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proud for all of the hard work that we put in to raise money for our organizations!
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==Highlights of 2016==
Eta Nu started off 2016 strong with an academic and event-filled quarter. “I-week,” or initiation week, was held the first week back to campus where the older girls prepared for the upcoming rituals of initiation and the new member class bonded together decorating their pin boxes and spending time with their families. At Santa Clara, we are in a unique position where most of our juniors go abroad during fall quarter—we had 23 out of 35 members of our Eta class studying outside the U.S. in 2015! They were welcomed back with open arms and were thrilled to meet the new “littles” of their families. Per initiation tradition, the Eta Nu chapter traveled to the Kappa Kappa Gamma house at UC Berkeley on a Friday afternoon to host Fireside the night before initiation. The newest pledge class had a night full of bonding and after a short sleep, got initiated alongside their other Eta Nu sisters and Kappa family members who made the trip to Berkeley to celebrate with their loved ones. On the rainy morning of January 9, 2016, 51 new members were welcomed into our lovely chapter.
During I-week, our chapter hosted a philanthropic sisterhood event where we made fleece tie blankets for a local children’s hospital in support of Project Linus. It was a great opportunity to relax and spend some time catching up with each other after a long winter break while supporting our community.
January continued with nominating and appointing new Council members where we were reminded how lucky we are to have such hardworking and dedicated sisters working behind the scenes to make our chapter as successful as it is.
Moving on and making a change from the previous winter philanthropy, Kappa Karaoke, Eta Nu had held in past years, we were pleased to introduce Kappa Kakes: a breakfast for dinner, Valentine’s Day themed event. Hundreds of pancakes and pounds upon pounds of bacon later, our redesigned fundraiser raised $900 for both the Kappa Foundation and Reading is Fundamental. This was a huge success for our chapter as it demonstrated the strong philanthropic passion we have and our ability to be innovative with our events. While the event itself only lasted two hours, many hours of prep work were key to its success. February also celebrated our chapter’s academic excellence and newly awarded title of highest Panhellenic GPA for the 6th quarter in a row! As February was nearing an end, our Sapphire Ball formal was held on the 24th. Taking place at the Corinthian Grand Ballroom in downtown San Jose, Eta Nu danced the night away, taking breaks to gobble up the delicious food and enjoy the lovely venue. The last weekend of February was Santa Clara Family weekend—the perfect weekend to host our New Initiate Presents. Visiting parents were introduced to the Kappa Kastle and gained insight to the bond between the newest set of bigs and littles in the chapter. With posters sharing fun Kappa memories and an introduction to GIRLS Academy, family members saw what KKG is all about and helped us raise a majority of our donation goal of $2500 for GIRLS Academy.
A final event in winter quarter was reading to children for Dr. Seuss day at a local elementary school, Briarwood. We had 14 girls from our chapter go in the middle of the day during their busy week to read to and spend time with 60 students, guaranteeing each had a book to take home. As the quarter came to a close, our academic committee continued to support our studies with frequent library study rooms and snacks to get us through the finals grind.
Another key success from winter quarter was how quickly we filled the house. With the newly appointed house chairman available to answer questions and discuss the option of living in, the house was full by the end of February! For the 2016-2017 year Kappa has 19 girls in the Kastle. We also learned a couple weeks after the quarter was over that Eta Nu had, once again, earned the highest GPA in the Panhellenic community-7 quarters in a row!
Spring quarter started off busy with a visit from our first Leadership Consultant of the year, Sarah, from April 3-8. Council members, Kappa Kastle live-ins, and other Eta Nu members welcomed her to our campus with frequent lunch and dinner dates and the occasional workout class. At the end, council worked together to evaluate her visit according to her helpfulness to the chapter and council as well as her values of inspiration and friendliness. We were pleased and flattered with the compliments she gave Eta Nu in regards to our organization, professionalism, and overall chapter unity- qualities we pride ourselves in. Sarah gave council members a unique closing activity where each position was given both compliments and advice from fellow members to help her with her roles going forward. Following the LC visit, our Spring Sisterhood event came up quickly on April 10th. While we indulged in Kara’s cupcakes, a couple girls shared personal stories about themselves and their families, thereby encouraging smaller table discussions that promoted trust, friendship, and deep communication.
Alongside the other Panhellenic chapters at Santa Clara, Eta Nu was happy to participate in a Panhellenic baseball game competition where we tried to get the most members to go support the Broncos. In terms of more official business, we got our budget approved after earlier versions showed incomplete House Board costs. Our treasurer and her advisor worked tirelessly to get those done. On campus, Kappa also had a Relay for Life team April 16-17th and multiple Kappa’s worked as team leaders and leaders on the organization board of the program! April continued to be jam-packed with a Spring Recruitment Workshop to prepare girls with expectations in terms of time commitments and responsibilities as well as recruitment outfit information. Our recruitment chair also implemented recruitment committees this year, such as “craft” and “house,” to motivate girls to work on what they truly cared about, and this workshop gave us all the opportunity to rank how we would like to spend our work week and recruitment practice. This year, Panhellenic was striving for a “values-based” recruitment, and it was helpful to get a presentation on how to (not) interact with potential new members during the first weeks of school and how to promote a “go greek!” attitude.
On May 2nd, the Santa Clara Panhellenic community hosted the Greek Awards in downtown Campbell, and Eta Nu was honored to not only have handfuls of seniors recognized for their high honors, but also for our chapter awards of Outstanding New Member Education and Outstanding Scholarship. The night was a great way to see the other houses and recognize achievements from all Panhellenic chapters.
Our annual Spring Fling dance was held on May 4, and thus given the theme of Star Wars (may the fourth be with you!). With our newly renovated backyard full of white roses and clean fences, Eta Nu was happy to host a “Pre-Key” event full of pictures and snacks before the night began! The venue of the semi-formal was at the Loft Bar and Grill in downtown San Jose, which provided space for chatting, dancing, and fun photobooth memories. Keeping on the trend of annual traditions, Kappa Karnival was held on May 14th; it was a sunny and laughter-filled day with 141 of our actives participating. We even had our sisters from the local Kappa Kappa Gamma chapter at UC Santa Cruz, Eta Mu, come join us for the day! Some of the games of the day included a sack race, find the bubble gum in the whipped cream, tug-of war, and a bouncy house relay race. As Karnival is the philanthropy that Eta Nu chooses where to donate the money, we continued to support LymeLight for our graduated Eta Nu sister Sarah Bedford who had Lyme disease herself and whose family co-founded The LymeLight Foundation. Teams from all around campus, such as orientation leaders, dorm groups, and other Panhellenic chapters, came out to support us and our philanthropy and made it a truly wonderful day. In the end, $5000 was raised, which is a tremendous accomplishment.
Nearing the end of the quarter, on Week 8 Kappa Kappa Gamma and Sigma Pi got “married” for wedding week. With a fun rehearsal barbeque before the official wedding on Friday, May 20, our chapter was able to destress before the final stretch of the year and spend time with another Greek organization.
Spring came to a close with our wise owls keeping busy in study rooms organized by our VP of Academic Excellence and her committee. With a raffle incentive to win prizes for attending these study rooms, Eta Nu worked to motivate girls to keep a focus on their academics while supporting their fellow sisters who were doing the same. All the studying paid off with our 8th quarter in a row of the highest GPA within the Panhellenic community at Santa Clara. The Standards Committee also helped to reduce stress by invited a Kappa Alum and Advisor to host a fitness class after chapter. We left for summer with a sense of accomplishment in all that we had accomplished the past couple months at Eta Nu and excited to see all of our sisters again for Work Week at the beginning of September!
Over the summer our Eta Nu girls stayed happy and busy. With some sisters studying abroad in locations such as Copenhagen and London and other girls working with internships, it is clear that the driven spirit of Kappa stayed strong. At the biennial Kappa Kappa Gamma convention, Eta Nu was extremely honored to have been given the award for “Outstanding New Member Programming” as well as honorable mentions in finance and academic excellence! We understand the rarity of receiving these awards, and could not be prouder of our chapter.
On September 12, Work Week began one week before classes, per tradition, to help our chapter prepare for recruitment before the craziness of the school year. The house was buzzing with chatter of summer activities and how good it was to be back as we worked on crafts, learned the songs, and got the low-down on voting procedures. For sisterhood, the girls all went to Santa Cruz and enjoyed a day at the beach with some pizza, bonding games, and lots of picture-taking. Everyone was reminded how much recruitment truly is a team effort.
As the school year started, our chapter met up a couple times a week to reinforce songs, learn the dance for our mash-up song on Sisterhood day, as well as finalize the crafts for each day of recruitment. Our Marshall also led important voting workshops to make sure everyone—particularly the Iota class who had not been through recruitment before—understood and felt comfortable with the procedures. The two weeks until recruitment flew by, and before we knew it the active members were wearing their peach and white outfits, singing “rah rah for kappa” for over 300 girls who came to the house on Sisterhood Day. All the girls who had previously done recruitment served as mentors for the Iota class during the different parties and during voting. After day one, we were seeing tons of excitement from our members who were ready to meet more girls at Philanthropy Day and get to know some girls better on Preference Night. Philanthropy Day, as always, was centered around the main Kappa philanthropy, RIF, or Reading Is Fundamental. The house was decked out in Dr. Seuss day decorations, including a poster with the phrase “one fish, two fish, blue and blue fish,” which promoted our lovely colors blue and blue. The goldfish that acted as our centerpieces for they day were happily taken in as pets by some of our sisters.
On Pref Night we were thrilled to see familiar faces walking back up to the Kappa Kastle, and the night was full of smiles, laughs, and emotions. Per tradition, active members had the opportunity to write letters to their sisters that they then surprised during the Pref Night ceremony. At the first of the two parties, we had four girls who wrote a letter to our very own Recruitment Chair, as well as other letters from Kappa families and friendships.
The next day, with all of our actives all dressed up in our “new bids on the block” bid day theme, Eta Nu welcomed 51 excited new members as they ran down Lafayette Street to the little yellow house on the corner! It was also great to have our recruitment counselors back after their hard work with Panhellenic over the previous couple weeks. Carrying balloons and customized fleur-de-lis, many actives picked up a bid day buddy to make sure each new member felt immediately welcomed into the chapter. With pizza, Krispy Kreme doughnuts, and a “swag station” full of glitter and flash tattoos, we got to know our new members as we danced and chatted in the backyard. Soon, we were off to Sky High, an indoor trampoline venue, where it was clear that friendships were already forming.
Our second Leadership Consultant of the year, Hannah, flew in late the night of October 2nd during Philanthropy voting. Although the chapter was particularly busy with recruitment as well as midterms, each council member had the chance to talk with Hannah about her position. For her wrap-up, Hannah gave us a brief presentation about the new fraternity organizational structure and who to contact with questions or concerns for our position and/or district.
As always, during the weeks after Bid Day, New Members were able to get oriented to each aspect of the chapter, whether that be finances or the chapter history, through our weekly Sunday afternoon meetings at the house. An additional sisterhood movie night was put on by Standards to encourage new members and actives to bond in the backyard on a Thursday night. All the new member programming gave the girls the chance to get their questions answered and get to know each other even better.
Founders’ Day fell on a rainy Sunday, October 15 this year, just two days after the 146th anniversary of Kappa Kappa Gamma. Even though the weather wasn’t on our side, we were pleased to welcome local alumnae into our house for a fun brunch and brief ritual. Having just pledged 51 new members, this was a great opportunity for the different chapter classes to mix and for the new members to have a glimpse into our fraternity history.
Our infamous fall powder-puff football philanthropy event, Kappa Chi Classic, proved to be a huge success this year. One of our Eta class members suggested that the philanthropy support Comedor Milagro de Jesus in El Salvador. After studying abroad in El Salvador and working in the community of Tepecoyo with Angelica, she had witnessed Angelica open up her home to feed 25 malnourished children from the community every day. Angelica keeps up this service based solely through donations and her own money. Through a Tilt page, Eta Nu and our friends and family contributed $1550 in just a couple weeks! Kappa Chi also held a “penny wars” drive between Kappa Kappa Gamma and Sigma Chi, raising over $2000 total The week of the event held a draft on Wednesday to get the teams together and excited, a potluck dinner on Friday night, and a day-long flag-football tournament at a Marsalli park. It was a great opportunity for girls to bond with each other, particularly the new members meeting other girls.
Right after Kappa Chi, Big Little week was upon us! Trying to keep their identities a secret, the bigs decorated their littles doors, treated them to desserts and flowers and then two nights of baskets- the first with a “girls night in” theme and the second a classic “all out Kappa” basket! Reveal night was full of tangible excitement and lots of laughs, smiles and pictures. We broke out for dinner in our families so the Kappa class could get to know their bigs as well as grand-bigs and great-grand-bigs.
The final stretch of the fall quarter was just as busy as the rest of it. Eta Nu slated and voted on a new Philanthropy chair to finish out the term on October 31. Organized by our VPS, on November 10th, there was an optional trip to the clothing store Brandy Melville for the chapter to receive 25% off all purchases and spend more time with their Kappa families. On the weekend of November 12 and 13, the Eta Nu chapter and the Pi Deuteron chapter at UC Berkeley, hosted GIRLS Academy at the middle school right down the street from Kappa, Buscher Middle School. Spearheaded by our dedicated GIRLS Academy chairman, preparation work for GIRLS Academy started last fall after we were one of 8 chapters across the country to be elected to host such an incredible event. GIRLS Academy relies on the support of alumni groups, the individual chapters hosting it, as well as the support of the children and faculty at the middle school. The weekend is structured to include small group discussions about topics such as body image and time management, as well as a movie night, and graduation ceremony on Sunday.
Our annual Fall Ball was held on November 16th at Flames, a restaurant venue in downtown San Jose. It was held the week before Thanksgiving break, giving the chapter the chance to relieve some academic stress and spend time with their friends. The theme of our pre-key was “How Sweet It Is,” and cute photobooth stations and snacks were set up for girls to take pictures and mingle before loading the buses for the night.
Winter quarter came to a close as we studied for finals and squeezed in time to spend with our sisters before our long, four week winter break. Overall, 2016 was an amazing year for Eta Nu, and we look forward to what 2017 will bring!
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'''Highlights of the 2020s:''' (Information from chapter history reports, scholarship, group honors/awards, traditions, special events, changes on campus or within chapter, overall nature of the chapter, chapter goals, challenges and how they were overcome, etc.)
