On Monday, the Daily published an editorial concerning the Greek community ("A strong start for the Greek system") that was inaccurate and misleading.
The editorial calls Chi Omega's "Swishes for Wishes" event a great kickoff to the year for the Greek community. It is important to get across, however, that this was not the "first event," nor was it the beginning of the year for the Greek community. In fact, we began the year with the Greek Move-In before school had even started, as more than a hundred Greeks came back from summer vacation early in order to help the new freshmen move in. Greeks volunteered to be stationed at every dormitory carrying boxes, lugging suitcases and making the new freshmen feel at home in their new community.
Even before the beginning of this year, Greeks have been doing great things at Tufts. Philanthropy and service are not new for our community — each Greek chapter participates actively not only in raising money for its own philanthropic endeavors but also in community service every semester. We do it not to burnish our reputations or stroke our collective ego but because we care about bettering our community together.
Greeks go far beyond philanthropy, too. With the help of our Greek director, Patrick Romero-Aldaz, our community has been able to take large strides in making our actions count toward the four major values the Greek community stands for: leadership, service, scholarship and brotherhood/sisterhood. Last year, we had our first Inter-Greek Council (IGC) executive council retreat. With only five people present, IGC solidified a five-year strategic plan and revamped the entire council structure for this year. Only one year later, this fall, the executive council retreat had 18 leaders present. And all three councils (the Panhellenic Council, the Inter-Fraternity Council and the Inter-Greek Council) were filled, as opposed to just one. We spoke about the goals set out a year earlier, added new ones and developed a strategy to achieve them. We are now determined to get them done.
Since then, in just these first four weeks of school, we have greatly streamlined and strengthened communication between the chapters and IGC, held our second semesterly president's retreat and built upon our strong legacy of co-sponsorship and partnering with other Tufts student groups. Last year we co-sponsored the TCU Senate's Dance Marathon and LCS' Semi-Formal; this year, the Programming Board is partnering with us to make our Greek Block Party a huge success. We also passed a resolution through the Senate stating that, as a community, we are working harder than ever before to make sure we promote leadership and achieve our goals as a strengthened community. The bottom line is this: We now have the resources, commitment and motivation to work together — not just as a collection of chapters but as a family — in order to better ourselves, our campus and our community.
No group is perfect, and we are no different in this respect. Though there have been problems, the important thing is that we work through them positively, together. When a sorority was sanctioned this past year, that chapter and the Greek community received a great deal of negative press. What should have been highlighted in this publication and in general was that we also created the Greek Judiciary that tried the chapter. Sanctions were handed down by a group of Greek peers who suspended the sorority to give it the opportunity to improve its sisterhood this year before recruiting again, as well as to show the rest of the Tufts community that we as Greeks do not condone hazing. The sorority is still a robust, positive presence in our community, and we are all working together to ensure that it emerges from this experience a better and stronger chapter than when it began.
It is unfortunate also that positive events in the Greek community are reported as isolated incidents concerning individual chapters, while negative occurrences are consistently blamed on the entire community. We are bound together by the brotherhood and sisterhood between us; we will come together to applaud chapters when they succeed and support them when they struggle. We will rise together, and we will fall together — but we will always be united as a family.
We are proud of Chi Omega for Swishes for Wishes — that's why Greeks turned out in such large numbers to support the event. We're proud of Sigma Nu for establishing the Sausagefest to raise awareness of testicular cancer. We're proud of Alpha Epsilon Pi for doing the Luckiest Run on the Face of the Earth to raise money for research to combat ALS (Lou Gehrig's disease). We're proud of Theta Delta Chi when the brothers have a mustache-growing contest in support of cancer research and Theta Chi when the brothers shave their heads to raise money for the American Heart Association. We're proud of Sigma Phi Epsilon, Zeta Psi, Delta Upsilon, ATO, Zeta Beta Tau, Alpha Omicron Pi and Alpha Phi for the money, time and energy they spend doing great things for worthy causes in addition to all the other leadership their members provide on campus and elsewhere. We are proud of our brothers and sisters — and if you knew what they've been doing, you would be too.
These are your friends, your teammates, your hallmates and peers, and they are our family. We're doing great things this year, and we've already started strong. With your help and your support, we can be even stronger.
Jessica Snow is Vice President of Marketing and PR for the Inter-Greek Council and is writing on behalf of the Greek community.
