"Panhellenic Friendly"...Fact or Fiction?
 

My school has six panhellenic sororities on campus, all of which are great but have no clue how to work together. Our sororities on campus are ridiculously segregated and against uniting/doing things together. Our greek life is suffering while other campuses get tons of support from their administration because the sororities work together. Our administration has turned their back on us and no one seems to care. Does anyone have any suggestions of how to bridge this debilitating gap? I plan to bring it up in the fall at the panhellenic meeting but I want to be able to present solutions not just a complaint.... PLEASE HELP!

Are you a PH officer or delegate? Just wondering....anyway, have you talked with your GA? Does he/she have the same feelings about the groups? How about a PH mixer? Just the 6 PH groups - no guys! We had one on our campus that was well attended. If you have PH education sessions, bringing in a speaker would be good as well.

there must be member of the other sororities who think they way you do. maybe you and these women could start a grass roots effort that would grow that way.

could you convince panhellenic to initiate a reward system for panhellenic cooperation? maybe have awards for panhellenic spirit, support of others charities, etc.

Do you have houses and if so are meals served? you could have dinner exchanges where some of your members visit ABC sorority for dinner and some of the ABCs visit you for dinner. We always had our most outgoing members serve as hostesses during these dinners, and we pretended like we were rushing these girls-not selling our sorority to them, but asking them similar questions as those we ask during recruitment to get to know them a little better. if no meals are served, maybe you could rent a room on campus or go to a nearby picnic area and have a covered dish meal with one sorority.

Do you think that panhellenic would host a jeopardy type show where members of the 6 sororities would compete to answer questions about the other sororities?

My campus had "Tuesday Night Dinners" where one organization or chapter would host every week, and chapters got "points" for having a certain percentage of their chapter attending. I don't remember many of the specifics though, unfortunately.

Encouraging other chapters to participate in your philanthropy activities as well as actively participating in theirs goes a long way, though. We did a Mr & Miss GU pageant where each chapter would sponsor a contestant, the other chapters loved participating, and we responded in kind whenever they had their big philanthropy events. I never gave more personal money to charities than I did when I was a collegian on campus!

When does your rush occur? How is it set up?

How many fraternities does your campus have? Is there a custom of fraternities and sororities "pairing up" and acting in a proprietary way with each other? (If so, stop it immediately.)

Do the groups have alumnae support and active/involved alumnae and advisors?

I agree w/ Titchou about the Panhellenic mixer. So much silly crap and backbiting happens because of guy stuff and you all need to get together and laugh at them. ;)

Or do a PH philanthropy event...or community service event.

Two words...progressive dinner!

Great ideas! Have any other suggestions besides jeopardy to initiate all 6? It sounds like it would be a lot of fun, but I think competitive games has been the main issue in our divide. Between Derby Days, Greek Week and Miss Greek... girls have been given plenty of chances to be caddy and unsportsmanlike, which has only caused more unrest. I believe we need things that bring us together in a cooperative and engaging way... I'm just stumped!

I'm also very intrigued by the progressive dinner idea.... care to share more?! I have a general idea, but how exactly does this work?!

One house has salad, the next appetizers, the next the main course, the next a cheese plate, the next dessert, and the last coffee.

Or something like that. Start at one house, work your way through the rest.

You may also do a pot-luck where the requirement is that you don't sit next to someone from your chapter.

I wish I knew who to suggest this to.. my campus is in serious need of some of the ideas you all have given to the OP. I was very excited to join greek life at my school, but after just one year I've seen just how segregated all of our organizations are as a whole. :(

That said, I really love the idea of PH mixers and the jeopardy game. I think maybe if all of our groups got to mingle and meet one another, things would be a little better.

Great topic, OP.

Pitch it to your panhel rep before the first meeting. Also, talk to other sisters about it so it has some chapter support. :) Easy peasy.

Make sure all those activities are judged by OUTSIDE people - not by the Sigma Chi brothers themselves and not by IFC or Panhel's exec boards - if it's things like a lip sync or beauty contest you need someone who's completely impartial. Get some of the professors (better yet, some of the retired professors) or local merchants to do it. For DD, maybe the Sigma Chi advisor or some of their older alums, but not the active brothers. Not only is it a good way to make certain the judging is fair, it also tends to keep things a bit cleaner as far as songs/routines/etc are concerned.

Do you all have houses, suites, or chapter rooms? This wouldn't work on every campus, but it worked on ours, because most of the sororities had a floor in the same dorm: study breas. During Midterms and Finals, we would invite all of the other sororities for a study break between say, 11pm and midnight. No men or cameras allowed! That way, everyone could wear what they wanted without trying to impress anyone else. We kept a large coffee urn full of coffee and another full of hot water, and a large selection of teas, hot chocolate, sugar/sugar substitutes, and goodies that our alumnae donated. It was a great chance to bond over hating organic chemistry or a certain professor. Oh, and you'll want to set an alarm, too - study breaks by definition need to be in the middle of studying!

We did have three sororities not in our dorm, but we invited them, too. Sometimes they came, sometimes they didn't, but it did give us a good reputation throughout the Panhellenic community.



ETA: Before you start with any of these projects, I'd see if I could get at least 1-2 members of each sorority on campus to see the wisdom in Panhellenic Unity, and at least 1/10th of your own sorority. It will be easier for everyone to accept when they see that there's already women behind the idea.

It seems that your problem is twofold- you need the sororities to work together, and you need the support of the administration. Have you talked to any of your panhellenic exec members or your panhellenic delegate? They might share your desires to create a more cohesive Greek community. It might be easiest in the beginning to initiate change within your own chapter- invite another chapter to have dinner with you, to do a service project with you, or even just come to your house or suite one week after your chapter meeting for snacks and chitchat. Set a precedent that other chapters will want to follow, and then future endeavors (maybe with all six chapters) will be easier and people will be more excited about it. This is how things started a few years ago on our campus- with a couple of chapters initiating two-sorority events- and now it has become the norm to do service projects, seminars, game nights, etc with other chapters. Starting too big, such as a 6-chapter event, might be too big of a step to start with.

I would also suggest bringing up your concerns about cooperation with the administration at a panhel meeting. You'd be surprised what good can come from opening the lines of communication- especially if the school admin know that you are working towards better cooperation. They can help outline what they want from you, and in turn, what they can do to help you.

On my campus we're starting a NPC philanthropy. We plan on a having a field day this fall to promote it and each sorority has to have a minimum number of girls participate. We want to keep it fun and competitive but not pit the sororities against each other like in all the other on campus functions. Soooo we've decided to have 1-2 girls from every house on each team. It is a way to meet girls from other houses and work together. I'm really excited for the experience and think it'll be great!

We used to do joint sponsorships like ABC and XYZ exam packs where both groups purchased and put together exam goody bags that included pens, pencils, candies, etc. Members from both groups put the bags together and manned the table together to give them out.

This is a super duper awesome idea.

I've been saying for a while that they should get rid of the largely pointless "philanthropy day" during rush and instead have a day where all the sorority members and recently pledged women get together and do a Habitat for Humanity project or something of the like. Not only would they be doing something that's actually NEEDED instead of a bunch of useless crafts that probably get tossed out, the NMs would be seeing from the jump that they are part of a Panhellenic COMMUNITY - not just their sorority.

Our campus does this in the spring each year. All the sororities donate as many prom dresses/formal dresses as they can. Teenage girls who can't afford a prom dress then come to a little boutique we set up, staffed by members of all the sororities. We have everything there (shoes, earrings, clutches, etc.) and they get to pick out their perfect prom dress for free! Each sorority also donates a gift basket they can win while waiting to go dress "shopping".

^^^I absolutely love this idea!

Philanthropy events are a great way to go. A couple of years back members from another sorority on campus came to our rescue when a huge fraternity party got rescheduled for the same evening as our philanthropy event. We were bummed because we were having a hard time getting guys (the usual target for philanthropy events) to sign up and when some friends on EC of the other sorority heard what happened they encouraged their members to get involved and offered incentives for them to sign up and attend our event.

We ended up having a great turn out and it was a huge success. I was talking to one of my friends in the other house about it later after telling her how grateful we were and her response spoke volumes:

"Sure some things get competitive and recruitment can get catty but philanthropy is something that can be respected and supported by members of all organizations across the board - No matter the letter we're all greek together"<- I know she's cheesy, but i love her for it :)