Dear President Barron,

I am an active member in greek life. I am a part of a sorority, along with having multiple positions within the sorority. I take part in all of our philanthropy events. I dedicated my heart to THON and stayed for 38 of the 46 hours. Throughout the past year, I’ve learned team working skills. I’ve learned how to get up in front of a large group of people and pour my heart out to them in a speech. I’ve challenged others, and I’ve been challenged back. I’ve grown. And I would not have been able to do all of that without greek life, without my sorority.

I see you graduated from Florida State University. FSU is a similar school to Penn State- big student population, great football team, tons of school spirit. So I am sure, President Barron, you are familiar with the culture that comes with going to a big school. The culture of drinking, of drugs, of greek life. I am sure you have attended your fair share of fraternity parties in your lifetime, and I am sure you remember how much fun they were when you were in college. For a majority of people, college would simply not be college without these “frat parties.” Take away greek life, and you take away experiences every single person in college deserves to have.

College is a time for new experiences. College is a time to jump out of your comfort zone, and I can confidently say that without greek life I would not be able to try new things as confidently as I can today. That being said, I’m sure you are familiar with all else that greek life provides for a school besides partying. Except in your letter, you seem to forget to mention them. You simply chastise greek life, making it sound like that dirty word. But you know the positive implications of greek life, I am so sure you do. You just fail to ever bring them up.

What happened with Timothy Piazza is undoubtedly horrible. It is undeniably a terrible situation, and my heart goes out to his family. It is so hard to lose a loved one, especially suddenly and especially in a preventable situation, and I can not express my condolences enough. But the members of Beta Theta Pi never intended on this happening. The members of Beta Theta Pi never intended on losing one of their brothers. They made a mistake and a big one at that. But by placing these harsh and unreasonable restrictions on greek life, you are insinuating that all of greek life is at fault. By placing these restrictions, you are saying that every member of any greek life organization on the Penn State campus are the reasons why Timothy Piazza passed away that Friday night. But alas, we are not. No one had those intentions. No one wanted this to happen. You are making an entire community suffer from a single group's mistake. And that is just not fair.

I chose Penn State for a multitude of reasons. I chose Penn State for its alumni connections. I chose Penn State for the great education I knew I would receive. I chose Penn State for its pride. And lastly, I chose Penn State for its greek life. Because coming into college, I knew I wanted to be a part of a sorority. I knew I wanted to be involved in the greek community, and now less than a year after making the best decision of my life, that involvement is being taken away from me. President Barron, you are making many current freshman students regret choosing Penn State. We all had other options. We all could have chosen other universities and had just as good an education and just as good alumni connections, but we chose The Pennsylvania State University for a reason. And now you are making us regret that decision.

No one should regret where they choose to spend the four most important years of their lives. Not only that, President Barron, but you are making incoming freshman re-think their commitments. My friend is an incoming freshman and is a part of the “Penn State Class of 2021” Facebook page and one day called me worried because everyone on the page was talking about de-committing after hearing about your recent restrictions. Without greek life, Penn State will still give you a great education and all those alumni networks. But without greek life, Penn State won't be a social place anymore. Take away greek life and you take away all your incoming freshman classes. It’s as simple as that.

President Barron, you state at the very end of your letter that Penn State “will see empty houses and the end of Greek life at Penn State” if these restrictions are not followed. You take away those houses and you take away an entire community. Penn State greek life has been around since the 1870’s. You end greek life, and you end over a century of memories, of experiences, of lessons learned. If greek life is such a dirty word, why has it stuck around for so long, not just at Penn State, but nationally? If greek life is so horrible, why has it continuously achieved greatness on this campus long before you became president? Penn State prides itself on having such a large alumni network. And you know all those alumni who donate thousands of dollars each year to Penn State? Well turns out many of them were in greek life. Talk about an end to a large portion of alumni donations.

Not only that, but you take away greek life, and you take away THON. You take away the biggest student-run philanthropy event in the nation which was in fact started by a greek life organization. Those ten million dollars we raised this past year? You take away greek life, and you take away those ten million dollars for childhood cancer. You take away "For The Kids." You take away those smiles plastered on thousands of student's faces. Is that what you would like to happen, President Barron?

You put an end to greek life, and you put an end to our funding for Special Olympics. You end greek life and you end our support for victims of domestic abuse. You end research for the Arthritis Research foundation. You end research and funding for Prevent Child Abuse America, for CASA, and for a ton of other organizations. But somehow, you forget to mention all of that in your letter. You forget to mention how much greek life does not just for the Penn State community, but for the nation as a whole. You take away greek life, and you take away the blood, sweat, and tears of hard work from the past 147 years. Greek life builds character. It builds strength, it builds courage and confidence. Greek life provides connections for the future, it provides memories for a lifetime, it provides friends for forever. You take away greek life, and you take away all of that and so much more.

So, President Barron, before you say that the end of Penn State greek life is near, I would like to ask you to think about where Penn State would be without it.