Lately there seems to be a lot of bad press surrounding sororities and fraternities. It also seems as though no one talks about Greeks unless its to criticize them. To counteract this, I've found articles talking about the good that specific organizations have done for their schools and communities.

• ISU's Day of Service
• From the High Chair, to High School, to Higher ED
• Sorority chapter comes up with $1,000 for Orland K-9
• Fraternity Raises Money for Susan G. Komen for the Cure
• Sorority gives luggage for kids

One of the most important tenets of many Greek organizations is service to community. Unfortunately, part of our society is that we like to look for the negative. Please take a time to learn more about the positive side of Greeks if you are starting to get discouraged.

Greek Letters

Some of you may be in Fraternities or Sororities. If so, how do you get your letters that you wear? Make them? Gifts? Buy them? What places do you use to buy them? What kind of fabric do you prefer? Do you have a favorite set or a set that is most meaningful to you?

When I do buy them, I generally use greekgear.com, but I think I just discovered another great site called somethinggreek.com that you can get the letters made out of personalized fabric. Most of the time, however, I make my letters with fabric that I buy. It takes longer, but saves a lot of money. Plus, my sorority likes to have letter making nights when we hang out in the lounge and trade fabric and stencils

As for my favorite sets, one is one that I made. They are sisterhood letters and have colored anchors on them (my sorority's national symbol) and are on a gray t-shirt. The other two were gifts: one is a purple t-shirt with gold letters and the other is a black hoodie with my sorority's creed on them.

Related articles

• Decorating a Sorority Themed Room (bedroom-decor.suite101.com)

7 Reasons Why You Should Always Have Dress Clothes in Your Closet

1. Many clubs and sports will require that you dress up on a certain day of the week.
2. If you have an internship or student teach, dressing up will make you appear more professional.
3. You may have to attend nice dinners.
4. If you are in any type of national or international organization, it is a good idea to dress up when you attend conferences in order to make a good impression.
5. During your junior and senior years, you will be going to interviews where you will have to dress up. Doing so prior to that will help you to feel more comfortable with it.
6. Many teachers (I've noticed this especially in my business classes) expect that you dress professionally for presentations. Even if they don't mention it, doing it anyways will mean you went the extra mile.
7. I know this sounds crazy, but when you dress up, you feel better about yourself and people will take you more seriously.

Recruitment for Organizations

During the first few weeks of school, the main concern of many upperclassmen is how to get freshmen to join their organizations. Everyone from fraternities and sororities to the psychology club are hosting recruitment parties and interest meetings. And its no wonder; if recruitent doesn't go well, an organization may not survive another year. There are a few stand bys; advertise an interest meeting and give out free pizza, or talk to freshmen during orientation week. Of course, getting people to show up to the first meeting isn't the hard part, nor does it indicate the success of your recruitment methods. The only way to do both those things is to see how many people become members and keep showing up to meetings.

What recruitments have been successful in your experience? What weren't successful? If you were a prospective member, what would make you want to join or not join?

 

Sorority Convention

So before in the post I left on Monday I said I would talk about some of the stuff that happened at my sorority convention.

We stayed at the Sheraton, which was great, but I think they are used to conventions. Nothing was comp. We bought all the food, minus what was paid in registration.

Overall, it was a great experience and I'm grateful to have had the chance to go. Already,I am planning to volunteer at the next one in two years. I met alumni and past national staff who have been coming to these for as many as fifty years. My sorority made business cards so I feel like we did a good job of networking. The best part of the trip was meeting people who have always appeared to me as distant figures who just barely exist (and certainly would never be able to help with my chapter) and getting to know them. Now I feel much more confident in going to them and encouraging my sisters to go to them for help. I also enjoyed meeting so many of my sisters and getting an idea of what kind of organization we have.

We did a philanthropy party where we put together baskets to donate to the Ronald McDonald house, and it was a huge success. Everyone who came donated items and we put together 175 baskets.

Also, we had several speakers, including an alumni, and two alumni from other Greek organizations.

It was a great trip and it inspired to make my sorority the best that it can be. If anyone has the chance to do something similar, please do it. I'm not saying that there weren't fallbacks; especially when it came to procedures during general session, and I left feeling extremely tired. But it was all worth it.