Greek Life Interaction at NIU

As many may know, Greek life is a common interested shared among many students at Northern Illinois University. Greek life holds many benefits for students and allows individuals to get involved around their campus and college community. As a Greek participant myself i believe this to be true because my sorority opens new ways for me to get involved on campus, and opens my eyes to opportunities and new ways of bettering myself and my organization as a whole. Being in a sorority has allowed me to reach out to my community through community service participation and also through the participation in other Greek organization philanthropy events to help raise money and awareness for a various number of concerns. Greek life is a social structure that allows for diverse groups of people to come together and help to better our community and campus life. Social Interaction between organizations are strongly encouraged among Greeks because in order to be a Greek community we must interact with one another to spread word about dates, to set up events, and to collaborate ideas on ways to better our Greek organizations and Northern Illinois University as a whole. Greek life is an open door of opportunity for new college students to allow for social interactions between individuals which whom you share many common interests with, as well as, social interactions between diverse groups that allow for our NIU campus to inter mingle and reach out to others to make a difference. However, NIU Greek life is being altered and changed very drastically over the past couple of years. I personally believe that some of these changes are not for the better. Our Greek community is becoming very competitive for reasons that are due to the unreasonable rules set by SILD, It is unfair for some organizations that have to suffer at the expense of what others have wrongfully done. Being stripped of our traditions is causing some to point fingers at others in order to ensure blame on someone. This is causing rivalries between our small Greek family. I think that instead of stripping Northern Illinois University of its Greek traditions, we should instead impose rules in a fair way in order to ensure that no harm will be done in the future. I also believe that if an organizations decided to break the rules that they should solely have to face the consequences. Greek life and social interactions at NIU could be changed and strengthened for the better if those in charge would see that imposing harsh rules on sororities and fraternities is not the answer. Instead being understanding, fair, and willing to hear out our Greek Community will strengthen us all and allow us to come together instead of putting us up against each other. As each organization is required to follow the bylaws and rules given to us by the university we should not have to suffer unfair consequences such as the removal of Greek life traditions that have been passed down through generations. This is unfair to our community that is working towards the better of our  society and involvement at Northern. In order to ensure the growing numbers of Greek members and strong social interactions on our campus we must stand for the right of our organizations and collaborate as a whole in order to pursue movement in the right direction.

Ways to enforce better rules and steps towards restrengthening our Greek Community:

http://www.niu.edu/studentinvolvement/fraternity_sorority_life/policies/Chapter%20Success%20Plans.shtml

http://www.niu.edu/studentinvolvement/