JONATHAN “YONI”  MANN

Alpha Epsilon Pi (AEPi) Alumni, Former Recruitment Chair for the Interfraternity Council (IFC)

In response to “The Greek society’s philanthropy apathy”

Dear author and fellow Greeks, remember this is just another opinion piece and not the view of the Daily Sundial.

The author attempts to highlight the positives of Greek life, which is more than the average non-Greek student knows, but unfortunately still has much more to learn about the Greek community.

The author could’ve done more to include what non-Greek organizations are doing for charities in order to put things into better perspective. I don’t expect her to write about how wonderful Greek life is, it’s not her role to do so; she’s never experienced it. Question: Why single out Greeks in the first place?

People don’t join the Greek system to volunteer at an animal shelter. The unfortunate truth is that ONLY 30% of students nationwide volunteer and within that statistic the likelihood increases if the student is involved in an organization, such as a fraternity or sorority (NationalService.Gov).

What attracts students to the Greek system is a combination of social, leadership, personal development, networking, philanthropy, and strong brotherhood/sisterhood/lifelong friendships.

If anything, joining the Greek system will involve those students in charity work who might’ve not participated and volunteered in a philanthropy otherwise. Fraternities and sororities are encouraging toward participation in philanthropies. Alpha Phi and ZBT do considerable amounts of charity work for the outside community and they should be recognized for that, along with the rest of the Greek community. Unfortunately, this isn’t the case for the majority of campus organizations.

We Greeks, should ask why an individual would even write an opinion piece like this? I suspect the negative stereotypes of Greeks in the media influenced and motivated the author to write this article. How can we better educate the campus community on what Greek life is TRULY about?

I am thankful and grateful for freedom of the press and think us Greeks should take advantage of it more often! The Sundial is usually encouraging of different student voices. Unfortunately, this is the voice of the non-Greek student expressing her perspective on our community.

Let our Greek voices be heard.