Throughout the week on campus, large groups of students could be seen competing in field events among several other activities. This, of course, was in celebration of the sixth annual “Greek Week” here at the College, in which members of fraternities and sororities pair up to take part in the events to promote community building within Greek life.
“It’s an opportunity for members to get together with each other as a community,” said Dave Conner, head of fraternity and sorority life. “It allows them to come together to socialize and get to know each other and at the same time to grow as a community.”
The week consisted of several field games like dodge ball and volleyball, as well as Greek inspired trivia games that resulted in the crowning of Phi Alpha Delta fraternity as the winners of Greek Week.
The week was finalized with its biggest event, Airband, in which each organization put on a dance and lip sync performance for the College.
“It has nothing to do with an airband,” joked Conner, who brought the tradition with him from the University of Delaware. “It takes lip sync and dance and combines it into one.”
Airband took place last Friday, April 14 in the Brower Student Center, it offered all students at the College a chance to watch Greek organizations put on their own performances.
“It’s an opportunity for groups to really be creative,” Conner said. “It’s one event that I’ve been really fond of because you can really see all different members of an organization shine and come together as a chapter to put on a performance.”
Conner, who works alongside the Inter-Greek Council, came to the College in 2007 when the tradition of “Greek Week” first really kicked off.
“When I first came to the College, it was designed to be like homecoming of the spring,” Conner said. “It consisted of contests that paired coed teams against each other, but it created this very hyper competitive atmosphere.”
In an effort to make the week less competitive and more about community building, Conner has intentionally provided very few rules for the activities, allowing the members to use their heads and have a good time.
“We made it more of a community building piece,” Conner said. “Over the past few years, we intentionally wanted to make sure that we have the service and education component in the program, that’s the commonality, they’re all built on advancing education opportunities and promoting service.”
However, despite all efforts to reduce the competitive nature of the week, some participants still felt it.
“Everyone wants to win Greek Week,” said sophomore international business major and brother of Phi Alpha Delta, Jon Martinez. “Some people take it too seriously. They want to win more than they want to have fun, even though it’s just about having fun.”
The week also includes programs such as a “Training for Intervention Procedures (TIPS)” certification, where more than 10 percent of Greek life was able to get certified on how to provide an effective intervention to students who have had too much alcohol to drink, according to Conner.
“Greek Week is a way of bonding between fraternities and sororities,” Pat Dyer, economics of environmental quality major and brother of Phi Kappa Psi fraternity said. “It’s a week of inter-Greek lovin’.”
