One Common String: Greek Life

$56,939 Raised for philanthropies

$9,080 Donated to a CMU student

1,200 Students

27 Organizations

1 Common String

Greek Life.

Those two words. Simple, but can offer a world of new opportunities, but can also scare someone away, just as easy. Greek life is an ever changing interest among colleges across the nation, but have you ever looked into the history and life of Greeks on Central Michigan University’s campus?

According to the Fraternity and Sorority Life Orgsync Website, Greek life started on CMU’s campus in 1902 with the chartering of Alpha Sigma Tau. It was followed by Sigma Tau Gamma, and a currently inactive chapter of Phi Sigma Kappa. The most recent chapter to charter at CMU is Pi Kappa Phi in 2010. However, that chapter originally was brought to campus in 1956 but closed in 1975.

Looking at the above figures, the $56,939 was raised by the sororities alone for their philanthropies during the 2010-2011 school year and the $9,080 was raised through penny wars during Greek Week 2011 for fellow CMU student, Kyle Nicholson, who was diagnosed with leukemia. Greek Life also makes up around 5% of CMU’s campus, making it the largest amount of students in one type of organization.

Did you know that each fall, around 350 women sign up for formal recruitment, though less than that actually accepts a bid and joins an organization? According to Tom Idema, Director of Student Life for CMU, there has been an increase over the year for Greek Life, which has been seen in the addition of Pi Kappa Phi Fraternity last spring.

“We just added Pi Kappa Phi on campus,” said Idema, “We are even thinking of adding another Men’s group.”

Idema also spoke about how the Greek Community would only add other groups, when all the organizations were about even in numbers and then they could all grow together. Yet, that it is a more difficult process to add a sorority than adding fraternities.

“When it comes to fraternities, all you have to do is contact their nationals that you are interested, but for a sorority, you have to fill out an application and give them statistics for the last three years,” said Idema.

Greek Life has been a part of this campus for 109 years, and it is still continuing to grow. If anyone has any questions regarding Greek life, please feel free to contact the Office of Student Life in the lower level of the University Center.