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By U-Jin Lee
Correspondent
When in Rome, do as the Romans do, but when in college, do as the Greeks do. Spring at the College means one thing to many — a weeklong merriment known as Greek Week. For all of the proud, Greek-lettered students, this annual celebration is a chance for fraternities and sororities to come together and participate in both indoor and outdoor activities to show off their enthusiasm and leadership skills.
“Being able to come out and support TCNJ Greek life on behalf of your organization is really something special that we take seriously. It’s something everyone looks forward to all year, and the school spirit is evident by the strong support for each competition,” said Michael Rosen of Phi Kappa Tau, junior criminology major and last year’s Greek Man of the Year.
Widespread among many colleges and universities, Greek Week was held from Monday, April 9 through Thursday, April 12. Inter-Greek Council members and the Greek Week committee came together for an hour every Thursday to arrange and organize the activities.
“We’ve been working hard since the end of winter break to decide how to plan events and where to host them,” said Claire
Huynh, sophomore history major and the vice president of programming for the Inter-Greek Council. We try to improve it every year by looking at activities that worked in the previous years and activities that didn’t work.
Competing in various activities, one sorority and one fraternity had to pair up with each other and choose a theme. Some of this year’s themes included “Hunger Games,” “Artificial Intelligence,” Zombie Apocalypse, Occupy Wall Street and “Jersey Shore.”
“With over 1,200 people in Greek Life, we are the largest organization on campus. That’s why this event is such a huge deal for us,” said Huynh, a sister of Theta Phi Alpha.
In addition to the competitive aspects of Greek Week, the organizations worked together to also give back to the community through philanthropic events. This week’s Greek Week participants hosted a canned food drive, where numerous cans were collected and then donated to Trenton Area Soup Kitchen.
While giving back to the community, there were also educational aspects to Greek Week, such as nutritional handouts in the Rathskeller.
The most popular events included the Greek God/Goddess pageant and Airband, a dance competition. Other diverse activities included outdoor field events like hula hooping, a potato sack race, “Mission Impossible,” relay race, a water balloon toss and beach volleyball.
“What I really like most about Greek Week is the hype and excitement that is created by all of the different organizations. These games and events give a chance for us to be competitive again and relive those field day moments we had as children,” said Nora Heck, junior nursing major and sister of Kappa Delta.
Teams earned participation and placement points for each activity throughout the week, if they ranked. On the last day of the week, points were added to determine winners for various categories.
Freshman marketing major and sister of Kappa Delta, Tara Bitterly said, “Although it was nerve-wrecking at first, Mission Impossible actually ended up being possible through teamwork and perseverance with my sisters. There were these little rubber blocks and the whole point was to use communication skills to come up with a strategical way to solve a problem. There were cones from one side to another. The point was to use rubber blocks to move team members from one side to another without touching the feet on the ground.”
This week kicked off with the Open Mic event, held on April 9 in the Brower Student Center Atrium at 11 a.m. Performers flaunted their talents by singing or playing an instrument.
Greek God/Goddess, was held in room 202 East of the student center, where representatives from each sorority and fraternity dressed up in their personally crafted togas and acted out a talent.
Winners were announced in the student center on April 12, after the Airband event. The overall sorority winner was Delta Phi Epsilon, the overall fraternity winner was Phi Alpha Delta, and the overall Greek Week winner was team Kappa Delta and Phi Alpha Delta.
Said Maxwell Bernstein, president of Inter-Greek Council and brother of Phi Alpha Delta, “I’m really proud of our achievements … events ran smoothly and you could tell everyone wanted to get involved and show school spirit.”
