Philia

Organization: Philia is Florida State University Panhellenic Associations PR publication, dating back to 2018. The publication covers the 17 individual sorority chapters at the university as well as individual members and when chapters/Panhellenic hosts events all together.

Situation: After writing all but three articles produced by the publication during the prior semester and starting the blog, I had the opportunity to lead the next staff. I was expected to produce a semesterly issue and timely content on the blog, the exact quantity expected though was up to my discretion. I also took over during the pandemic, this meant that my staff would be operating via zoom meetings and that we needed back up topics as many sorority functions were being canceled at the last second due to safety concerns.

Impact: During my tenure as EIC, I was able to expand the staff to offer more writing positions and I added a team videographers my final semester. We kept a lean photography team as there were not as many opportunities to shoot events due to the pandemic, this allowed each of our photographers to contribute a diverse amount of content each semester and gain a better understanding of Philia’s values. During the second semester, I was able to have three team leaders for the writing team and one for the photography team, this allowed the four women to gain more experience in their areas of discipline as well as step up as leaders. In fact, two of the women have gone off to be EICs’! Despite the hardships of producing content during the pandemic, our staff produced over 45 blog posts and roughly 20 articles in each issue. This was the most content produced by a Philia staff at that point of time, we were able to do so because I had us meeting bi weekly, a strict timeline based on when we would need content to come out and the timing of the events we were covering, constant communication with the Panhellenic association and chapters for article brainstorms, and all while being easily accessible to the staff in case anything went awry. I designed all of the blog cover art and issues both semester. Through this experience, I learned how to evolve with the situation, pick up the slack in any area needed, and how to work entirely remotely.

Editor-in-Chief