Xavier University just announced it's welcoming three new Greek chapters to campus, and the reaction from most Greek life observers is going to be some version of "great, more chapters." But I think that response misses the more interesting question. Not whether expansion is happening - it clearly is - but what Xavier is actually setting these new chapters up for, and whether anyone there has thought seriously about what comes next.
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Funny thing about freshman year dormitory halls these days: they’re often nicer than anything you can find off-campus or in the Greek village. Which schools are worth attending just for their swanky student housing?...
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There is no better way to start a new year and a new semester than by hanging out with your sisters. Starting any semester with a sisterhood event is a fantastic idea. First, the sisters who take the responsibility to organize it had plenty of time over break to plan ahead. Second, everyone is starved to see each other after such an extended time apart. Lastly, let’s get real…its syllabus week which is the least stressful and least busy time of each semester. This perfect storm allows for early second semester sisterhood events to be some of the best of the year. Looking for some ideas for your next event? Here are three sisterhood events that started off the year the right way....
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Sororities pride themselves on displays of unity, creativity, and unforgettable memories. There is no better day of the year than bid day to for a chapter to put on a show that meets all three of those criteria. We already shared our list of the 10 Southern Chapters That Won Bid Day – Fall 2016. Here’s a list of 10 sorority chapters up north who won bid day Fall 2016 by going the extra mile to make it a special day for their new members, celebrating unparalleled sisterhoods, having the time of their lives, being comfortable in their own skin, and taking the best pics....
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Alcohol is usually not hard to come by off-campus. Some campuses are taking the approach that if they serve it themselves they can better control the alcohol consumption of their students. Do schools that serve their own alcohol have higher on-campus arrest rates than the universities that don’t? Read more to find out. Here's a list of some of the most booze-friendly campuses in the US....
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You have made one of the biggest decisions of your life to go to college. Congratulations! However, that’s not the only decision that you’ll have to make when it comes to college life. Another important decision that you’ll probably make is the decision to go Greek in college.
Greek life has lots of benefits to offer to its members – opportunities to build a network, social/community activities to participate in, a strong brotherhood bond to maintain, and many more! However, one of the biggest challenges college guys face at the beginning of their Greek life is choosing the right fraternity for themselves....
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Every fraternity house has one. A shared drive, a binder on a shelf, a folder in someone's email chain - years of old exams, professor-specific notes, highlighted study guides passed down like they're sacred texts. And the weird thing is, almost nobody talks about it openly. Not the brothers who use it, not the advisors who probably know it exists, not the university offices that would rather look the other way. The test bank is one of Greek life's open secrets, and I think it's time somebody actually said something real about it.
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Most chapter events don't fall apart because of bad ideas. They fall apart because nobody figured out who was actually in charge. I learned this the hard way during my first semester as an active, when what should have been a straightforward mixer with a sorority turned into two weeks of group chat chaos, three people who thought they were in charge, and a venue that got double-booked. The event still happened. It was fine. But fine isn't what anyone was going for.
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Every few years, a wave of high-profile assault cases hits the news cycle and suddenly everyone's got an opinion about whether fraternities should exist at all. The ABC News story making rounds right now is the latest version of that conversation - calls to shut down frat houses entirely as public anger over rape cases grows louder. I've heard this argument before. I've sat in Panhellenic council meetings where the exact same pressure was bleeding over into how we handled our own policies, our own relationships with IFC chapters, our own event approval processes. And I'll say what I said then: closing houses doesn't close the problem.
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There's a specific kind of chaos that hits Greek row the week before homecoming. Float builds happening at midnight. Someone's little sister from three towns over showing up unannounced. A chapter president stress-eating dining hall waffles at 2am because the banner isn't drying fast enough. I lived that chaos for four years, and I'm not even a little bit sorry about it. Homecoming week is the thing I describe to people who ask me if Greek life was worth it - and it shuts them up every time.
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