Where are we?

We, as Undergraduate Members of Women's Fraternities, stand for good scholarship, for guarding of good health, for maintenance of fine standards, and for serving, to the best of our ability, our college community. Cooperation for furthering Fraternity life, in harmony with its best possibilities , is the ideal that shall guide our Fraternity activities.

We, as Fraternity Women, stand for service through the development of character inspired by the close contact and deep friendship of individual Fraternity and Panhellenic life. The opportunity for wide and wise through human service, through mutual respect and helpfulness, is the tenet by which we strive to live.

So many of you might know what the above paragraphs are from; many of you probably do not. Above is the Creed for the Panhellenic Association. As an Exec Board, we wanted to discuss our Creed with the women on council as we feel that if we do not know what our organization stands for and believes in we will be unable to lead our community in the right direction and provide the best programs and opportunities to promote the development of our members. So what is in the Creed.... It looks pretty straight forward, right? but when you read the ideals that we pledge to uphold. Are we the ladies of the Panhellenic Association really upholding these values?

Yes and no we are.... I guess it is easiest to go in order:
1. Scholarship: Yes, we do hold a higher GPA average than non Greeks but are all our members performing to their best ability? Are we providing the resources to encourage academic success? Are our standards high enough?

2. Good Health: Hmmm... I am not so sure we have got this one down. Drinking and sex surrounds the stereotype of our community, and even our own members stated that when we asked them about Ritual. How do we change this? How do we help our members be more responsible? We always have the speakers come in and give their personal story; though these are heartfelt, how many members take it to heart? Many leave saying that won't happen to me....

3. Maintenance of fine standards: Again, unfortunately, I feel that we fall short. Yes, we fulfill the standards of excellence requirements; key word, requirements. Do we do these events b/c we have too or do we do them b/c they are required to be in good standings? We need to appreciate diversity, and not just send 75% of our members to get the check mark by diversity event completed...

4. Serve our college community: Well, I do not think the Haiti Dinner can go unnoticed, and I know I am being a little skeptical and unsatisfied in this blog, but we talk about change and we preach that we uphold these standards, and I guess I just wonder when are we going to really? So yes, we have done things for our college community, but is it enough? I feel that if we really had made an impact on our college community more people would want to be Greek. They would be able to point out things and be like "oh yea, those Greeks did this or that for the freshman or for the University..."

5.Cooperation for furthering Fraternity life: Yes, progress is being made, but I still would not say that our community is truly valued based. And yes we are growing, but how do we are growing in quality not quantity?

6. Service: No. I do not think that many of us enough. Sure we have excuses: we have class, work, more class, meetings, org., chapter. but many of us are still able to make it to the tg on thursday night?

7. Development of character: I think by achieving all of the ideals of the community one truly develops his/her character. I dunno this is hard b/c yes I think that Greek Life is amazing and it definitely helps with character building, but have we developed each member's character? I know many of us do, but can we be content with many?

8. Friendship: I think this is the best attribute of the Greek Community. To truly develop friendships that we can call someone a sister or brother. BUT friendship should extend across chapters; competition and sterotypes still exist, and though competition is good. Isn't one of the main purposes of Greek Life reaching our potential and developing character? So if we talk bad about others or think we are too cool for another chapter are we being the best we can be? do we really have a lot of character?

9. Wide and wise: This one is kinda tough? I guess it depends on how you interpret it, but I am gonna take it as through our experiences we are growing in all aspects: intellectually, in our perspective of life, and our characters.

10. Respect, helpfulness: Not too much.. Similar to #8 we need to work on relationships across chapter lines and unfortunately, I can think of instances when I have seen a lack of respect for women of the same chapter...

So what was the point of this blog novel? For me, I really want to break down the Creed and see what we are all about, and now after looking at it, it is my goal to start to change the negative above into positive. To help others appreciate Greek Life and to provide opportunities for growth among our community, specifically, starting with our Council. I want us to understand what we believe in so we can put those thoughts into actions...