The Lee Kearney Officer Summit
Acacia's newest premier educational event is the Lee Kearney Officer Summit named after our Oregon State brother who made the generous donation that made it possible to begin this program in 2014. This new program provides a focused weekend of leadership and operational training for Acacia's top chapter leaders that serve on their Chapter Council/Executive Board. Educational sessions cover foundational principles of leadership, risk management and crisis management, fraternity finances and budgeting, reporting and administrative responsibilities, alumni relations, and productivity tips and tools.
The Officer Summit takes place in January immediately after most chapters have completed officer elections, providing ideal timing to form constructive relationships among chapter leaders and International officers at the beginning of each officer's term.
With its inaugural session in 2014, the Venerable Dean Summit was conceived by international Acacia leaders as a means to bridge the year-long gap between Conclaves and Acacia Leadership Academies and is supported by Acacia Fraternity Foundation donors led by the event's namesake, Leonard W. Kearney, Oregon State ’59. Beginning in 2018, the event was expanded to include Recruitment Chairmen to continue our officer development and further our growth as an organization. In 2021, the program was expanded to include all officers and was awarded the Laurel Wreath Award from the North-American Interfraternity Conference for Excellence in Education Programming.
“It was an amazing experience meeting all the other Acacia Venerable Deans and meeting all the staff and International Council. Being that my chapter isn’t as organized as many of the other chapters, I benefitted greatly from this meeting. I thought that I was the only one with certain problems at my chapter until some other presidents started opening up. I feel that we were able to build off of one another. It wasn’t an authority figure telling us that we do things wrong, it was just a bunch of guys with similar interests all devoted toward the same goal of building up Acacia.”