You’re never gonna believe this, but the food in my dining hall is frat-free.
Hi, I’m Megan, and I’m… you might want to sit down for this, it’s shocking. I’m… not in a sorority.
Whoa buddy. You still there? Well hang on, it gets worse. The college I go to… doesn’t even have Greek life.
It’s okay, it’s okay. Breathe in, breathe out. That’s right, those schools exist. Somewhere out there in a little desert town in California, there’s a college – well, five colleges actually – that don’t. Have. Greek. Life. I know, it sounds crazy. No pancake breakfasts or dress-up formals, no house full of brothers or sisters. We are lost in the world, meandering campus, left to our own devices to accomplish the scary task of… making friends.
Actually, on second thought, that’s completely not true.
We do have pancake breakfasts. Once a semester, during finals week, hordes of students make their way to the campus café at 11 p.m. on the Sunday before finals. We scramble through the glass doors and the smell of maple syrup welcomes us in. Amidst the chaos, a line forms, students waiting to be served a late-night pancake breakfast by none other than our own faculty and staff. This year, there was even a surprise guest –the college President himself was plopping pancakes onto the plates of every finals-crazed college kid that night. We may not have raised money for a charitable cause by selling pancakes – we do that by selling challah. Every Thursday, a group from the Community Service Center on campus sells loaves of the delicious bread in an initiative called “Challah for Hunger,” in which the proceeds go to a local food bank. So we do have a pancake breakfast, and we do help those in need.
We also have a dress-up formal. However, instead of bringing a hot date from the most popular frat, we just show up with our squad and party ‘till the break of dawn. No pomp and circumstance needed, no new clothing required. Also, since we are relatively nerdy, we don’t call this dance a “formal” – we call it the Yule Ball. Just like Harry Potter, we have it at Christmastime, and just like Dumbledore, we host it in our dining hall, which looks like a carbon copy of Hogwarts. We may not be on Greek Row, but we still have a great time.
And, despite our lack of fancy Greek letters, we still come home to a house of brothers and sisters every night. As freshmen (like “Littles”), we are split into squads of 10 or 15 people known as “sponsor groups.” These groups are put together based on common activities and values, and placed with two sophomores known as “sponsors” (like “Bigs”). Throughout the course of the year, these groups often become as tight-knit as any family, and all the members live right down the hall from each other. Just like sororities and fraternities, the sponsor groups bond over special traditions, and create friendships that last a lifetime.
At my school, we don’t have recruitment or bid day. We don’t do rush or Chapter meetings. We don’t have secret initiation rituals, or date parties that require a brand new dress. Even though we don’t have Greek life, we still graduate with a new set of lifelong brothers and sisters.
