National Hazing Prevention Week, Bingo, Meet the Greeks, and Greek Life Rocks the Vote!

Hey Everyone!

Last week was National Hazing Prevention Week (NHPW). This was my first time participating with the week...yet I still decided to be the NHPW representative for my sorority. That's one of the great things about Greek Life is that even if you are stepping into something that is completely foreign to you, your fellow Greeks will help you along to figure things out. The committee was not made of only Greeks, Oneonta State Athletics also sent their team members as representatives as well. We were also guided by our Greek Advisor, Angie Eichler, the Women's Volleyball Coach, Colleen Cashman, and the director of Judicial Affairs, Mary Logan. It was definately a great chance to get to know and work with people from all over campus.

When the average Joe hears the word "hazing," chances are is that he will associate the word with Greek Life. Hazing occurs in athletics, high school, the military, and other student organizations, so the NHPW committee set out to educate our campus that hazing can occur anywhere, and we should all look out for each other.

Also- I would like to make it clear the Recognized Greek Life at SUNY Oneonta has a No Hazing Policy. If you feel that you are being hazed or if you know of someone in a Recognized Greek Organization who is being hazed, do not hesitate to contact the Office of Campus Life at (607) 436-2410, Option #2.

On Monday, we were encouraged to wear Anti-Hazing T-shirts that I designed with my T-Shirt Committee. It was pretty scary because I didn't want to design something that the whole campus would hate, so my committee and I thought of words that rhymed with "Haze" and we settled on "Be Smart, Don't Get Hazed and Confused." It was a reference to the movie Dazed and Confused, where one of the opening scenes are the high school seniors hazing the underclassmen. Thankfully, the t-shirts turned out awesome and a lot of people liked them. Also on Monday, the Dean of Student Development at Cornell, Tom Marshell, addressed the campus about how horrible it is to be hazed and be part of an organization that does haze. However, he stood up to his organization and completely changed their new member process. It goes to show you that one person CAN make a difference and I commend him for that. I wasn't able to attend the speech because I had work (Yeah Oneonta Phonathon!), but I heard a lot of people were moved by it.

On Tuesday, there was a Greek/Athletic Mixer. On Wednesday, the video clips commitee and I presented a Power Point and discussion session about hazing. One of our goals was to show that hazing doesn't occur only in Greek Life, it occurs in high school, the United States Air Force, and we even showed a clip of high school teachers hazing our students. I commend Morgan from Mu Sigma Upsilon Sorority Incorporated, Jason from Phi Kappa Psi, and Cynthia from Chi Upsilon Sigma for putting together an amazing presentation. On Thursday, each fraternity and sorority had Philanthropy Tables outside the Quad as well. Unfortunately, I was not able to attend the event because I had Metaphysics, so I can't give a fair observation about how it went.

However, on Thursday, I got to play bingo with the residents of the Robynwood Nursing Home. I cannot tell you how much I love those ladies. They are really grateful for anyone to hang out with them and I haven't seen them for months and they still remembered my name. I honestly believe that there should be more relations between the nursing home and the college because even though we are still so young, we don't know whether we will one day be in their place. These residents are so diverse, and for some of them, they haven't seen their families in a while. I love being a part of their family, as corny as that sounds, it's from the heart. I was very close with my Grandparents and when my Grandma passed away suddenly on May 8th, 2005, it shattered my world. She was so excited to see me graduate from high school and go to college. Also, I turned 18 on May 20th. Unfortunately, she wasn't there to see me accomplish those three milestones. She was also there for me during the hardest time of my life...I was in a biracial relationship and for some reason, my parents didn't approve of my ex-boyfriend just because of his skin color. His parents and my parents broke us up because the race thing was stressing both families out. Since then, my parents have changed their views and will let me date whoever I choose, but ever since he and I started dating, my grandparents were behind me 101%. The night before she had her stroke, I was crying with her because I just didn't understand why my mom and dad would do such a thing to me, right before my prom, birthday, and graduation. And she said that she trusted me and knew that I would always make the right decision. That meant so much to me. I made the choice while she was still in the hospital to live with my Grandpa. They didn't live far from us, they were only three houses down, but it killed me because my uncles only saw him once every month after my Grandma passed away. He was appreciative of any company. During my freshman year of college, I made sure to go home one weekend out of the month, and I spent my breaks with him. My Grandfather passed away, also suddenly, on May 7th, 2006. I spoke to him the night before he passed away, and he told me that he couldn't wait to get home from the hospital to celebrate my birthday. But the best present that I received on my 19th birthday was that he was with my Grandma. Ever since then, I have just been so appreciative of the gifts life brings to us. haha, I know I have laid out a lot of personal stuff, but I felt it was neccessary to prove my point that we should give our time to the elderly.

Ok! Onto happier things...we had Meet the Greeks today. However, even though I felt that there was a lot of Greek Unity at the event (I'll get to that later), I feel that the event wasn't promoted enough throughout campus. Everyone at the event were members of a Greek Organization, and there was barely anyone there who was interested in recruitment. However, it was amazing to see that Mu Sigma Upsilon Sorority Incorporated had a bunch of sisters from their chapter at SUNY New Paltz to support them at this event and Chi Upsilon Sigma Sorority Incorporated had their sisters from SUNY Binghamton to support them as well. I have yet to meet my other sisters at our recognized chapters at SUNY Geneseo, SUNY Fredonia, and SUNY Potsdam/Clarkson University, so I feel really happy for them that they have such a tight bond with their other chapters. However, my sorority is going to get together with our other chapters in November. I hope I am able to go but I have work on Friday and because I will be away at the College Music Journal Conference from October 21st to the 25th, I am scared to take too many days off from work.

On Tuesday, Chi Phi and my sorority is holding a campus-wide voter registartion event, Greek Life Rocks The Vote! We will be tabling at Mills, Hulbert, and Wilsbach from 11-3 and we will either get you registered to vote or give you an absentee ballot. That night, we will be holding a presentation about voting and the candidates at 7PM in IRC 4. I hope to see you there!

Be the change YOU want to see in the world,
Claps

Greek Peer Advocates, Community Service, and Scholarship Recognition, Oh My!

First off- I'd like to congratulate my sisters and the sisters of Sigma Sigma Sigma for winning the Highest Sorority GPA award at the Greek Awards Dinner last Thursday. Tri-Sig has won this award for many semesters, and it's an honor to be tied with them for this award. One of the myths about Greek Life is that once you join an organization, you will never have time for school work. The complete opposite is true. At Oneonta, our recognized Greek Life Organizations put a lot of pride into their schoolwork. We have a scholarship chair who presides over the SUNY Oneonta Inter-Greek Council and each chapter has a scholarship chair to make sure that their brothers or sisters are keeping up their grades. Next semester, in order to be active through the school, each Greek brother and sister must have a GPA above 2.5. Also, in order to be eligable for fraternity or sorority recruitment, one must have a GPA above 2.5. Being a Greek Life Scholar has a lot of benefits, I believe that if your term GPA is above a 3.0, you will receive an award at the end of the semester recognizing you for your acheivements, and for those who have a cummulative GPA of 3.25, one will be invited to join the national Greek honor society, Order of Omega.

Oneonta Greek Life also have Greek Peer Advocate program, otherwise known as GPA. Each chapter designates a brother or a sister to serve a Greek Peer Advocate. But what is this program and what do the GPAs do? I'm one of the GPAs for my sorority and we decided to switch the program up this semester. In the past, we would invite Greek Life to programs about Time Management, Conflict Resolution etc., the programs were good...but they didn't apply to all of the age groups. So this year, we are tailoring programs for sophomores, juniors and seniors. For example, the senior GPAs and I created a program called "Shake Your Money Maker" and we are going to talk about money management, how to budget out your college loans, and how to get health insurance after graduation. The sophomore class is having a GPA program about how to rent an Oneonta apartment. I would highly recommend being a GPA to any Greek because you get to develop programs and you get to know a lot of people from other organizations.

Also- I'm really excited because starting on Thursday, we are playing bingo with the residents of the Robynwood Nursing Home. We have played bingo at the nursing home for almost 3 years. I live for Thursday Night Bingo. The ladies are so nice and so funny and you find yourself getting attached to them.

Alex's Lemonade Stand- We Raised $241.55!

One thing I love about my sorority is that our name is synonymous with community service. We have won the IGC Community Service Award for three years in a row and my goal is to make it 4 years. I am the Community Service Chair of Sigma Gamma Phi for this semester, and over the summer, I thought of a lot of new community service ideas. One of those ideas was Alex's Lemonade Stand.

Alex's Lemonade Stand is a charity that supports childhood cancer research. Alex Scott was a little girl from Pennsylvania who was diagnosed with cancer. When she was 4 years old, she set up a lemonade stand in her hometown and all the proceeds would benefit childhood cancer research. She set up stands until she passed away in 2004 at 8 years old. Ever since then, it has become a movement across the country, and this summer I had the chance to participate in a Alex's Lemonade Stand with my youth leadership group and we had raised $300. It was so amazing and I knew that I wanted to do it in Oneonta.

On Saturday, September 6th, we held our first Alex's Lemonade Stand at Oneonta Wal-Mart. At first, it seemed like all the odds were against us: it was raining all day, and when we arrived at Wal-Mart, it was shut down due to a transformer fire that affected all of Southside Oneonta. However, we waited the power outage out and we started to collect money.

But the thing was, we weren't just sitting on a bench pouring out lemonade every now and then- we had the chance to meet a lot of amazing people with unique stories. 2 of our alumni who live in the immediate area stopped by to give us money, a man donated $10 in memory of his wife who passed away from cancer. As he told us the story, we were all either crying or just tearing up. I also met a man who donated money who was crying because he had a flashback of his friend who passed away during 9/11...and on the lighter side I also got to meet a man named Sal Claps...who knew that I would meet someone who's last name is my nickname.

All in all, it was a successful day and I am so happy that we did this event.

If you would like more information about Alex's Lemonade Stand, please visit http://www.alexslemonade.org/

Keep on keepin' on
Claps

The EPIC first post....and Bid Day!

Heyyyy everyone!

Whoa! It's the first post here. I guess I have to do the whole introduction thing. My name is Alexandra Aiello, but everyone calls me Claps because I don't have any rhythm. Trust me- it's a sad case when I dance, clap...anything that requires a beat just doesn't work out with me haha. I'm a Political Science and Philosophy major at Oneonta (what can I say, I like reading books by old, dead guys), and I'm going to graduate in December 2009. I love it here so much that graduation seems like it would be the worst thing that could ever happen to me....but unfortunately my parents don't want to say that they raised the female equivalent of Tommy Boy. On campus, I'm the Training Director of WONY 90.9 FM and I'm a sister of Sigma Gamma Phi.

But that's probably the reason why you are reading this: you want to know what Greek Life is all about, and I'm going to try to do my best to tell you all about it. I decided to join a sorority because a lot of my friends from other colleges were in Greek Life and loved it. So I wanted to see what they were talking about. Also- I transferred from Hartwick College (I know, it was a huge move), and I really wanted to get to know other people from campus. At Hartwick, the school was so small that you knew EVERYONE. At Oneonta, I was overwhelmed by the fact that I only knew my roommates- and that was it. I didn't want to go to school at Oneonta and have my social life at Hartwick.

I decided to go to Meet the Greeks. It's an event where all the recognized Greek organizations have tables full of memorobilia and all of the brothers and sisters are there to answer all of your questions about Greek Life. The first table I went to was Sigma Gamma Phi and the first person I met from there was the lovely Michelle Della Giovanna. We start talking and I mentioned that I was a transfer. She asks me where I transferred from, and I said "Hartwick." It turns out that her boyfriend was a friend of mine at Wick, but she and I never met! I got to talk to the rest of the sisters and they were so down to earth. I knew that they were the right fit once one of the sisters, Dillon, asked me if I was going to the Brand New concert. I pledged in Fall 2007 and I haven't looked back since. It's been a great experience and I have amazing friends in the sorority. My advice is, no matter which organization you may decide to pledge, is that you find the one that fits you. Don't go for the one just because they have the best rush shirts on campus...find the organization where you will find friendship.

It's been a year since my bid day. Today, we had our Fall Bid Day. Bid Day is when Greek Life has a ceromony welcoming our new members. Normally we have the ceromony in Hunt Union but this year, we had it outside. We welcomed 4 new members: Christina, Ashley, Michelle, and Kat, and they are all awesome =D. However, there was just one problem. During our part of the ceromony where we sing to the new members, a hornet decided to visit me....and that wasn't a good thing. I am deathly allergic to bug bites and bee stings so I was SPAZZING out while I was singing right in front of Greek Life. I was trying to avoid the hornet at all costs, so while everyone is standing inside the circle, I'm moving every which way to avoid the sting of death lol. haha it was the most mortifying moment of my whole life. But in the end- everything is alright and life goes on haha.

Keep it real!