The greek community turned plans into actions at the second of two "Greek Pride: A Return to Glory" summits Thursday and Friday.

"I'm very confident about the way things are going to turn out tonight," said Andy Hackett, Interfraternity Council president. "We have a lot of influential people, encouraging leaders and a love for the greek community that should turn out one heck of a good product."

The summit, which took place Thursday at the Penn Stater Conference Center Hotel and Friday at the Bryce Jordan Center, focused on the second half of the Appreciative Inquiry Process, design and destiny. Appreciative Inquiry is a four-part organizational technique used to focus on the positive aspects of greek life. The first summit took place April 2 and 3 and covered the initial processes, discovery and dream.

The first summit concluded with the creation of nine dream statements to represent what the greek community hopes to become. The second summit focused on cultivating "bold idea statements" to help identify what steps are needed to make those dreams a reality.

"We're looking for real innovations to help break the mold for the greek system," said Bob Baney, a summit consultant. "We're discussing what different design elements can become the architecture to help get the wanted result."

By the end of the night, three main "bold idea statements" were created.

The first involves instituting a code of ethics based upon the values and core principles of current chapters.

"When all chapters agree that the code is important to a high quality system, members agree to hold their chapters and brothers and sisters to consistently high performance and shared values," said Art Carter, assistant vice president for student affairs.

The group also agreed to implement ways of recognizing the achievements of greek members, to educate all members about the consequences of alcohol abuse and violence against women, and to expand philanthropy and service to the local community.

The summit also ended the separation between the university and the greek community, Carter said. The university committed to being a full partner in a greek system in which finances, information technology and housing management in the chapters are a priority, he added.

Vicky Triponey, vice president of student affairs, said her job is to continue this process during the summer by combining the nine dream statements into one and refining the "bold idea statements" to create a plan for next fall.

"We now have a narrower scope of what we want to do, on a short- and long-term basis," said Krista Eck, Panhellenic Council president.

Wole Adegbonmire, National Pan-Hellenic (NPHC) president, said that all four councils were represented at the summit proved that the entire greek community was interested in making improvements.

"I may not be around to see the outcome of what we started today, but I wanted to stand up for the NPHC and start something that we will eventually see tomorrow," Adegbonmire said.

Lorena Regus, Multicultural Greek Council (MGC) president, said she was glad everyone came out to support the summit because everyone's voices are needed to make a change.

"MGC is such a young council; this summit gives MGC a voice and an opportunity to put our ideas out there," Regus said.

At the end of the summit, all participants signed a commitment card saying they are dedicated to seeing the process into the future.

"At some point in history, someone planted a seed and created the greek community at Penn State," Baney said. "That tree has grown wider and taller over the years, and it has hundreds of rings showing its history. Something has kept that tree growing over the years, and we have to keep it healthy."