Brothers,

This afternoon Dave Cottington and I spent 4+ hours with Travis (our # 1 Brother from Oxford) and the pledge class in what I would call a poignant day in their understanding of the Men of Principle Program and "coming together as one".

The majority of the day was spent on instilling the importance of the many aspects of "risk management". Needless to say, this is important and a bit "tough" to sit through for all present given its "seriousness". However, these young men recognize the importance and took it seriously.

When this was completed, Travis mentioned to the class that he has not really seen them "together as one" around campus.

My first thought when Travis mentioned this was the guys would say "what are you talking about, we're together all the time" but as questions were asked and responses given, Travis was "right in a way". As I thought quietly about it all, I was drawn to the fact that these young men face a "different" pledging process then we ever went through. In addition, they don't have a "house" with active brothers already there (i.e. no place in the cafeteria, no BOII letters on campus, etc.) so they have no basis upon which to build any foundation of "together" like we all had.

Driving home I thought about the discussion and I realized while their pledging process is different than the one I went through, their comments reflected in a strong way the fact that "we/they are one". As I told you in my last note, these young men are different from one another, but they exhibit a maturity and cohesiveness that is pure and today they showed it again.

Today I feel these young men passed a milestone in their pledging process. Today they went beyond learning "BOII Stuff"...they genuinely felt and recognized the importance being a "PSI Beta"...more importantly, the importance of the Psi pledging process with respect to "coming together as one" and that sparked a light in every single one of them that was truly remarkable to witness.

These young men jumped on the importance of sitting together in the cafeteria, coming to the house during the week to watch TV, talk, etc., getting away together for a weekend somewhere, focusing on the next group of Psi Betas (recruiting) and wearing with pride,anything related to BOII. It really made me think in my own mind how proud all PSI alumni would be if they could have witnessed this firsthand.

Again I tell you all, these young men are going to make us proud to call them "brothers" and after today, I have no doubt in my mind that if "Kirk" and "DK" could tell us what they saw and know about these young men and what is happening here, they'd be saying "we have the beginning of something really special on the campus of Bethany College"...I have no doubt about this what so ever!

We are back and back with a group of young men that are truly remarkable.