Greek Life

Greek life on college campuses is an effective way to ensure that students get the most out of college, and all that it has to offer. Greek organizations actively challenge students to be a well educated, and active part of the surrounding community. However, some view fraternities and sororities on college campuses in more of a negative light due to stereotypes and generalizations, influenced by the media. Many of these stereotypes are untrue, and often over exaggerated. Greek life has many advantages to offer, and outweigh many of the misguided arguments of the opposition. Despite negative connotations associated with it, Greek life influences students to better themselves and their surroundings in many ways. Greek organizations are very …show more content…
One of the main forms of this service that Greeks have is philanthropy. This is where fraternities and sororities plan an event that will help to raise money, and then choose an organization to donate the proceeds to. An example of one of these philanthropies is the annual Game-A-Thon that a local Ball State University fraternity, Sigma Chi hosts every fall. Members of the campus community come to the event and pay to play video games, enter contests with the brothers, and all of the proceeds go to the ALS Foundation. Everyone in the fraternity contributes to setting the event up, and they all staff the event for the connivence of the guests that pay to take part. According to the North American Inter-fraternity Conference, a total of 20.3 million dollars has been given to various charitable organizations as a result of philanthropic events hosted by Greek communities (NIC). This shows just some of the positive impact that Greek organizations can have on the community surrounding them. Another example of Greek services within their surrounding communities is the community service projects that Greek organizations take part in. Members of Greek organizations donate some of their free time to do service for a number of organizations that help the community. According to the North American Inter-Fraternity Conference, as a combined whole, fraternities and sororities have donated nearly four million hours of …show more content…
Saying that all fraternities or sororities haze their new members, is similar to saying that if a radical Muslim commits an act of terrorism, then all muslims are to blame because of their religion. It is not the religion that is to blame, it is the people who are to blame that ignore the peaceful teachings of standard Islam. This translates over to Greek life as well; the small portion of groups that make the majority of Greek life look bad, are straying from written rules and customs, therefore tarnishing the names of fraternities and