The past year has been highly successful for the Mines Greek community. At the Fraternity/Sorority Awards Reception in February, members of the seven fraternities and three sororities were honored for their philanthropic achievements in the last year. As a whole, the ten chapters raised over $10,000 for charity, and matched this accomplishment with over 10,000 hours of community service. That’s more than 416 full days of service, or about 1 day per member of the Greek community.

Order of Omega’s (Greek Leadership Honor Society) Castle of Cans also collected nearly four tons of food, all of which was donated to the Golden Food Bank. The competition, which involves building elaborate structures with canned food, was made possible thanks to participation from student organizations and Greek houses. The amount of food was more than double that collected in the previous year. Structure building awards were given as follows: Residence Hall Association took top honors with the best overall structure, most cans, and most weight of food collected. InterVarsity Christian Fellowship came up with the most creative structure.

Seven of the ten Greek chapters were awarded four stars in the CSM ALPHA program, which promotes incentive and achievement in the Greek community in the areas of academics, leadership, philanthropy, house management, and activities. For full ALPHA results and rankings, visit Greek Life on the Student Activities website.

Outstanding individuals in Greek life were honored at the reception: Shaughnessey Winkelhake, CSM Alumna and member of Pi Beta Phi was recognized as Advisor of the Year; Hunter Dunham (Sigma Alpha Epsilon), Jessica DeBlois (Sigma Kappa), Megan Gift (Pi Beta Phi), and Jason Noelck (Beta Theta Pi) were recognized as Most Valuable Greek (MVGs); and Cyndi Kopetzky of Sigma Kappa was awarded the individual award for Interfraternalism. The Chapter Award for Interfraternalism was given to Phi Gamma Delta (FIJI).

Greek Life is also working to educate both Greeks and non-Greeks about alcohol. Rebecca Johnson-Paben of Pi Beta Phi, with support of all the fraternities and sororities, headed up an effort to bring Rick Barnes ‘Drink Think’ to campus just before E-Days. The event was officially sponsored by Student Activities, Interfraternity Council, Panhellenic Council, Pi Beta Phi Sorority, and was promoted with the assistance of the Mines Activities Council.