Campus explodes with excitement this week as curious students get a taste of what FIU’s 42 fraternities and sororities have to offer. Every day, members will be mingling in the Graham Center and outside of Tamiami Hall at MMC as well as at BBC and online to talk up the benefits of joining.
“During college, you’re trying to figure out what you want to do with your life, who you are, all this stuff,” says Miguel Sobera, a proud brother of Pi Kappa Alpha. “Greek life just opens up a lot of avenues when it comes to leadership and developing yourself as a human going into the real world.”
The sophomore hospitality major credits membership with expanding both his social circle and opportunities for growth. His brothers are the friends he can hang with at a moment’s notice, he says, who encourage him to put himself out there even as he helps shyer guys break free of their shells.
And the roles that have come his way – from positions within his 90-member frat to, currently, president of the governing body that represents 14 fraternity chapters at FIU – have prepped him for future success by teaching him to interact with all kinds of people and to prioritize service to others. “You just learn how to be a better human,” he says.
UNIVERSITY SUPPORT
FIU has invested in fraternity and sorority life in recent years precisely because of its proven potential to enhance students’ experience on campus and get them ready for bigger things ahead, says Stephen Dominy, a lifelong Alpha Tau Omega who leads efforts to strengthen Greek life.
“A lot of students are trying to find what’s going to plug them into FIU,” Dominy says. People are looking to be part of something bigger than themselves, he explains, and going Greek can get them there. “It’s about finding a network of people,” he explains, “my study group, my friend group, my I-want-to-do-activities-with group, my I-want-to-do-community-service group.”
Students choose a particular sorority or fraternity for any number of reasons. Some join because their existing friends and roommates already belong, others are drawn to ones that focus on a particular academic discipline or interest– such as Theta Tau fraternity and Phi Sigma Rho sorority (engineering), Sigma Alpha Iota sorority and Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia fraternity (music) and Phi Delta Epsilon fraternity (premed) – or because of members’ shared cultural background, such as Hispanic heritage (Lambda Theta Alpha fraternity) and Asian heritage (LUMI, an “interest group” on its way to becoming a sorority chapter).
Recognizing the positive power of Greek organizations on both the individual and the greater community, FIU last fall opened the Center for Fraternity and Sorority Enrichment. The first of its kind on a Florida campus, the center emphasizes leadership training and career readiness. It provides support to chapters and their governing councils and offers members personal-development workshops and other programming on topics such as mental health promotion and drug and alcohol abuse prevention.
