[media-credit id=2200 align=”alignright” width=”300″][/media-credit]After a semester of hard work and planning, Greek Week has come and gone. It’s easy to overlook, especially when you are not in the thick of it all. The amount of time, dedication and organization that putting together a week of this magnitude entails. It is one week of the year set aside to build a greater community and celebrate the network that Greek life has to offer through a series of events that are fun for everyone. This year, the fraternity and sorority duo of Alpha Delta Pi (ADPi) and Beta Theta Pi  (Beta) won the week-long competition.

James Burnham, president of Beta, reflected on his fraternity’s win, noting the pair’s diligent preparation.

“It’s such an amazing accomplishment to see all the hard work we put in with ADPi over the past few weeks,” Burnham said. “All the long nights of rehearsals, laughs and yelling culminate[d] into one big success for all of us to share collectively.”

Meghan Messier, president of ADPi, was proud of not only her sorority for placing first, but of all of Greek life who joined in on Greek Week.

“I want to commend every organization who participated,” Messier said. “Everyone puts an immense amount of time and energy into the events of the week. [Betas] are amazing guys and we were thrilled to have the chance to work with them.”

Greek Week has made changes to become more student-run this year as opposed to being spearheaded by the Office of Fraternity and Sorority Life, as it had been in the past. This is largely through the creation of a new position of vice president of Greek Week on the Panhellenic Council. This responsibility used to be filled by a graduate intern. However, senior physical therapy major and sister of ADPi, Nicole LaBrecque, is now the first undergraduate to take on this role at Quinnipiac.

“The most rewarding part of this position is seeing all the hard work pay off. [For example] on Tuesday [at Greek God and Goddess], looking out and seeing everyone there and thinking, ‘Wow, I did this.’” LaBrecque said.

These are not the only changes in the works for the organizations. The title of vice president of Greek Week is planned to be changed to vice president of Greek Unity, in an effort to give the student who holds the position more power to hold events that are beneficial to both sororities and fraternities at all times of the year. Greek Week itself embodies unity of sororities and fraternities, but this effort is a push to involve this element of unity throughout the entire year. LaBrecque hopes to organize speakers and events in the Fall semester that will promote Greek Unity and be relevant to both sororities and fraternities.

The week also offers a variety of events that serve to include different interests and bring together as many members of the Quinnipiac University community as possible.

[media-credit id=2200 align=”alignright” width=”300″][/media-credit]The schedule of the week included the Greek God and Goddess event on Tuesday, a Food Truck Festival on Wednesday, a t-shirt sale and Community Volleyball Tournament on Thursday and Lip Sync on Friday.

The process of organizing the events takes a team effort, and with the week being primarily student-run this time around, student organizers have had to dedicate incredible amounts of time and effort to making sure each event runs smoothly. Communication has to be efficient through leaders but also has to spread effectively and efficiently to participants. It also pushes for organizations to pair up and work together. Being sure that all of the event’s moving parts are where they are supposed to be, when they are supposed to be there, is a main task in planning.

Emma Horn is a sophomore psychology major and president of the Panhellenic Council who has been assisting LaBrecque throughout this process.

“When the night of the event comes, it’s all hands on deck,” Horn said. “[It’s great because] we see the fun, healthy competition but we also have the opportunity to have two pairings who might not always hang out come together and have a really good time.”

First and foremost, Greek Week is about the Greek community. However, organizers are taking steps to include more groups every year. This year, two multicultural sororities and one non-profit social fraternity, Lambda Theta Phi, have been given the option to participate in the week’s activities. Organizers hope that opening this door will lead to more future possibilities to collaborate as the organizations grow.

A final note to remember is that Greek Week is not only open to members of Greek life.

“We encourage anyone to come to events throughout the week,” LaBrecque said. “I hope people start to know that they can come to anything.”

Horn elaborated on the benefits of individuals outside Greek life participating in the week’s activities.

“Maybe they’ll decide to go Greek, or they’ll decide it’s not for them but hey, they had a great time.” Horn said. “Clubs and organizations can team up for events in the future. I’d be excited to see more people take advantage of how this is the one time our group really is out here and together.”

Attendance and awareness for Greek life is key, especially for philanthropy events throughout the semester. Greek Week does a great job of gathering support from both students and faculty to recognize the positive impacts that sororities and fraternities have on our campus and in the greater community, while also providing a time to come together and have a good time.