Greek Life community continues to expand

UW-River Falls has seven chapters in the Greek Life community and approximately 200 students are involved with sororities and fraternities on campus said Director of Student Life Paul Shepherd.

Sigma Sigma Sigma Sorority is the oldest sorority on campus, founded on May 9, 1969, said President Vivian Chen. There is a total of five sororities at UWRF including: Alpha Omicron Pi, Alpha Sigma Alpha, Phi Mu, Sigma Alpha and Sigma Sigma Sigma.

“Every sorority is different in that we have different philanthropy and we spend our time doing different community service programs. Our philanthropy is the Robbie Paige Memorial, and our motto is ‘Sigma serves children.’” The foundation focuses on providing money to support play therapy for hospitalized children,” Chen said.

All Greek organizations have a philanthropy, said Jayne Dalton with Phi Mu. Their sorority’s is Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals. Each Greek chapter has their own values but there is a mutual value for community service and giving back.

The two fraternities on campus are Alpha Gamma Rho and Theta Chi. Vice president of Theta Chi, Matthew
Hobbs, said that the purpose of Greek Life is to promote socialization among the campus, to earn leadership skills and to create well-rounded adults.

“Similar to other student organizations, each chapter has a specific purpose and value it lives by. The purpose of any student group is to provide opportunities for students to get involved on campus and learn valuable skills through student involvement,” Shepherd said.

Greek life is present at colleges across the nation and some charities that chapters go to are local as well as national events, according to the UWRF website. There are conferences attended across the country to better individuals’ leadership.

“Each year Theta Chi has continued to grow across the county and even into Canada with 129 active chapters,” Theta Chi President Evan Bickowski said.

Students can join chapters by contacting chapter presidents as well as contacting Shepard. Chapters have tables at the involvement fair and the Interfraternity Council and Panhellenic Council manage recruitment processes.

Freshman Grady Nelson who will join Theta Chi in March said he got involved with connections.

“I got involved through friends, the involvement fair, recruitment week, people who knew people,” Nelson
said.

Chapters at UWRF have required standards to join, each chapter is different but collectively as a whole have common standards.

“We’re all different but we’re the same at the same time,” Dalton said. “Grade point average is the No. 1 reason why people don’t get accepted.”

Greek life on campus collectively has a rule of a 3.0 grade point average minimum to join, though individual chapters may require higher.

“There’s a chapter for everyone,” Dalton said.

Recruitment for chapters are done in the fall and spring and varies depending on the chapter, according to the UWRF website. The website shows the Four Pillars of Greek Life being: friendship, scholarship, philanthropy and service. As a whole this is what UWRF Greek life values.