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