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→Highlights of 2020:
While we were apart because of COVID-19, we were still able to reflect on the importance of Kappa’s 150th anniversary. These past few years, the Psi Deuteron chapter has taken the initiative to truly value our traditions. On this anniversary, we all took the time to reflect on the significance of this day and what Kappa means to us.
==Highlights of 2021:==
During the past year our chapter has really focused on getting more organized. We worked on meeting with our advisor, Liz Wong, consistently and even had her come speak to the chapter about how both active members and the chapter council are responsible for the successes of our chapter. We were also lucky enough to have a donation of $500,000 for 10 years. This means that two women in our chapter will be able to receive a scholarship of $25,000 each, annually, in honor of Nancy Nichol McLamore. Because of COVID-19, and Cornell protocol, it was difficult to host philanthropy events, but we were able to participate in some which are detailed in our philanthropy section. Overall, we were able to keep the Psi Deuteron Chapter lively and tight knit, despite the pandemic, and worked hard to make our chapter a more inclusive, welcoming and organized place.
Cornell University supported Reading Is Fundamental during the indicated time frame, and recently switched its philanthropy focus to Mental Health Awareness. During Reading Is Fundamental, Kappa sisters at Cornell visited local elementary schools and read to students. We recognized the importance of literacy and acknowledged that our sisters could encourage young students to read, making our interactions exciting for the students. Additionally, we recognized that we may be viewed as role models to these children and that reading to them may result in motivation to learn and read on their own.
Our chapter supported Kappa’s philanthropy by visiting Fall Creek Elementary School in Ithaca, NY and reading to students. Beyond this, we held multiple fundraisers in order to help buy new books for local elementary schools and other resources that would allow these students to grow. Due to COVID, we were unable to visit these schools in person and read to students over zoom. While this wasn’t the same as interacting with the students in person, our sisters made the most out of our situation in order to continue helping these young students.
The Psi Deuteron chapter of KKG supported Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion initiatives this past year by emphasizing the DEI chair position and creating a committee to support the chair. Members of the committee played an important role in sorority recruitment by presenting about the value of focusing on diversity and providing equitable opportunities. In addition to presentations, the committee was divided amongst the recruitment process in order to make sure a DEI perspective was utilized as much as possible. Further, we implemented DEI-related announcements at each weekly chapter and made sure to emphasize these values to new members. In the future, we plan to support collaborations between the DEI chair and the Education chair in order to provide educational opportunities for members of Psi Deuteron.
Our chapter operations changed a significant amount due to COVID-19. Everything that our chapter had to do was moved online including weekly chapter meetings, initiation and recruitment. Our philanthropy events were limited to only a few girls and our finances were impacted heavily. Unfortunately, due to a few COVID-19 outbreaks within our chapter, we had to hire cleaners for our house and changed the dormers to triples. We also had to cut off the use of some of our showers given that they were too close together. This was also due to Cornell’s rules of social distancing, which our house followed as best as we could. We had hand sanitizer stations and did not allow any guests in the house until Cornell allowed us to. When guests were finally allowed in the house, they would have to sign in and sign out with a book that we had at our front door. All of our chapter meetings, including initiation, were moved online which, made it difficult for members to feel like a part of the chapter. However, we tried to make meetings as engaging as possible by bringing in speakers and turning on our cameras. Because of recruitment being completely virtual, it was difficult at times to get to know the PNM’s and if they would be a good fit for our chapter. This is why we came up with different questions other than the same “name, major, hometown” small talk, so that we could really get to know the PNM’s. Some of these questions included “Did you know your roommate before/meet through mutual friends?” and “How has your transition been with COVID?” We trained our active members to be as respectful as possible when speaking to different girls about COVID, especially because we don't know how much COVID may have impacted their lives. We also made sure to emphasize all of the things our chapter typically does without COVID, to allow the PNM’s to get a real sense of what our chapter is like under “normal” conditions, which we hope to return to soon.