Welcome back to Capital, my fellow students. It’s the spring semester, a time when the ground freezes (though it has yet to), snow falls (barely), and Seniors recognize the finite amount of time they have left (OH CRAP).
Among all of the pandemonium of everyday life, Greek Life dives headlong into recruitment. The tagline of Capital’s Greek Life, Be Great. Be Greek., is displayed proudly for all of Capital’s student body to see.
Unfortunately, I’ve always been a bit offended by this tagline.
I feel that Be Great. Be Greek. does little more than perpetuate a negative stereotype of Greek Life that I believe still exists on campus today, as it did when I was a non-affiliated until last year.
Simply put, I have noticed a mentality of “holier than thou because I’m Greek” persisting through many areas of Cap’s Greek Life that I find discouraging.
I can’t count how many times I’ve heard or seen a member of the Greek community talk in a way that would insinuate they are better than non-members of the Greek community.
I hate to break it to you, but being in Greek Life doesn’t make us better than anyone else.
You can sit and claim that having a group of brothers or sisters to always support you is a positive, and I would agree with you. I cannot agree with a person believing or saying “I wear letters, so I’m x y or z” (forgive my paraphrasing).
You don’t have to be great to be Greek, and being Greek doesn’t make you great. As someone who spent a good deal of time looking into the Greek community from afar, the group of people who put themselves on a pedestal ruined the entire idea of Greek Life for me.
I’m sure there are many students out there who Greek Life could benefit from, but they view Greek Life the same way I did when I was in their position so they choose to stay away. This is a bad thing.
I’ll be the first to admit that I have met some amazing people through Greek Life, but I have met the same amount of great people who wouldn’t go near Greek Life if you paid them.
My suggestion to the Greek community is to drop the pedestal mentality, and the first step would be to drop the tagline of Be Great. Be Greek.
As for a replacement tagline? I’m not a very creative person, so I can’t think of anything off hand. I CAN make the suggestion of something that shows the throngs of people in Greek Life that are accepting of the Capital community, be they Greek or not.
There are large percentages of people in Greek Life at Capital who are truly amazing. They’re nice, humble, and generally accepting. Drop the tagline, and let those people be the forefront, not those who look down upon the non-affiliated masses at Capital. Be Great. Be Yourself.
