Loving Your Sisters Across Greek Row
Pan Love!! We hear it all the time and are expected as Greek women to have it. But what is it? And how can we make it genuine?
I remember going through recruitment in Fall of 2017 and seeing the women with the backpacks, clipboards, and walkie talkies running around like madwomen trying to ensure every girl got in the right party and that no one was dying of a heat stroke. I remember thinking to myself, “Geez, they must really hate their chapter if they would rather be out here in the sun than inside with their sisters.” I soon found out how wrong I was. Those women were out there for one reason and one reason only: they loved Panhellenic. They wanted each and every one of us to fall in love with the right chapter for us because they knew how lifechanging a Panhellenic sisterhood could be.
Fast forward two years and I was the Gamma Chi with the clipboard and the backpack and then a year after, I found myself on the Panhellenic Executive Council. I would have never thought on Bid Day when I ran home to Chi Omega that I could love all 8 (soon to be 9!) chapters on this campus in some way. But, I am sitting here as a senior telling you that I do and that you can and should too. We have to realize that loving every chapter and exuding Pan Love does not mean wishing you were in a different sorority or thinking less of your own. Pan Love looks like recognizing and appreciating that you love your chapter for the same reasons another woman loves hers.
I love Chi Omega. I love grabbing lunch at the house, going to church on Sundays with my sisters, and collaborating on date party outfit ideas with women who also bleed cardinal and straw. These things are great, but the main reason I love Chi Omega is because it is the perfect sisterhood for ME. This part of Pan Love is easy. Of course you love your own chapter, it is why you ran home there on Bid Day! But this kind of love can often lead to a superiority complex and unhealthy arrogance surrounding your sisters. Instead, Pan Love looks like recognizing that every chapter on this campus was some other woman’s perfect fit. For the same reasons we all love Chi Omega is why hundreds of other women love Alpha Delta Pi, Pi Beta Phi, Phi Mu, Delta Delta Delta, Zeta Tau Alpha, Kappa Delta, and Delta Gamma.
Our Panhellenic community is not a competition to see who the BEST sorority is on this campus. Instead it is an empowering body of women who have found a loving sisterhood somewhere on Robert Louis Jones Circle/Drive. So, how can we as Chi Omegas take our love for our chapter and extend it to the entire Panhellenic community? Here are some things I learned during my time on Panhellenic Exec that I hope can be helpful.
1. Make friends in other chapters. Not acquaintances. Not people you just sit next to in class. Real, genuine, intentional friends. Not only my experience in Chi O, but my ENTIRE college experience changed for the better when I became close with women all down the row. Seeing their love for their chapter makes you not only fall in love with their home, but makes you appreciate your own home as well.
2. Remove toxic Greek life language from your vocabulary. Stop referring to chapters as “top tier” or “irrelevant.” How would you feel if someone said that about our own sisterhood? The way you feel about Chi Omega is valid and so are the feelings of every other woman in our Panhellenic community. When you realize that no chapter is better than another but rather, Chi Omega was the best chapter FOR YOU, your entire view of Greek life will be changed for the better.
3. Keep up to date with events all down the row! Educate yourself on what other chapters are doing and support their efforts! Go to other chapter’s philanthropy events, hype up their social medias, and go to their benefit nights around town! These seemingly small actions will help rid our community of its competitive nature and instead create an environment of support and girl-power!
Finally, remember that empowered women empower other women. Panhellenic is not just Chi Omega. Loving Panhellenic does not mean we love Chi Omega any less! At the end of the day, loving Panhellenic will only enhance the love we have for our home we call Chi O!
