College is about finding yourself, pursuing your passions, personal growth, finding lifelong friends and enjoying their years in college – all of which Doane Greek Life provides its current members and could provide you.
There are a lot of stereotypes out there about fraternities and sororities because of movies, news headlines and rumors. However, for every negative stereotype or event, people hear about Greek groups, I can guarantee there are multiple positive stories that get overshadowed.
Doane Greek groups have higher average grade point averages than the institutional average, and this is very common at many universities. According to SeattlePI article “What Impact Do Fraternities have on Education”, 71% of all Greek individuals at the University of Missouri in Kansas City graduated from the university, whereas only 50% of the independent population did.
Not only do Greek members do well in school, but many prominent members in society also tend to be a part of Greek groups. SeattlePI reported that every president since 1825, except for two, donned Greek letters from their institution. 85% of Supreme Court Justices since 1910 have also been members of organizations at their respective schools.
This success extends further than just government, 85% of Fortune 500 lead executives were a part of the Greek system, with 43 of the 50 largest corporations being headed by a former fraternity or sorority member.
I am not naive enough to think that Greek life is for everyone. There is a time demand, a need for there to be a desire to be a part of an organization larger than oneself and often time rules on behavior for members within groups.
However, I think that a large portion of people who do not rush groups do so because of the negative stigma there is out there. I firmly believe that if everyone spent some time getting to know the different groups on campus – especially here at Doane – they may realize it is something they would really enjoy and be happy with.
Doane’s Greek Life is different than a lot of the stereotypical groups people think about.
First off, all nine of our organizations on campus are local chapters, meaning they do not have a national charter and they can only be found at Doane.
This is a great thing because often times a chapter can do something wrong or negative at their university and it will have a huge repercussion for a chapter across the country that wasn’t even involved in it.
Another thing that is unique at Doane is we only rush in the spring.
I think this is an important trait of our school’s Greek life because it allows potential members to spend an entire semester getting to know members from every group and see what they are like in and out of school.
Being from Las Vegas, a city that never sleeps and drinking and drugs are the images everyone thinks of, joining a fraternity was never on my mind.
I figured if my older brother, who went to school at the University of Nevada at Las Vegas and was also a much bigger partier than I was in high school, didn’t rush a group, that there was no chance I would.
Then I came to Doane and spent my whole first semester around all these successful Greek life members and realized they had a lot of values that I shared – and that they had the drive to become something in life. And that was a big part of why I rushed.
And reasons above are why everyone should at least check out Greek Life.
I’m not saying everyone should rush – trust me I know it is not for everyone.
However, so many people refuse to even think about rushing solely based on stereotypes – so why not take some time and get to know the members and organization before making that judgment?
