Name: Jen Hartley
Class: Sophomore (Class of 2017)
Major: I’m currently declared Public Policy, and I’m planning to design my own secondary major in the Psychology of Gender and Race.
Hometown: Gaithersburg, MD
Activities: Alpha Chi Omega Social Chair, Campus Buddies Co-Presdient, Panhellenic VP of Community Service, Head Peer Scholarship Advisor at the Charles Center
Favorite Tradition at the College: Arc Carnival! This was the 16th year that William & Mary Greek life has put on a day of fun and games for the Arc of Greater Williamsburg clients, and I love seeing how happy everyone (students and clients alike) is during the event.
You participate in a lot of organizations on campus that focus on volunteering. How do you mobilize students in order to give back to the community? I think that you mobilize people by motivating them, and by giving them the “why” of what you would like them to take part in. Of course everyone loves the idea of community service, but William & Mary students are very busy, and it can be hard to balance giving back with everything else going on. We all want to spend our time productively, so it becomes a lot easier to get people to volunteer for a cause you’re advocating for when you can tell them this is who and what you’re impacting.
I know you also are very involved in the Panhellenic community. Why did you decide to rush and in what ways has Greek life enriched your time at the College? I decided to rush because there wasn’t really any reason for me not to. I do not come from a heavily Greek family, so I didn’t know much about Greek life upon entering W&M. I actually knew so little that during my first round of recruitment, it took me about 20 minutes to figure out that the women were introducing each other as “sister” in the sorority sense, and that they were not all biologically related. I was not sure that I was going to follow through all the way to bid day as I embarked upon my recruitment journey, but I appreciate the way that our system is set up here in the way that I did not have to commit to anything early on. I am the only student from my high school at William & Mary, so I was looking for a way to join a community that was larger than just my freshman hall. I have found that community and so much more both within my individual chapter, the Panhellenic community, and the Greek community as a whole. Greek life has enriched my time here at the College immensely with loyal friendships and leadership and service opportunities.
What stereotypes about Greek life would you like to see broken? I don’t appreciate the notion that Greeks are any less motivated to engage with their studies and their community, especially because some of the most inspiring and driven people I know are part of our Greek community. I also really hate when people imply that Greeks “pay for their friends.” Paying dues to a chapter is no different than paying to be part of any other club, and that money funds a whole bunch of different things.
If you could start one tradition at the College, what would it be? Hmm, this is a hard one. I love all of the traditions that bring our whole community together, like Convocation and Yule log, and would love to see a campus-wide day of service where everyone could take a break from classes and spend time cleaning up campus and volunteering with local organizations.