Students from 203 universities across the nation fixed their eyes on the ASU Polytechnic auditorium Tuesday night to learn about success and how to achieve it.
The ASU Polytechnic chapter of Sigma Alpha Pi, an honor society that promotes leadership and success, hosted a live nationwide broadcast that reached about 186,000, featuring Robert Cialdini, a New York Times bestselling author and former ASU professor.
Other Sigma Alpha Pi chapters throughout the country watched and listened as Cialdini, a social psychologist, spoke about how to use the powers of persuasion to succeed.
One student in the auditorium, business senior Thomas Moore, already knows what it means to succeed.
Moore helped found the first Sigma Alpha Pi chapter in Arizona.
“I’m a retired Marine,” Moore said. “I spent 16-and-a-half years in the Marine Corps, and leadership to me is an important skill.”
Moore, a 47-year-old undergraduate, described himself as a person who likes to give and sacrifice.
“Most of these [college students] are 18, 19, 20, and they are the future,” he said. “If I can help communicate some real leadership principles that I know, that worked for me in my life … I think it’s a value to me.”
The Sigma Alpha Pi ASU Polytechnic chapter, founded in October 2008, is the largest organization on the Polytechnic campus with 117 members. Moore said he expects the society to grow even larger when a chapter opens on the Tempe campus within the year.
Since its founding, the chapter has gone through some tough financial times but members found a way to pull through, said Frank Wodiuk, vice president of the chapter.
“I think it’s the ‘us pulling together’ that’s made us successful,” Wodiuk said.
The chapter and the society as a whole are creating leaders despite the country’s economic crisis, he said.
“We need more people to step forward and say, ‘Yes, I will do that,’” he said.
Moore said the tenets of the society are simple: “basically finding a group of four or five people that you can rely on to give you honest feedback and honest help to where you are trying to go.”
According to the society’s Web site, Sigma Alpha Pi helps people discover and achieve their dreams.
Sigma Alpha Pi was founded in 2001 by Gary Tuerack, a man who overcame learning disabilities and wants to help others achieve impractical goals.
“You control your own destiny,” Moore said, “so why not lead yourself in a positive direction?”
One of the great things about the society is that it exists for the benefit of its members, and not the other way around.
“All we want is you to help us be successful,” Moore said.
Reach the reporter at kjdaly@asu.edu
