The excitement of new members, homecoming and Greek Week wasn’t the same this year for Oregon Fraternity and Sorority Life. FSL made many changes to their events schedule this year, the biggest being recruitment and Greek Week.
Fraternity and Sorority Life moved Greek Week to spring term so that it would not conflict with two major Jewish holidays, Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.
Greek Week is when the whole Greek community gets together to celebrate through multiple competitions. Vice President of Community Programs for the Interfraternity Council said that it usually includes things such as participation in the homecoming parade, photo competitions and a final dance competition.
Vice President of Recruitment for the Interfraternity Council, Cameron Parker said that this year fall formal recruitment for sororities was pushed back to week two of the term (as opposed to the usual week one), and because of that Greek Week would need to be pushed back to week three. With the dates being different, it conflicted with two major Jewish holidays.
IFC President Max Lehman said that Greek Week would have been during those holidays, and having a celebration not related to the Jewish holiday seemed wrong to Fraternity and Sorority Life.
“It would have been somewhat inappropriate to have a joyous recruitment event on a day like that,” Lehman said.
In addition, Lehman says that in the past Greek Week dates have discouraged some from joining their community.
“In the past it actually discouraged some Jewish women from going through the recruitment process,” Lehman said.
Overall the decision to move Greek Week to the spring was to respect as many people as possible.
“It was kind of unfair to have a Jewish fraternity on campus and not respect the most holy days of their year,” Lehman said. “It was worth it to respect the high holidays.”
Now with a drastic change of date, Greek Week will be “Greek Weekend,” held Apil 9th 10th and 11th, and participants can see many changes to the celebration that is being implemented this year.
Andrew Weiss, Vice President of Community Programs for The Interfraternity Council says that this year’s event will include a block party, a field day, photo contest, sexual assault prevention presentations, and a community service event day.
“This year we’re focusing on making sure everyone is going to have fun with this event, and it’s a chance for the Greek community to come together more,” Weiss said.
Some who are familiar with Greek Week celebrations may expect a dance competition between the sororities and fraternities, but Weiss said that event has been cut due to the fact that Delta Gamma’s philanthropy, Anchor Splash, which includes a large-scale dance competition will be held spring term.
The new format for Greek Week is not set in stone, but is a good opportunity for the Greek community to try something new.
“We’re looking forward to changing things up this year,” Weiss said.