Greek life plans to stay safe and social

Despite the pandemic, FMU’s Greek life is making changes to expand their presence on campus.

“What we are trying to do is revitalize and re-energize the Greek system on campus,” said vice president for student life and professor of history Christopher Kennedy.

FMU is working on bringing back certain Greek organizations that are not on campus, such as the Delta’s, and have already invited one organization back.

“We just brought back the Pikes,” Kennedy said. “And they are colonizing a village right now.”

Kennedy said the SAE, a national fraternity, will be coming to interview and see if they want to come to FMU.

So far FMU has introduced a Greek village and Greek housing in the Village apartments on campus.

The Office of Student Life has ordered the letters for the participating Greek organizations and should be getting the letters put up on their buildings soon.

Of the more than five fraternities and sororities on campus, only four of them have Greek housing.

Student life specialist Kevin Shupp said FMU opened the opportunity to all of the fraternities and sororities, but based on some of the responses they received they were only able to cater to four of them.

“We originally wanted to have at least one apartment per organization,” Shupp said. “But we are hoping to grow and expand it.”

Kennedy said that plans to create a Greek council with NPHC, NPC and IFC are also in the making.

“We want to bring back the Greek games, the chariot races and all sorts of stuff,” Kennedy says.

FMU hopes that enhancing Greek life on campus will bring student participation to an all-time high and form more leaders on campus.

“The Greeks traditionally had been leaders on our campus,” Kennedy said. “Hopefully socially, academically, everything like that.”

Kennedy also said that by making the Greek presence bigger at FMU, it will build inclusion among the students.

“There is actually a Greek chapter for everyone,” Kennedy says. “There is NPC, NPHC the IFC and I think it will make our university as a whole a stronger more vibrant university.”

Shupp said that investing in Greek life encourages students to live, interact and participate on campus.

Due to COVID-19, the Student Life Office has had to put a hold on some of the activities they planned to have with Greeks, but say they are planning to hold them in the spring.

“We are looking to have some big water event,” Shupp said. “That was something Dr. Kennedy and I were looking to happen in the spring. It was going to be this huge water day.”

FMU had been planning Greek housing and the reintroduction of Greek life for the last year.

“This has been a year and a half in the works; meeting with people, coming up with things we can do and bouncing them off people has been a lot of work,” Shupp said.

By next year, the Student Life Office hopes to be able to expand Greek housing to even more than just one building.