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→Highlights of 2020
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==Highlights of 2021==
With 2021 being a challenging and difficult year due to the pandemic, KKG Zeta Epsilon was able to adapt and hold events, meetings, and activities online to continue to foster a loving Kappa community. We gained one member, Charlie Bunch, during Primary Recruitment and two members, Claire Zickel and Lucie Peltier, during Spring COBs! These three new members are also stepping up to take on leadership roles this upcoming year. We had to say goodbye to many seniors at the end of the school year, but we are so happy for the road that lies ahead of them! Before they graduated, we held a bonfire night planned by Jessica Hopkins where some of the new members were able to meet and mingle with the outgoing seniors. At this bonfire, we also continued to celebrate a Kappa tradition of our love of Taylor Swift by singing some karaoke and sharing our favorite Taylor albums and songs. The seniors were also able to have a Senior Night to celebrate their accomplishments and spend Sme together. Thank you so much to our amazing seniors; we love you! Our interim VP External, Charlie, hosted a screening from the JED Foundation which fostered a conversation about mental health and suicide, which talked about fighSng the sSgma against suicide and being open to these challenging conversations. At the end of October, Charlie also planned a Murder Mystery Dinner for the chapter, where we all dressed up as certain 80s characters and tried to solve whodunit. Some of our favorite moments during that dinner was Lexi Praxl’s impression of Keanu Reeves and Sarah Yochem being discovered as the murderer! Standards Director Ally Herrera also started a new tradition of Secret Sister, where you are assigned a fellow Kappa and over the course of a month, write them notes or make door decorations for them. The goal is to get to know everyone in the chapter a little bit better and have fun, little activities to do as a chapter. Ally also hosted pumpkin carving for Halloween, so everyone was able to decorate pumpkins together. Due to our chapter being fairly small, we had to combine and change officer roles so every position was covered. VP External and VP Internal now do everything under their VP roles, Finance and Operations were combined as well as all Member Recruitment roles. By the end of Fall term, Charlie Bunch ’24 was elected President, Claire Zickel ‘24 was elected as Vice President External, and Lucie Peltier ‘24 was elected as Vice President Internal. In addition, Lexi Praxl ’23 was elected as Vice President Finance and Operations and Ally Herrera ‘22 was elected as Member Recruitment. Thank you to Ally for taking on an officer role during her senior year!
During Winter and Spring of 2021, our chapter supported Edison Elementary School as a part of our philanthropy Reading is Fundamental. However, during Fall of 2021, we changed to support the JED Foundation in light of KKG changing their philanthropy to mental health and wellbeing. We chose to support the JED Foundation as it is one of the most prominent foundations in supporting emotional wellbeing and health, as well as them having a focus on college communities and their program and policy development.
How did the chapter support Kappa’s philanthropy? While we could not visit in-person, we were able to host online activities for the elementary kids. One fun activity we did was having Kappas dress as their favorite book characters. As our new philanthropy of mental health and wellness just began, we are hoping to host events on campus to help fellow students unwind and learn more about the JED Foundation and Kappa.
Our Member Recruitment and DEI Officer hosted a couple of screenings to start conversations about Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Kappa as well as in a larger scale on the Lawrence University campus. During Fall 2021, we also met online with Tori Seymour who gave us a presentation about DEI in Kappa and how we can further our discussions and continue to foster inclusiveness in Kappa. We are really hoping that in Winter 2022 we can continue these conversations and host more DEI events that are open to the whole student body.
From our university adhering the CDC’s guidelines, all meeSngs for us were moved to an online format, via Zoom. Because of this, Primary Recruitment and Spring COBs were all hosted online. It wasn’t too difficult to continue via Zoom. Our Big/Little reveal was done by using TikTok, where our Member Recruitment Officer Jordan Adamson showed them over Zoom. After the Spring COB initiaStin in June, some Kappas were able to go out to brunch together to celebrate! Even as the pandemic has made in- person interactions more challenging, we continue to find ways to still have time together in a safe way. We also feel that due to the pandemic and its effects, recruitment was down a little as everyone was trying to adapt and cope during such an abnormal Sme. However, we are feeling very hopeful for this upcoming year with recruitment! As Fall 2021 began, we were allowed to start meeSng in-person a^er receiving negative COVID-19 test results from Lawrence. While the start of the year was a little slow from changing from Zoom to in-person, we are so happy to finally see each other face-to-face. We host all of our meetings in our Kappa Room on campus, while all wearing masks. While guidelines are slowly loosening up, we still remain wearing masks and respecting any guidelines that the CDC or Lawrence may give us.