Greek Week is a very exciting time for Greek students at Miami University. It provides fraternity and sorority members the chance to compete in all kinds of athletic events, mostly focused on teamwork and inter-chapter bonding. After a week of competitive and grueling events, each chapter is given a rank on how it did, derived from the points earned per event.
Most people see this ranking as how athletically superior one chapter is to another. But there's a lot more behind these points and rankings than just sporting events.
There are special events, such as a blood drive, a charity walk to fight world hunger and a canned food drive. Even for those aware of these, very few actually understand how much of a factor they play in the rankings. What follows is a simple breakdown of the point system behind Greek Week.
There are nine "major" events, which can earn your chapter six to 15 points depending on how well your chapter does. Then there are seven "minor" events, which can earn your chapter one to 10 points. These other events are worth more than any sport. The blood drive is worth 20 points, the walk for charity stands at 30 and the food drive comes in at 20 points. Therefore, these events play a major role in how your chapter does.
For these other events, chapters are required to have a certain amount of participation within the chapter to earn the points. For example, the blood drive and walk for charity require that 15 members participate (with a smaller number of participants allowed for smaller chapters).
To re-emphasize, Greek Week is huge for those in Greek life and can really make your chapter stand out or fade out. To even have a chance of placing well, your chapter has to complete these other events because they are worth so much. This may place unnecessary stress on individual members to involve themselves in activities with which they could be incompatible or uncomfortable. Don't get me wrong, these events are all for great causes, but pressure to participate could place some students at risk.
The blood drive is a somewhat controversial issue for Greek Week.
"I personally think it is important, I did it, but I think it's unfair to pressure people to do it when they are afraid or nervous or just can't because of medical issues to push for that last person to make the cut," said Nina Palmer, member of the Alpha Xi Delta chapter. "It would be better if you get one point per person or something like that."
Other students think differently about these other events.
"For most people, joining the Greek community is an opportunity for lots of new experiences," said Matt Perse, member of the Lambda Chi Alpha chapter. "Things like this should just be a chance for students to expand their horizons."
Before you start to compare fraternities and sororities based on their standing in Greek Week, be sure to look at what really goes into these rankings.
Aaron Merten mertenar@muohio.edu
