Changes
→Highlights of 2014
Eta Omicron holds chapter in a university owned classroom, which changes each semester. Fall of 2014 was held in a Mugar classroom and Spring of 2014 was held in a Behrakis classroom. Our chapter does not have a house, lodge, apartment or suite. We have never had one in our history.
==Highlights of 2015==
Eta Omicron chapter of Kappa Kappa Gamma had a delightful 2015 school year. We started the year with five main goals: to increase organization within committees and allow members the opportunities to gain more leadership; to focus on individual well being of sisters and strengthen the sisterhood of EtaO; to improve internal organization and structure of Chapter Council leadership; to increase Panhellenic involvement and visibility on campus; and to foster growth and understanding and appreciation of Kappa.
We were able to achieve all of these goals, for example by restructuring how we hold second chair position elections, holding countless bonding sisterhood events and implementing a Chapter Council bonding initiative to help the council realize and appreciate each other’s skills and leadership endeavors. We are also proud to support our sister Sneha Pandya who was elected to be Panhellenic President at Northeastern for the upcoming 2016 year. Some examples of the sisterhood events we put on included a kickboxing event, movie nights, pottery painting, ornament decorating with other chapters on campus, and J Crew and Brandy Melville shopping events.
The Spring semester of 2015 started wonderfully for Eta Omicron as we won “Outstanding Philanthropy” and “Outstanding Academics” for our chapter in the annual Fraternity and Sorority Life Awards. Our sister, Ashley Karsenty served as the Panhellenic Secretary as well. At the end of the school year, four of our sisters attended the biannual Province meeting.
We were also very active in our school’s Greek Week, participating in Greek Sing and placing second overall in our Greek Week competitions where we were paired with the gentlemen of Delta Tau Delta and the ladies of Delta Phi Omega. As a kickoff to Greek Week we also participated in the annual Relay for Life on campus. We won the Double Dare Competition and received $500 for our team, bringing our total fundraising as a team to over $16,000.
Formal was held on March 28th at The Inn at Longwood. We ended the school year with Senior Week (S-week), with seniors participating in a multitude of activities including Senior Wills and Goodbyes. We graduated 24 incredible seniors. Our last event of the year, the Love and Loyal Tea, was spectacular and we honored our much deserving sister Cara Henderson with the Loyalty Award. Our chapter GPA for the Spring semester was 3.38, ranking fifth out of the eight sororities on campus, as well as surpassing the all-women and all-sorority average.
We started our Fall 2015 with our annual sisterhood retreat to Camp Burgess in Cape Cod. We prepared ourselves for Recruitment with workshops and strengthened our sisterhood through bonding activities and competitions. Interest in recruitment continues to increase on campus and more than 500 girls came out for formal recruitment. Eta Omicron proved to have a very successful recruitment, welcoming 35 excited members to the Eta Class on September 30th.
This year the Eta Theta (Harvard) chapter hosted Founder’s Day on their campus and active members of Eta Omicron and Zeta Alpha (Babson) chapters as well as alumni attended to celebrate with a brunch. During Homecoming Week we were paired with the gentlemen of Beta Chi Theta and Alpha Delta Phi. We participated in the week’s events including the annual dance competition, Take It to the Floor. Our sister, Christy Murphy also ran for Mayor of Huntington Avenue, the first contestant ever from our chapter.
The new member period was carefully planned so as not overwhelm while simultaneously integrating the newest class. There were many events including Pumpkin Carving, a self defense class, and a “Minute to Win It” competition for the new members to meet and socialize with the active sisters. The annual New Member Retreat was held at an active sister’s house in Topsfield, MA. During Inspiration Week we held our 3rd annual Pillow-Key/Fleur-de-Lis Exchange for the bigs and littles and the annual Owl Prowl. The week culminated in the initiation of 33 new members on Saturday December 5th.
Our annual Kappa Kickoff was held on October 25th with 28 teams participating, raising $900 dollars for the AstraZeneca Hope Lodge. We also held a Bar-B-Que afterwards for our sisters and the participating teams. In one of the most interesting Education Chapters, Eta Omicron held its first “It’s On Us” presentation, facilitating discussion and understanding about sexual assault on college campuses. The last week of the semester, we held S-week and celebrated our four graduating fall seniors. Our Sapphire Ball was held on December 12th at CandiBar in Downtown Boston. The chapter’s Fall 2015 GPA was not available at the time this report was written.
Eta Omicron holds chapter in a university owned classroom, which changes each semester. Fall of 2015 was held in a Cargill classroom and Spring of 2015 was held in a Churchill classroom. Our chapter does not have a house, lodge, apartment or suite. We have never had one in our history.
The biggest recent change on our campus was the remodeling of Curry Student Center, where all Panhellenic Sororities hold formal fall recruitment. The first floor was renovated and now includes a mini amphitheater.
Chapter Philanthropy:
What organization(s) has your chapter historically/traditionally raised money for, or donated hours to, in your community?
A major focus of the Spring semester was increasing our philanthropic endeavors. We held our annual Reading is Fundamental event on March 31st at the Sam Adams Elementary School. We worked with the same class we had worked with the year before in their second grade classroom. We read “If You Give A Mouse A Cookie,” played bingo, and made bookmarks with the children. Additionally, we changed some of our activities with our local philanthropy, the AstraZeneca Hope Lodge. Instead of Bingo, we started playing trivia and held a SuperBowl Party. Lastly, we held our first annual Lip Sync for Life, a Jimmy Fallon style LipSync Battle, and raised over $600 for the Hope Lodge.
Why did your chapter choose this organization(s) to support?
Our chapter chose to support the AstraZeneca Hope Lodge in 2013 because many of the women in the organization felt personal connections to the Lodge. We are all affected by cancer in one way or another and thought this would be the best place to devote our time. We are also able to do hands on work at the Lodge and we interact with the guests, instead of solely donating money and that was important to our chapter.