newsletters, the NCFR website, and their conferences, allows us to feel connected on a national level. (Melissa Belflower, vice president)

We have focused on creating group identification and enthusiasm among our members. Our success has been reflected by numbers: the attendance rate at our monthly meetings has tripled. We have implemented strategies to promote what we refer to as the "SUNcfr" (Samford UNiversity Council on Family Relations) and have plans to continue incorporating various technologies and partners within community organizations to make our chapter the most beneficial and strongest it can be.

To communicate with future, current, and previous students about projects undertaken by our chapter, we utilize Facebook, OrgSync, and Bulldog Mail, and have plans to add Twitter, LinkedIn, and Google Plus to our social networking techniques. In terms of Facebook, we have recently created a new "fan page," which we are currently promoting to both current students and graduates of the program. OrgSync and Bulldog Mail are systems provided by Samford University and have been crucial in advertising meeting times and other pertinent information concerning our chapter. In addition to sending emails about our monthly meetings and service projects, we have also implemented a bimonthly newsletter that is sent out to all Family Studies majors, the "Friday FAMS Informa." This newsletter has an academic and a social component: for the more serious content we shortlist very brief summaries of current research being published regarding the family, and that includes our undergraduate student research scholarship. The informational social component includes reminders about current projects, meeting dates and times, student accomplishments within the department, birthdays and job and internship listings.

To further promote our meetings both to Family Studies majors and Samford students in general, we post flyers and posters in various high-visibility locations around campus. We correspond with Family Studies majors who missed meetings via the campus snail mail system, where our officers write personal notes inviting those students to attend our next meeting. This year, we have also created label-sized "save the date" stickers for students to put into their planners. It helps that several of our committee members are business minors and we really try to translate all our "book learning" into practice.

Importantly, being part of the leadership team of this student chapter has exposed us to many of the challenges we might face in any non-profit. We have truly expanded our skill sets, and the student chapter has given us valuable work-related experience.

Beyond simply advertising to try to improve attendance and retention, we strive to create a warm and inviting environment at each of our meetings. We make personal connections with each member of our chapter, and as SUNcfr officers, we make it a point to know each of our members by name. At our meetings, we print off fun and informative handouts that provide a written look at what we go over orally in an attempt to help students remember information covered. We have sign-in sheets that we use to document attendance and to follow up after the meetings. To those who have missed, we change the format of our handouts slightly to a "what you missed" format allowing them to stay in the loop. We add a personal note handwritten by one of the officers encouraging them to attend future meetings, and leave it in their campus mailboxes. Though we have used several techniques to improve attendance, we suspect our most powerful and secret weapon for success is sourced at a bakery: the delicious free bagels at each meeting disappear in the blink of an eye. Chocolate chip bagels are definitely the favorite!

In terms of material and events covered, it is safe to say that no two meetings are ever exactly alike, simply because of the diverse goals of our chapter. There are a few consistencies students see from month to month. We try to keep our meetings as informative and engaging as possible. We typically try to invite a guest speaker - an alumnus, a faculty member, or a community leader in the helping professions - to educate and inform of job opportunities. These mentors have encouraged our students on strategies for making oneself marketable to graduate schools, as well as self-chosen presentation. Alumni often share with us how our department helped prepare them for life after Samford University.

Successes and Challenges

In terms of alumni, we have made it our goal to show our students some of the many accomplishments the graduates of our program have made since completing their degrees at Samford. Because our alumni are located in various cities across the United States (and even around the world!), we have decided to contact several of the alumni electronically asking them to submit a one- to two-minute video about their experience at Samford as well as their experiences after graduating Samford. Encouraged by the fantastic response we have received from these alumni, we plan to create two waves of video montages during our year as officers, which we will present to the students at the last meeting of each semester. As SUNcfr officers, we also get involved with service opportunities, which in the past have included serving breakfast at a homeless shelter, assisting with registrations at an annual "Celebrate Life" family picnic, making meals for family dinner nights held by our school, and serving in an underdeveloped community about an hour off-campus.

While we have had several successes this year as an affiliate chapter,we have also faced a few challenges that we have had to come together as officers and brainstorm creative ways to circumvent. For instance, with several events on campus at the beginning of the spring semester, we faced stiff competition for student attention. Our strategy was to plan for a few weeks into the semester for our first chapter meeting. Another challenge we have faced is simply a reflection of our school's demographics: it is a small, private school with a limited number of students, especially within our major.

Although Family Studies is a rewarding major that provides students with a wide base from which they can launch themselves into a career or graduate school, it is definitely still growing, and we have reached out to those majors which also lead to careers in the helping professions.

Raising CFLE Awareness

Each year our SUNcfr faculty advisor, Dr. Jonathan Davis, informs the students what family life education is and how to become a Certified Family Life Educator (CFLE). Our entire faculty including our advisor emphasize CFLE regularly using the NCFR website, and we talk about it during our practicum experiences as well. Family Studies majors need to know about the CFLE designation and how to become certified. It is relatively straightforward for Samford Family Studies majors, as our curriculum meets the academic requirements for this certification. It is a great opportunity to use our bachelor's degrees in Family Studies towards this certification.

Overall, we are enriched by our experiences in the student chapter of NCFR. We network, we gain confidence, we meet mentors in the community, and generally we are building a professional identity which reaffirms why we chose Family Studies as a major in the first place.