Penn State's IFC/Panhellenic Dance MaraTHON raises 7.8 million dollars!

[LionTamer]

I don't know about other campuses with a large number of sororities and fraternities, but the number of different philanthropies at Penn State is CRAZY, with each national insisting that, in addition to the chapter raising upwards of a quarter million dollars (per fraternity/sorority duo) for 'Thon, that the chapter should also 1) organize something to benefit its own national's philanthropy and 2) participate in everyone else's philanthropy (trust me, if you don't go to Anchor Splash, DG is NOT going to come to your Special Olympic benefit).

So at Penn State, you are going to hold you own philanthropy AND participate in something like 20 others (and that's just Panhel sororities - we also want to support the NPHC sorority fundraisers) That's just insane. And we're not even counting all the fraternity philanthropies. And then you have Homecoming, Greek Week and Greek Sing to work on. And you're supposed to go to class once in a while.

And so maybe the suggestion goes out from HQ that the chapter NOT participate in 'Thon. I can just see that at recruitment: "oh, those ASAs, they seem nice, but did you know they don't do 'Thon?" A lot of the social calendar is dedicated to events with your 'Thon partner, so it would have the same effect as opting out of Greek Week or Homecoming, socially. Not good for your image on campus.

And even pulling back can be iffy - the guys you probably WANT to do 'Thon with want to partner with girls who are actually going to work at it.

So the collegians are stuck. They can piss off HQ - someone they talk to a few times a year (and most of the chapter hardly sees) by doing just-enough for their national philanthrophy (like everyone on else on campus does), or they can irritate the entire Greek system and risk their reputation ("those XYZx think they're too good for 'Thon - they don't care about the kids"). What do you think they're going to choose?