Greek Week

[3xbetter88]

Hey All,

My university recently got rid of greek week and want to rework the whole thing. I was wondering if you all could tell me about greek week at your schools. Is there a philanthropic aspect? What kind of events are there? Which are most successful? Least successful?

Thanks so much for your input

[jennyj87]

At my school we do a skit/dance night, make banners to hang in the union, greek olympics and for our philanthropy event the last two years we've done canned food but in the past we've done locks for love and blood donations.

[JohnnyCash]

My school had discontinued Greek Week for a few years because there would always be fights or incidents among GLOs. They then brought a watered down, "non-competitive" version back and chapters just weren't feeling it and participation was low, so I'm pretty sure they've done away with it completely since we didn't have Greek Week this past Spring. (Our version of GW is Homecoming anyway).

Anyway, the "panhellenic/interfraternal" version we last had of Greek Week paired many organizations from all 4 councils together. Usually about 4 or 5 GLOs per team. The most competitive thing was Brain Bowl- a trivia game about local Greek history. There were also service projects, an all-Greek mixer, some other stuff. I don't remember too well because my chapter took it as a big joke, as did many other organizations.

I would say just get rid of GW altogether if your faculty refuses to have a traditional, competitive type of Greek Week.

Watered down versions are usually seen as a joke by the larger, competitive organizations and lack support from many chapters. And if this is the case, there is no point in having Greek Week at all, in my opinion.

/rant
My alumni are always saying how this generation is so damn politically correct and has a "everyone is a winner" mentality, and its true. It sucks and people are just too sensitive nowadays.

Doing away with traditional Greek Week is doing away with something that has been a staple of Greek life for many decades. It's disheartening and it only furthers the gap between older generation of Greeks and younger generations.
/end rant

[fumblerooski]

Ours was fun and competitive, but to keep it from getting too competitive we were given "spirit" points for cheering for other fraternities and sororities. Greek Week was a ton of fun and I don't think we had any problems. Here were the events:

Day 1: Outdoor- golf cart push, 3 legged race, water balloon toss, kickball, cornhole. Day 2: Auditorium- Academic Bowl, Variety Show, bubblegum pie. Day 3: Pool games- Wet clothes relay, water polo, best dive, biggest splash, best synchronized dive. Day 4: Gym games- obstacle course, human pyramid, dodgeball, tug of war. Day 5: Varsity Gym games- InterFraternity/Sorority Volleyball, Knock out, dizzy bat, potato sack race. Day 6: LipSync (biggest event of greek week). Day 7: Awards.

Throughout the week we also had other side stuff like penny wars, pop tabs, best banner, best window painting, canned food drive, and best greek week shirt.

[IrishLake]

HOLY cow, fumble... you guys do a LOT!!!

[fumblerooski]

Ya but it's so much fun. Balancing school, Greek Week, and track was definitely very difficult.

[33girl]

Originally Posted by JohnnyCash

My school had discontinued Greek Week for a few years because there would always be fights or incidents among GLOs. They then brought a watered down, "non-competitive" version back and chapters just weren't feeling it and participation was low, so I'm pretty sure they've done away with it completely since we didn't have Greek Week this past Spring. (Our version of GW is Homecoming anyway).

Anyway, the "panhellenic/interfraternal" version we last had of Greek Week paired many organizations from all 4 councils together. Usually about 4 or 5 GLOs per team. The most competitive thing was Brain Bowl- a trivia game about local Greek history. There were also service projects, an all-Greek mixer, some other stuff. I don't remember too well because my chapter took it as a big joke, as did many other organizations.

I would say just get rid of GW altogether if your faculty refuses to have a traditional, competitive type of Greek Week.

Watered down versions are usually seen as a joke by the larger, competitive organizations and lack support from many chapters. And if this is the case, there is no point in having Greek Week at all, in my opinion.

/rant
My alumni are always saying how this generation is so damn politically correct and has a "everyone is a winner" mentality, and its true. It sucks and people are just too sensitive nowadays.

Doing away with traditional Greek Week is doing away with something that has been a staple of Greek life for many decades. It's disheartening and it only furthers the gap between older generation of Greeks and younger generations.
/end rant

Totally agree with this. Yeah, have the big banquet or mixer at the end of the week so everyone can hug and say "bygones" but if all of Greek week is just going to be a touchy-feely thing (and I don't mean touchy-feely in the boom chicka wow wow sense) then it's pointless to waste the time on it.

[pshsx1]

I agree with JC too.

Our Greek Adviser has threatened to cancel GW a few times b/c of GLO drama.

But, we've had it every Spring!

Actually, we also have Winter Carnival (during Spring Rush) which adds points to Greek Week. WC and GW games are different every year and are voted on a few weeks prior. Some of the games can be Musical Chairs, Home Run Derby, Freethrow, Egg Toss, White Castle Case Race, Pudding Drop, Toilet Paper Race, Snow Sculpture, Obstacle Course, Orange Race, and others.

On Tuesday during GW this year, IFC hosted an Ice Cream Social with a ton of really good ice cream (not just vanilla, chocolate, and swirl) and gave it all away for free. We went through 30 gallons!!!
On Thursday of GW, Students Planning Activities Monthly hosted comedians Hard n' Phirm.
Friday of Greek Week is always Song & Skit.
Saturday, the final day, is Greek Day. GD is a day long, super competitive event. Some of the events are car push, toilet bowl race, mattress race, keg toss, three-legged race, water balloon toss, and the final, and always regarded as the most important event, Tug of War.

It's a really tense week and there's absolutely NO Greek Unity during it, but that's what it's all about!!

[texas_09]

Ours is fun and philanthropic!...There's a 4-square tourney to raise money for St. Judes, a Greek Week speaker (usually something along the lines of leadership/academics), Lip-Sync Competition which is where the fraternities and sororities that were paired with each other for greek week literally lipsync and dance to songs, ours was pretty amaXIng if i do say so myself, a school supplies drive, and of course the best-a greek decathalon which includes a basketball shootout, dizzybat race, sand volleyball, and the funnest one: a river raft race. Yes, we have a river running through campus-gotta love central texas!
Then the awards are handed out the week after!

[ADPiKT]

Greek Week at my school is a huge deal, and all the proceeds from event goes to a philanthropy, like Habitat for Humanity. Some of our events are

Step Show
Line Dance
Lip Sync
Recycling contest throughout the week. (fraternities always win)
and a greek version of the Amazing Race.

Hope this helps!

[carynie13]

Our Greek Week this past year was amazing. This year each fraternity/sorority pairing was given a different philanthropy to raise money for over our, in fact, 3 weeks of Greek Week. We also held a canned food drive and penny drive for our local food bank. Also, we had our blood drive, but this year the rules were changed to have more people outside of Greek life giving. Also during the weeks, we have sports competitions with traditional sports. Every year there is a surprise competition, which this year was a quiz bowl. We also have our fling night, which are plays from each pairing that tied in both their philanthropy and the assigned children's story, which was the overall theme. We also have a few volunteering events that span throughout a day of Greek Week. Needless to say, it's a pretty big deal at my school and gets very competitive!

[Ottawa]

I know this thread is pretty dead as it hasn't been replied to in a while, but I just wanted to share the events that we put on at our school.
In Ottawa we have a big greek community that combines both of the cities univeristies. We don't have a greek week, instead we have a weekend called greek olympics. Our greek organizations are not run by our respected universities, so for our Greek Olympics they are run and organized by the CUGC (Carleton University Greek Council) OUGC (University of Ottawa Greek Council) and the Social Council (Made up of all 23 of the organization's Social Chairs/Reps. And all the events are Sorority vs. Sorority and Fraternity Vs. Fraternity.

Starting on the friday we have a bottle drive (alcohol bottles are the only ones we can recycle in Ontario) and the Organization that collects the most money wins (All the money is donated to the Boys and Girls Club) each organization collects between 100-400 dollars each.
On friday night we have our first real competitive events at a bar in the downtown area and we compete in Flip Cup and Boat Races.
The next day (Saturday) we go to the beach and compete in Volleyball, Keg Toss, and Dodgeball.
The night events on Saturday are comprised of Fooseball, Pool and the most popular: Air Bands (basically each organizaiton choreographs a dance to up to 2 songs that are choosen based on a theme appointed by the social council, For boys it's mostly just a ham show, but for the girls it's something that we will work on for the whole week leading up to the weekend) The airbands are judged bythe social council. The winners of the t-shirt competition are also announced that night (each organization wears matching shirts that either say how awesome they are or how much better they are then everyone else, there are some REALLY funny and creative ones each year.)
Sunday afternoon we go to the park and play soccer/hockey (girls play soccer, boys play road hockey) football, and tug of war.
Sunday night we go to the bar again and play beirut/beerpong (winner of the coin toss decides if they want to play with pong balls or quaters) video games (the game is choosen a week in advanced, this year it was ddr, but in the past it has been wii golf, mario kart, ect.) and quarters.
Each event your organization participates in is worth 1 point, 3rd place is worth 2, 2nd is worth 3 and 1st is worth 4.

Of course not everone can get along, so in order to maintain some sort of control over the events each organization is required to write a "fight-cheque" if over the course of the weekend someone in the organization fights someone or causes trouble (there have been cases of beer being thrown at the end of competitions when people aren't happy with the outcome, haha) their fight cheque gets cashed (it of course goes to the girls and boys club).

I look forward to this event everyear and it's a fantastic way to bring out alumni and
it's a great weekend of event that is the highlight of the social calendar for the whole year, it's a great way of promoting inter-greek relations, and intrioducing your new pledge class to the greek world.