This week, we sat down with Mark Starr, the director of the Greek Life Office.

Community

The Greek Life Office is aiming to be more proactive when it comes to the campus community. First off, Greek Life is sponsoring a Culture of Care Summit, which is a conference led by Kim Novak, CEO of Novak Talks. The summit is being held on Feb. 14 and aims to discuss and encourage the development of a “culture of care” on college campuses. Several other campuses are sending representatives to sit in on the summit.

“The whole idea is that, instead of approaching it from a risk management angle, it’s focused on caring about people, taking better care of each other and being safer,” said Starr.

Greek Life is now requiring a bystander prevention training for all new Greek members with the ultimate goal of all Greek students going through an hour-and-a-half training session. To add to that, Greek Life also has a more advanced, full-day training program, accepting up to four people per chapter.

Pytte Cup

The Pytte Cup, an annual evaluation of the Greek Chapters on campus, is winding down to the awards. The evaluations, designed to give chapters feedback on what they’re doing right and what they can do to improve themselves, end with specific awards. The chapters who have successfully passed through the interview round of the evaluations are ramping up for the presentation round, which begins on Feb. 16.

OrgSync

The Greek Community is following several other campus organizations by switching to OrgSync. The benefits of getting all the chapters on the same page are numerous. It’s an ongoing process, and through the joint efforts of the Interfraternity Congress, Panhellenic Council and the Greek Life Office, it should be a relatively smooth transition.

Life After College

The Greek Community Education Consultants (GCCs) are planning a “Life After College” program. The GCCs are planning on introducing some elements of the program this semester. The GCC’s aim is working with students to connect academics to careers.

“They don’t just focus on how you can do better—but how is what you’re doing going to prepare you for life after college?” said Starr.

Expansion

Greek Life at CWRU is expanding rapidly. CWRU currently has 27 Greek groups, with the most recent additions being Sigma Sigma Sigma and Sigma Alpha Epsilon, the latter of which is returning from an eight-year suspension. The Greek Life Office hopes to see 51 percent of CWRU campus going Greek; however, it may not be long before we see that goal escalating to world domination, seeing as the 2013-2014 Greek Life Office Annual Report has nearly 39 percent of the campus population listed as already a member of the Greek Community.