She’s the one of the first people you meet when you go through sorority recruitment and visited your house, she welcomed you home at Bid Day and handles everything in between. That’s right. We’re talking sorority Chapter Presidents. What it’s like to be a sorority president is something that every member wonders about at least once or twice, so Her Campus at the University of Utah set out to solve the mystery by interviewing Alpha Chi Omega’s outgoing 2016 Chapter President, Sara Shreeve.
Sara Shreeve is just finishing up her term as Chapter President and spoke of a bittersweet feeling as she is met with the reality that it is all coming to an end. Chapter President is something that truly takes over your life (or at least 30 hours a week of it). Daily tasks include responding to millions of emails and texts you receive (said as she chuckled about not being able to sit through one class without receiving something), meeting with your executive board, preparing for and attending other meetings, and coordinating with the Panhellenic Council and the University. It’s not all-official office business though, and her favorite part of the job was making a difference in how her Chapter is run. Sara was able to improve her sororities relations on the Row, lead her Chapter with the help of her Greek-week chairs to victory and increase the number of sisterhood and exchange events that were mandatory making the chapter tighter knit.
With all of that to do, my next obvious question had to be, was it hard to manage your time?? She replied that initially it was- especially between school and being involved in other things on campus like ASUU, but eventually she got the hang of it and learned to say no when she had things like school that needed to take precedent.
Being Chapter President isn’t all fun and games and like anything in life, there are times when it gets tough. She recalled that the hardest thing to handle was the criticism. When you are leading a group of 100+ women, criticism is bound to occur and unfortunately when you are Chapter President, it tends to all get lofted on to you. Sara learned to take it with stride, though, and hear it as constructive criticism and suggestions, rather than personally negative towards her.
However, those tough times definitely are outweighed by the good and she could not be more grateful for this experience. The thing she said she’ll miss the most is helping the exec board plan events and making sure everything runs smoothly. She talked about the great feeling when you help put time and effort into an event and it pays off, and I think every leader on campus can identify with this feeling.
We are so proud of Sara Shreeve and all of the exiting sorority Presidents at the University of Utah! We wish good luck to the next round of leaders on the U’s Row!