The Greek community plays a huge role here at the University of Ottawa. With 9 sororities and 4 fraternities, there is around 350 to 400 Greek members on our campus. Greek organizations host year round social and philanthropic events and are consistently on their feet giving back to the community while maintaining jobs, good academic standings and their positions in the Greek community.
But today, aside from discussing the wonderful things that the Greek community does for society, we are discussing something that is itching the brothers and the sisters of our campus Greek community: How society perceives them based on media. Just because someone says they are a fraternity brother does not mean they drink and party all day and haze students. Just because a girl might say she’s a sister from so and so sorority does not mean she’s the blondie from “House Bunny.” It’s more than that, being considered an official brother and or sister is about responsibility, leadership, well-being and charitable acts of kindness.
Sigma Chi International Brother Storm Davis and Alpha Phi International Sister Jayme Freeman will explain to you everything you need to know about the Greek community and how to break the stigma in which many are being misguided towards due to media or society’s perception.
Storm Davis
Program: 1st year in Criminology
Fraternity: Sigma Chi International
Jayme Freeman
Program: 3rd year in General Arts
Sorority: Alpha Phi International
HC: What sorts of stereotypes are out there that people may be misguided by the idea of joining a fraternity/sorority?
Jayme: People think that we pay for our friends, which is not true. When you join a fraternity or sorority you pay an amount at the beginning of the year which gets you into all the events that are hosted throughout the year. It covers the cost of what we, as sisters, would have to pay throughout the year all at once. People also think sororities/fraternities resemble ridiculous characters you see in movies today when in reality, the social aspect is just a small portion of what we do.
Storm: It’s true what people see in movies, they think that is the reality of being in the Greek community, but they’re wrong. We require our members to be above the standard academic requirements in regards to marks. The GPA of our brothers overall is 6.0, above the University student average. If a member does not obtain over a 5.5 GPA then they are banned from doing many of our social activities until they pull their grades up. Not only do we work hard but our foundation awards us for doing so. Each organization has different set of minimum GPA requirements so it’s not all the same. Yes we do enjoy social events and we do party on occasion like everyone else, but we truly do care about our philanthropy and academics and that is what we promote within our brotherhoods and sisterhoods.
HC: What is the difference between Fraternity and Sorority?
Jayme/Storm: Fraternities and Sororities are for anyone who self-identifies as a man or woman respectively. Although Alpha Phi believes that women should be able to have the same organizations as men, and hence why they are technically a Women’s Fraternity. Each fraternity and sorority have their own different set of rules and objectives they strive for. It also varies on account of local and international organizations and both kinds exist at uOttawa.
HC: Why is it important to you to break the stigma about Greek society?
Jayme: I think it is important to break the stigma because I hate it when I tell my friends I’m in a sorority and their immediate response is “You’re in a sorority?! You’re not a sorority girl?!” People believe being in a sorority is a negative thing, and judge me poorly for it, and it’s frustrating because they don’t even know everything we do. We’re raising awareness and doing charity work. Movies like “Neighbors” are very misleading and hinders our society.
Storm: The reason why it’s important is because Greek society is able to give back to its members in amazing ways. No matter what you do, you can put into your organization– and you receive that back. You are able to stay involved for the rest of your life. I want to break the stigma personally because not only is being in the Greek community great for friendship, networking, and academics but it takes every single club on campus and puts it into one super experience. That’s what a sorority/fraternity is like. There are differences from organization to organization, and chapter to chapter, but most of our Greek organizations will leave you with an amazing experience.
Jayme: Back when Alpha Phi was local we made our own rules and didn’t realize how upscale the international level was. We have rules in place, bylaws and constitution in terms of each chapter. People don’t realize we have these things set in place and that we govern ourselves in very specific and strict ways.
Storm: People think we have so much time on our hands but in reality being in the Greek community is very time consuming and time management is key to survival. We do so much in many aspects on campus. The stigma needs to be broken because even if people are not a part of Greek life they assume we are lazy and party, and they don’t realize what we do is tons of work.
HC: How does a typical fraternity/sorority function? (morals, objectives, philanthropy)
Jayme: Alpha Phi is about character development, leadership, academics, sisterhood, philanthropy, service, scholarship, loyalty, and love. Women’s heart health is under-talked about, heart health has always been a men’s topic but women overall suffer from heart disease more often than men so our sorority works closely with the women’s heart health institute and fundraise tons of money for the organization. We do our annual Red Dress gala which is a huge philanthropy event and at the end of the day these things affect all of us so we try to educate and bring issues to light.
Storm: Sigma Chi is about friendship, justice and learning. Friendship is that we want to build good bonds with our brothers, justice is on treating people and situations based on merit not loyalty, learning is about always striving to learn in every aspect of our lives as brothers. Our membership continues after we are done school and it is with us throughout our entire lives. Sigma Chi supports multiple organizations. We focus a lot on CHEO, who is the main organization we donate money to. The Ottawa Mission is also an organization we love to help, and to support them we host our annual Homeless For The Homeless event along with also helping out at the mission multiple times through the year. On an International level, Sigma Chi supports the Huntsman Cancer Institute, which is an amazing cancer research institute in the United States. Together, Sigma Chi has raised almost 2 million dollars for this Institute. Derby Days is our biggest charity event; it’s done across almost all of our chapters in North America. At uOttawa, the wonderful ladies of the sororities on campus take part in this multi-day event with the brothers of Sigma Chi, in which proceeds go to CHEO as well as 25% of the total money raised is donated to the winning charity of the winning Sorority’s choice. Last year we raised $ 10,000 and this year we successfully raised around $12, 000.
HC: How can students who know absolutely nothing about the Greek society be educated and discover what it’s actually about?
Storm: We have tabling at the beginning of every semester, if people were to come by they can find out what each sorority and fraternity is about. This year I was elected on the BOA for Social Science so I will be working closely with the SFUO to try and have discussion nights where people can go and find out more information; we will talk about things that the Greek community focuses on. Sigma Chi wants to reach out to parents as well. Parents sometimes think we are in cults and they aren’t fully aware of what we do, since dues and payments are often coming from our parents we want to let them know that we’re not wasting their money but instead putting it towards good things and that we, as brothers, are learning from our Fraternity experience.
Jayme: People underestimate how many people on campus are in the Greek community. Asking questions to people on campus with their Greek letters on is fine and should be done more often, we love talking about our organizations! Greek life is not for everyone but learning about it lets you understand and have respect for it.
So next time you see a Greek member don’t be afraid to ask them questions, don’t believe that everything the media depicts represents what being in the Greek society is really like. If more people were to ask questions, involved themselves in discussion groups and attended the tabling of each sorority and fraternity on campus then they could have more respect for the type of work each Sorority and Fraternity do for our campus and our community.
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