Fraternity members celebrate success in 2010-2011 academic year. (Photo by Daniel M. Reck.)
It’s been a big year for Greek Life at Monmouth College. Thousands of dollars have been raised for charity, thousands of hours have been given in service, and hundreds of students have enjoyed academic success.
The pinnacle of each year is Greek Week, which recently concluded with the Annual Greek Life Awards. All seven Greek organizations came together, raised over $1,050 for Haiti earthquake relief, and organized a record-setting blood drive.
“Greek Week this year was a magnificent success!” says Haleigh Turner ’12, Greek Week Chair and President of Pi Beta Phi. “Every chapter came together on multiple occasions to hang out, have a great time, possibly get slimmed, and show campus that no matter our letters we are a unified Greek System.
Through Penny Wars and a Car Bash, Greeks raised $1,054.13, which will go to Lights for Haiti through Citizen Effect. The money raised will help provide solar-powered lanterns to Haitians who are still recovering from the earthquake that devastated the country two years ago.
There were many events during Greek Week, from a Bop-It tournament, Slime-Time, karaoke, trivia, a scavenger hunt, and philanthropies; perhaps one of the most memorable was the All-Greek Candle Pass.
“It really meant a lot to see brothers and sisters from different organizations linked together representing not only our unity during Greek Week but our forever support of one another as we passed a significant item from each chapter as well as sang our songs,” says Turner.
The Greek Week show allowed fraternity members to show off their values, pride, and humor as they put on four 1990s-themed acts. In addition to the shows put on by Greek organizations, the so-called Greek God and Goddess, along with their Demigod and Demigoddess counterparts, competed in talent, questions, and overall participation to win the titles.
The men of Sigma Phi Epsilon and the women of Pi Beta Phi won the Greek Show on Thursday night with their medley of references to 90s television shows and dance numbers. The men of Zeta Beta Tau, teamed up with a mix of women from each women’s fraternity dubbed The Panhellenic Alliance, won the banner contents, which was also announced at the Greek Week show.
Greek Week ended on Friday with the Annual Greek Life Awards banquet. Greeks dressed to impress and to raise awareness for autism. Alpha Xi Delta women handed out blue ribbons for World Autism Awareness Day, which coincided with the awards program. Outside, Wallace Hall’s famous copula was lit in a brilliant blue as part of the national “Light It up Blue” campaign for Autism Awareness Month. The Empire State Building in New York City, along with many other landmarks, were also awash in blue for the night.
The banquet, held in the specially-decorated cafeteria, brought together fraternity members from every organization to celebrate their successes and the success of their fellow brothers and sisters. The guest list not only included fraternity members, but faculty, advisors, deans, and President Mauri Ditzler.
The women of Alpha Xi Delta won Overall Greek Week for their fourth year running as well as many other chapter and individual awards.
“We have worked hard to better ourselves and to follow our National Fraternity motto, ‘realize your potential,’” says Kim Dwyer ’12, President of Alpha Xi Delta. “It was exciting to see all of our hard work pay off. Our chapter is more than grateful and proud of one another.”
Although each of the awards are of high honor, the most prestigious award that can be earned at Monmouth College is the award for Outstanding Chapter Operations. This year, Pi Beta Phi earned this award.
Recipients of the 2011 Greek Life Awards were:
- Academic Excellence Award – Alpha Xi Delta
- Excellence in Campus Involvement and Leadership – Phi Delta Theta
- Outstanding Chapter Program – Xi Man, Alpha Xi Delta
- Award for Excellence in Community Service and Philanthropy – Phi Delta Theta
- Outstanding Advisor – Denise Turnbull, Pi Beta Phi
- Emerging Female Leader – Lydia Butler, Alpha Xi Delta
- Emerging Male Leader – Jeff Skalon, Alpha Tau Omega
- Outstanding Greek President – Leah Statler, Pi Beta Phi
- Greek Woman of the Year – Kristen Wyse, Alpha Xi Delta
- Greek Man of the Year (Cy Reagan Award) – John Cayton, Phi Delta Theta
- The Richard “Doc” Kieft Award – Rodney Clayton, Phi Delta Theta
- Outstanding Chapter Operations – Pi Beta Phi
- Greek Week Spirit Award – Alpha Xi Delta
- Greek God and Goddess – Andrew Farraher, Sigma Phi Epsilon and Ashley May, Alpha Xi Delta
- Greek Demi-God and Demi-Goddess – Alex Mackley, Zeta Beta Tau and Courtney Jonsson, Alpha Xi Delta
- Overall Greek Week Winners – Alpha Xi Delta
“Winning the Chapter Operations Award is a true honor”, said Turner. “Leah, as President, and our executive board, worked hard to excel our chapter to one that adheres not only to a loving sisterhood but one with high standards for our sisters.” μ
Michelle Bruce ‘12
Also of Interest
Student Commentary: What about rateyourgreek.com?
Thursday, January 27th, 2011Several years ago, a website called rateyourprof.com came onto the scene. It allows students to anonymously grade their professors in a public forum. The idea is that the students, with their identities hidden and protected, are free to give honest reviews.
A small group of professors decided to turn the tables by creating rateyourstudents.com, as detailed by W.T. Pfefferle in The Chronicle of Higher Education.
As the title of the website implies, professors would rate the performance of students. Educators anonymously sent e-mail to the website describing experiences and stories ranging from student excuses for not turning in assignments, to complaints about class attendance, to simple disgust about student behavior. Unlike the free-for-all students’ ratings of professors, these ratings were moderated by a panel.
While anonymity can theoretically bring honesty, it can also lead to some hurt feelings. Some students began to complain about rateryourstudents.com, saying that they were “misunderstood” and that the ratings were “unfair” because they were already being judged by the grading system.
It may be a fair complaint from students, because there was little to no way for those students to defend themselves on the website run by educators.
“We will rate our students here,” said the first post on rateyourstudents.com, “And we will do it without compunction. Then we’ll just see where we’re at. We’ll still be poor academics. But at least those callous and ignorant ‘customers’ of ours will know what it’s like.”
The goal of this was to let teachers get the weight off their shoulders and let the world know their true opinions about their students and their profession.
This now brings up the question: What if there was a similar website that applied to Greek Life? A rateyourgreek.com of sorts. Visitors and contributors could be advisors, chapter presidents, Greek members, or even non-Greeks.
While rateyourstudent.com was seen by students as a mudslinging website, there is no reason why rateyourgreek.com could not be used for positive reasons and constructive criticism. It does not have to pick out individual members and judge them, but it can be used to pick out flaws in the system.
Rateyourstudent.com allowed professors to get the metaphorical weight off their shoulders by voicing their complaints on a worldwide forum. A similar system for Greek Life could be helpful, but only as long as it did not become a venue for gossip.
It could be used to improve the system by offering comments to make the Greek community better with constructive ideas by the right kind of people. Anonymity might be helpful in this situation because it might avoid the discomfort of holding Greek brothers and sisters accountable.
While the original concept of rating students was a short lived project, the concept of rating Greeks could be used for the overall improvement of Greek Life. μ
Alexander Woods ‘12
Also of interest:
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