Written by Raniz Bordoloi and Jamie Ferrell
As a sister of Psi chapter of Alpha Delta Pi Sorority, and as a brother of Cal Alpha chapter of Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity (you can see us in the last row!), we participated in the Live Your Oath initiative at UC Berkeley on November 1st. We had heard about this initiative in the past, but we had no specific knowledge about what the campaign entailed. So, naturally intrigued, we were more than happy to devote our Sunday and learn more about this initiative and pledge our support for it. Live Your Oath is a national campaign started by the Grand Council of ADPi and the National board of directors of SigEp to promote the conversation regarding prevention of sexual assault on college campuses.
After preparing and eating a brunch together at the ADPi house (Jamie ate two bagels!), members of both chapters met for a presentation by the ADPi president, Becky Stifter, and the SigEp philanthropy chair, Irving Barrios. We watched this video (do watch it!) about the Live Your Oath campaign and began a discussion about how consent culture affects us, not only as members of the Greek community, but also as students of UC Berkeley.
A particularly memorable part of the initiative was examining our chapters’ own respective values and applying them to the campaign’s ideals. As a brother of Sigma Phi Epsilon, we pride ourselves in embodying virtue, diligence, and brotherly love. When we split up into our own respective groups, we discussed the specific virtues we strive towards and how they should be embedded in our brothers, at all times, with or without any outside influences. We all emphasized how these qualities should remain at the core of our brotherhood and reflect who we are. At the same time, we identified the need to be diligent in our actions and in our efforts to embody the virtues of a SigEp brother. We felt that diligence also entailed us to be active bystanders instead of passive spectators, taking a stand against sexual assaults, no matter how small our contribution may be. Lastly, we believe that brotherly love is something that can be applied to love for our community in general. Love is empathy and passion, and it is through this love for each other that we can develop a safe and secure environment for everyone.
Alpha Delta Pi's four values are (1) Strengthening my own character and personality, (2) Watching my attitudes towards my fellow beings, (3), Recognizing the value of high educational standards, and (4) Developing faith and loyalty. This admittedly more comprehensive list correlated strongly with respecting oneself and one another, essential requisites for trustworthy, healthy relationships. Something we found particularly important in consideration of our fellow beings was acceptance of all gender identifications and sexual orientations, because anyone can be a victim. Similarly, sexual assault awareness is not only limited to our chapter or Greek life; it should be considered on a broad spectrum in any setting. This, along with a strong character, is an integral part of being an active bystander, meaning that we are steadfast in any decision to interfere if a situation for potential sexual assault arises. Not only that, but our efforts at upholding high educational standards got us talking about the need to maintain a positive educational environment surrounding consent. We emphasized the need to feel comfortable talking with each other about this issue and taking every case seriously.
We then returned to examine our findings together, discovering that even though our mottos and pledges are different, our ideals are the same. We recognized the need to converse about the issue of sexual assault prevention and, more importantly, the need to live our oaths and thus embody what it means to be a sorority woman and a fraternity man. We proceeded to talk about consent, what it is, how to give it and what invalidates it. (on a side note, please watch this awesome video about consent--it will be the coolest thing you will see today!). Lastly, we discussed how we can apply our oath to the Greek Community and how we can influence them. While there was no easy answer to that, we unanimously agreed about being the change that we wanted to see in the Greek Community. By living our oath, we can show what we stand for and thus lead by example. The morning culminated in signing our names on the “I Took an Oath” posters and posing for a photo of one member of ADPi and one member of SigEp (look below for example with our presidents!) taken by our very own lovely Odyssey photographer, Ben Pence, who is also a SigEp brother.
All in all, we both felt that Live Your Oath was an incredibly valuable learning experience. Taking an oath is one thing and living it out is another, because it is easy to swear something but can be difficult to commit to it. This event not only brought us closer, but also reminded us about our duties and responsibilities. The first step in solving any problem is to recognize that there is one; it is only after that we can collectively act on it. We hold enormous influence as members of the Greek Community, so by living our oath we can actively take a stand against the issue and hopefully remedy it with awareness and better education. We all took our oaths. It's high time that we start living them!
