From Oct. 11 to 15, members of sororities and fraternities compete to show their Greek pride during Greek Week, which used to run every spring, Panhellenic Council board members said.
The Panhellenic Council and the Interfraternity Council decided last spring to move Greek Week to the fall to give fraternities and sororities more exposure, said Panhellenic Council Vice President Cathy Lee McNeill, a sophomore in the School of Management.
“We thought that the fall would be better because there’s less going on and it was getting hectic in the spring with all the events,” McNeill said. “It’s a week where all members of Greek life can come together, have fun, play games and do philanthropy.”
SMG sophomore Kate Scott, a member of the sorority Gamma Phi Beta, said she feels that moving Greek Week to the fall from the spring was a decision well made.
“It’s a great way to kick off the school year and I think people are more into it this year,” Scott said.
“It’s just something we do every year to show Greek pride and try to put Greek life in the best light possible to show BU that we are a great organization that can do a lot for the school,” McNeill said.
Greek Life also changed the nature of the Greek Week competition, she said. Instead of sorority and fraternity chapters having separate competitions, sororities and fraternities will go head to head.
“It’s going to encourage friendly competition between girls and boys and we think it’s just a way to change things up,” McNeill said.
The only other big difference due to the change is that fraternities will have their freshmen pledges on their teams, McNeill said. This will not affect the competition too much because sororities are already larger than the fraternities.
Some students in Greek Life said the switch to the fall is not working out as well as hoped.
“Because of Columbus Day, people weren’t here and people have midterms too so it’s kind of a bad week,” said Allison Manfreda, a senior in Sargeant College of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences and a member of Sigma Delta Tau. “There’s a lot more energy in the spring.”
“Hopefully, potential new members can get a glimpse at our Greek Spirit,” said College of Communication senior Brittany Kang, vice president of public relations for the Panhellenic Council.
The councils chose an “iGreek” theme and chapters earn points throughout the week by attending events and uploading pictures and videos to Facebook and Twitter, McNeill said. Since some chapters are larger than others, every group will receive points based on the percentage of people in each chapter that complete these tasks. Events for the week include a lip sync contest, a study session, Terrier Tailgate and the Greek Olympics.
McNeill said that a plus of having Greek Week in the fall is that prospective sorority recruits are able to see what Greek Life is like with events such as the Terrier Tailgate, which is open to all students.
This is an account occasionally used by the Daily Free Press editors to post archived posts from previous iterations of the site or otherwise for special circumstance publications. See authorship info on the byline at the top of the page.
