Sweetheart Competitions
 

Hi! I'm a first-time poster on this website...I've been lurking for quite some time though, so hopefully I don't break any unwritten rules :eek:

My question is about sweetheart competitions. I'm at the University of Minnesota, and sweetheart weeks are HUGE deals here. I was wondering how other campuses determined sweethearts, or if they did at all? I've talked to my other friends who went greek at different schools and I'm under the impression that my campus is rather unique in this aspect.

Sisters nominate men for sweethearts, we vote at a formal meeting to choose 2 and they go on the composite. That's pretty much it.

we also have an Anchorman who does different things for the chapter, helps us move stuff for some of our major events, bakes us cookies, etc... And I know one of our girls is a sweetheart to one of the fraternities on campus but I don't know how that works.

On my campus, all official Fraternity sweethearts (the ones that can wear letters) are chosen by the chapter (nominated and voted on).

The "unofficial" or "semi" sweethearts are usually crowned through a philanthropic pageant. Pike has "Pike Dream Girl," PiKapp has "Miss PUSH America," and this year SigEp and TKE will also start doing philanthropic pageants to choose semi-sweethearts.

Sororities either vote on their sweetheart or do pageants as well. AOII has the "Alpha Male" pageant, DPhiE has "Campus Man," AXiD has "Xi Man," and Tri-Sigma has "Backwards Pageant."

Our's was similar to Violetpretty's, except we only had one Alpha Gam man. It is typically the boyfriend of one of the Actives who seemed to be at the house all of the time. He didn't have "official duties", but if I ever needed a date for a party, he could get one of his fraternity brothers to go with me.

D Phi Es correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think the "Campus Man" is the sweetheart...he is the campus man pageant winner. 2 different things. I think that might be the same for the others as well.

Sweethearts on my campus were chosen within the privacy of each GLO and it was a very high honor, with lots of different things going into the choice. We would never have allowed something like a pageant to make that choice for us.

Of those GLOs you quoted, AOII is the only one who does a pageant as well as elect a sweetheart by the chapter (IIOA is their sweetheart, Alpha Male is their semi-sweetheart). The rest choose their "sweetheart" through their pageants.

In these "pageants" to determine sweetheart - who chooses the men who are going to compete?

The chapters usually try to get men from each fraternity chapter to apply. Sometimes more than one from each chapter compete (depending on the pageant). I don't know if they've ever cut people because the money that they pay to apply usually goes to charity.

Yea, I’m confused. Does each chapter choose a few people to be their potential sweetheart, and then the men compete for the title? Or is there a big pool of guys, and random ones will win for different chapters, regardless of whether the chapter really knows them or not? Or something else completely?

Personally, I think that having a competition for a privilege such as this is kind of crazy. We have always chosen our sweethearts after carefully considering who has continuously been supportive of the chapter in a variety of ways. Last semester, my chapter’s sweetheart graduated, and the sisters have had a few people to choose from to be the next one. But they recently decided to hold off on choosing a new one until the end of this semester, as all of the sisters don’t feel that they truly know each of these guys well enough to make an informed decision. They don't want to quickly pick someone just to have a sweetheart... and they shouldn't. I just think that leaving it up to fate might produce less-than-ideal results. And IMO, it takes away from the meaning behind the title.

Anyone can really participate in these pageants, but the people that usually do are close with chapter members and actually have a chance at winning the title. It's not like random GDIs compete and have a chance of winning.

ETA: You have to fill out an application and sometimes pay a fee to participate.

Our sweetheart is usually one of the Active's boyfriends or a close friend of several of the girls. Our sweetheart is present at a lot of our events and he helps us out if we need him.

All the sorority sweethearts compete in a Best Man on Campus pageant. It's actually a fundraiser for breast cancer awareness. The winner doesn't really get anything except the prestige.

The Alpha Xi's have "Xi-Men" on our campus. Each semester during one of our weekly meetings we decide on who we should induct as another Xi Man, it's usually an actives boyfriend or someone who helps our girls out a lot. We can have a lot of them, as long as there are more sisters in the chapter than there are sweethearts. The fraternities and other sorority on campus work basically the same way.
Alpha Xi also hosts a "Campus Cutie" pageant in the spring, but it is a philanthropic event and any guy can enter as long as he has a sponsor.

On my campus, Sigma Chi was the only chapter that had a sweetheart. Kappa does Kappa King, but that's just a pageant philanthropy.

Just FYI, this summer at Gamma Phi Beta's convention, we were told that the sorority has decided that male or female pageants are not acceptable as a GphiB philanthropy event. We may participate in other chapters' pageants if they have them, but we are not supposed to host them anymore.