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→Highlights of 2020s:
At convention this summer we were awarded the ‘Signature Event’ prize for medium sized chapters for our benefit concert Snowchella, there is more information about our philanthropy later in the document. This year, Kappas have been involved in numerous varsity and club athletic teams, led and participated in pre-professional and philanthropic organizations, held research and fellowship positions and performed in various dance and theater groups.
==Highlights of 2017==
Stanford Kappa has been up to a lot of awesome things this year! First and foremost, we have continued
our efforts that began last year toward making the Beta Eta Deuteron Chapter a more diverse and inclusive
space to women from all walks of life. As an organization, Kappa acknowledges that the demographics of
our organization are not at all reflective of the general Stanford population but that is why the Diversity and
Inclusion Committee has made it a priority to constantly facilitate conversations around this topic.
Last spring members of the committee held an open forum that was open to all Greek organizations to talk
about the status of diversity in all of our organizations and what that meant for the freshmen that were
considering going through the recruitment process (this event had approximately 60% attendance). We
discussed financial accessibility, representation, inclusion and what those all looked like in practice. Along
those lines, we’ve also held spotlights, Beyond the Line, and the SOSAS Panel in our chapter meetings in an
effort to bring these very important conversations to the table and open up the dialogue around these topics
(these all occur at chapter that generally have >80% attendance).
During the Fall quarter of 2017, we held a chapter meeting run by our Diversity and Inclusion Committee. Here, we discussed inclusiveness within our chapter and in doing so assure that we prioritize the safety and comfort of all of our members from different backgrounds and of differing identities. In the coming year, we will be having workshops that tackle implicit bias and how to make a conscious effort to surpass those biases, not only during the recruitment period but at all times. Kappa has made it a point to make sure all of these conversations are ongoing and not only relevant during the week leading up to recruitment in the spring.
In addition to the goal of making our chapter more inclusive, this year, our chapter also addressed our goal to keep our members highly involved and boost their attendance to meetings and events. In Winter Quarter 2017, the idea of “Key Groups” was implemented, in which Chapter Council representatives are assigned a small group of members across grades. They check in with their Key Group each chapter meeting to encourage accountability and plan group activities to get to know a smaller group of members, provide support, and serve as a contact in the Kappa leadership for them to voice any questions or concerns. Key Groups have provided to be a good source of contact, ensuring that each member of our chapter is held accountable by a particular member of Chapter Council.
In terms of traditions, every quarter, pledge classes have allotted funds to eat a meal together outside of the dining halls. As an unhoused chapter, we deeply value this opportunity to gather around a table and celebrate our sisterhood. To foster inter-grade relationships we organize a number of activities that are highly concentrated in the new member period, but continue throughout the rest of the year as well. After Recruitment in the spring, we typically host a new member sleepover in Florence Moore Hall as an introductory event to pledge class bonding activities. We believe that this event in particular helps foster a community within each grade, thus setting the tone for a community built on sisterhood and friendship.
Far before Recruitment even begins, our chapter leadership and New Member Chairmen work to prepare for our incoming pledge class. Highlights of hte 2017 new member period included (but are not limited to): New Member class dinner with New Member chairmen; a new member sleepover at Mirlo; new member/sophomore class s’mores bonding event; Big-Little Week; initiation at the Kappa Kappa Gamma house at University of California, Berkeley. In each of these events, New Member Chairs facilitate bonding and sisterhood through open conversation and fun experiences.
Continuing with the trend of sisterhood and connections, one of our goals in the past year has been to increase attendance and quantity of sisterhood events in an attempt to better foster strong relationships within our community. Because of this, the Standards Committee, led by the Vice President of Standards, has planned more than 8 events each quarter. These events include but are not limited to: weekly meals at Tresidder Student Union open to the chapter, randomly assigned small group meals, kickball, cookie-decorating, and arts and crafts projects. Theincrease in events has increased attendance drastically to 35-55% at every event. We are particularly proud of this increased commitment to sisterhood and building a community that supports all members.
Our members in Stanford’s chapter of Kappa Kappa Gamma demonstrate individual intellectual commitment in their schoolwork, extracurriculars, and accolades. The women of our chapter have performed consistently in their coursework, evidenced by our mean chapter grade point average, which has been 3.7 for the past three quarters (we track our members’ GPA on a self-reporting system). To facilitate academic success and exploration, our chapter runs several programs that seek to support our members. The Academic Excellence Committee sets up study sessions in various spaces on campus so members can come together to work and de-stress. Additionally, we maintain a list of our active members’ majors and minors, so that undeclared members can find people within the chapter to reach out to with questions about their coursework and academic goals. We have also started a weekly recognition program for members: each week members nominate another member for an academic accomplishment,and in chapter they are announced and are given a chocolate bar.
This past winter quarter, the new Chapter Council began a quarterly program during which members group together and discuss recommended classes, study strategies, and resources available on campus. This Fall quarter, we hosted a career panel during a chapter meeting focused on career experiences of our alumni. The panel hosted five women who have worked or are currently working in venture capital, management consulting, law, software engineering, and education. These women offered advice on beginning one’s career in addition to discussing their experience as women in the workplace. In the future, we hope to co-host a resume/cover letter workshop with BEAM, Stanford’s career center, aswell as, bring in a speaker to discuss time management techniques with our New Members. Through these programs we hope to spur conversations between members about their academic goals and career interests that encourage Kappa’s women to share their intellectual passion with each other.
Our members’ majors and extracurricular pursuits bring to life their passions and interests. Our members pursue their commitment to social impact as board members of Stanford Students Social Entrepreneurship Association, tutors in a college preparation course who live in the area, tutors for East Palo Alto Charter School and the East Palo Alto Tennis and Tutoring program, directors of the philanthropic event Dance Marathon, counselors for Camp Kesem, volunteers for the Stanford Mental Health Outreach, and facilitators for One Love workshops on interpersonal violence. Multiple women in Kappa have held research positions at institutions including the King Institute, the Wernig Stem Cell Lab, Stanford Intelligence Systems Lab, the Stanford Center for Genomics, the Stanford Laboratory for Social Research, the Qi Lab (bioengineering), the Bertozzi Lab, and Ophthalmology Research Assistant at the School of Medicine. Finally, Kappa has three members in the Mayfield Fellowship program, as well as, a Truman Scholar this year. Beta Eta Deuteron’s members also pursue intellectual interests via clubs, like Stanford Women in Business, American Middle Eastern Network for Dialogue at Stanford, Design for America, Smart Women Securities, Stanford Women in CS, Stanford Black Pre-Med Association, and Stanford in Government.
Aside from our incredible achievements in scholarship, Stanford Kappa members also have amazing involvements outside of the classroom. In Kappawe have many varsity athletes and varsity captains. In total, fourteen varsity teams arerepresented in Kappa: from Women’s Field Hockey to Tennis to Fencing, just to name a few. In the summer of 2016, we even had two women from the chapter participate in the Rio Summer Olympics-Kassidy Cook (class of 2018) competed in Olympic Diving and Maggie Steffens (class of 2017) competed for her second time in Olympic Women’s Water Polo and received the MVP award. Additionally, Andi Sullivan (Class of 2018) was pulled up in October 2017 to play with the United States Women’s National Soccer Team as the only current collegiate student-athlete in the team. She joins Stanford Kappa Jane Campbell (Class of 2017) on the team.
Off the court, Kappas engagein many pre-professional communities. For example, for the 2017 term Ali Eicher (Class of 2018) is the Co-President of Stanford Women in Business and six Vice-Presidents and 3 Directors are Kappas. Additionally, a group of our members including Elizabeth Overton (class of 2018), Liney Smith and Felicia Tissenbaum (both class of 2017) addressed a significant need for female
pre-professional clubs by founding a Smart Women Securities chapter at Stanford.
In addition to career-driven groups, our members take part in many activist communities addressing race and ethnicity, gender, identity, and intersectionalityon campus. Just to name a few, Kappas are participants and leaders in Girl Up- a UN Foundation, FACES, the Women’s Coalition, the Black Family Gathering Committee, the Clayman Institute, AMENDS, and the Women’s Community. In April of 2016, our member Madeleine Lippey (Class of 2018) brought the Fearless Conference, a student run event encouraging the Stanford community to rewrite and reclaim the conversationaround sexual and intimate partner violence through intersectional, inclusive, and collaborative programming, to campus.
Several other members were deeply involved in the organization and production of this event that served the broader undergraduate population. Last year, Alexis Kallen (Class of 2018) served as the Co-Chair of the Scary Path Task Force with Greg Boardman. It has been incredible to see the fruition of all of Alexis’ hard work this year with the finished lit path. Kappa currently has 3 members who are Mayfield Fellows and one member who is a Harry S. Truman Scholar. Finally, Kappas are deeply engaged in the Residential Education community throughout Stanford’s Campus. For the 2017-2018 year, three members are RAs in freshman dorms, two members are RAs in Suites, and five members on staff at French House, 680 Lomita, and Casa Italiana. Please reference Appendix I- Member Extracurricular Involvement 2017 for a complete list of extracurricular organizations in which Kappas hold membership.
Although our campus has not undergone and major changes recently, our chapter still remains committed to creating a space where strong women can come and empower one another. We do this by fostering a welcoming community, that is working on our path towards being inclusive for everyone; by supporting our members in their New Members journey to becoming Kappa women; by supporting all of our amazing members in whatever endeavors they undertake, from the classroom, to clubs, to athletics; and by supporting causes that demonstrate our commitment to all women, as can be seen through our extensive philanthropic work. The women of Beta Eta Deuteron are highly accomplished women who never fail to achieve the highest in all aspects of their lives.
Our chapter is extremely committed to combining the values and goals of Kappa Kappa Gamma’s national philanthropy mission with the specific interests and passions of women in our Stanford chapter. In 2016, we changed our main philanthropy, because we truly believed that this transition to the Joyful Heart Foundation as a beneficiary is both more in line with our core values and mission as women’s group, and incredibly relevant to campus culture at Stanford today. Our chapter has been really invested in promoting female empowerment. Thorough this recognized passion within our chapter that stemmed from a larger, this year, Stanford Kappa adopted campus sexual assault and intimate partner violence as our primary cause that we support.
For this, our chapter launched a fundraising campaign for the Joyful Heart Foundation, a national non-profit organization, founded by Kappa alumnae and Law and Order SVU star Mariska Hargitay, dedicated to empowering, educating, andhealing survivors of sexual assault so that they can reclaim a sense of joy in their lives. Their mission includes dispelling rape myths, hosting survivor healing and trauma care retreats, and putting an end to the backlog of untested rape kits in justice departments around the United States. Our big showcase of our philanthropy efforts for the year was Snowchella, an awareness and benefit concert that we put on with Sigma Nu and the Stanford Concert Network. This year was our first year having a three-way partnership for this event.
Prior to the concert wedesigned and sold shirts for the concert where the proceeds were donated to the Joyful Heart Foundation. At the concert itself, we had an all female DJ lineup of The Kemist, Astronautica, and Anna Lunoe to support our message of female empowerment. We sold food and beverages to fundraise, and we had a table dedicated to the Joyful Heart Foundation so that people could come and learn more about the cause and potentiallydonate to our fundraiser. Throughout the concert, our philanthropy chair went on stage to introduce each act and share information about the Joyful Heart Foundation. Before entering the concert, we made sure that everyone was on their best behavior at the concert.
Overall, throughout the course of the year we were able to raise almost $20,000 for the Joyful Heart
Foundation, and we really succeeded in bringing awareness about sexual assault to our campus in hope of
putting an end to it once and for all. Some of our public education and awareness events included:
'''Hunting Ground Documentary Screening and Clothing Drive'''-- For this awareness event, we ordered pizzas, and invited members of the Stanford Community to come to Sigma Nu where we were streaming The Hunting Ground, a powerful documentary film about the incidence of sexual assault on college campuses. This documentary really spread awareness about the prevalence of sexual assault on college campuses. Additionally, for people to come watch the movie and get pizza, we asked them to bring an article of clothing with them to donate to The Grateful Garment Project. When victims of sexual assault leave the hospital, they often have to leave with hospital gowns since they are forced to use their clothes as evidence in their rape kit. By having clothes donated for them to wear when leaving the hospital, we are able to help return their dignity.
'''Philanthropy Day'''-- For this, on a Saturday morning, members of Kappa and Sigma Nu gathered to send emails to friends, families, and localbusiness about donating to our cause. We had an email template drafted that explained everything about the Joyful Heart Foundation and their mission.
'''Joyful Heart Dinner''' For this event, we flew a member of the Joyful Heart Foundation, Vaughan Bagely (a Stanford Alumnae), out to come to talk to members of Kappa and Sigma Nu about the foundation and their mission. This really sparked passion in the members of our organization and encouraged them to get more involved in Snowchella and raising money and awareness for the Joyful Heart Foundation. The Joyful Heart Foundation is releasing a movie soon called I am Evidence, which we are hoping to stream for members of the Stanford community sometime this fall!
'''VAWA calling'''-- After having the representative from the Joyful Heart Foundation come and speak about the foundation, members of Kappa were eager to learn more about what we can do as students to help end sexual assault and actually make a large impact on the broader community. The representative told us that a big thing we can do is take action by calling our senators to encourage them to vote against the defunding of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA). After hearing this, Kappa partnered with Columbae and their political peer accountability programming to host a call center at Mirlo (where a lot of our members live) for members of the Stanford community to come and read a script to let their senators know that they do not support the defunding of VAWA. Many people came from across campus and it felt like we were really starting to make an impact in the broader community.
'''SARA Training'''-- After Snowchella, we organized a visit from the SARA office at Sigma Nu where members of Kappa and Sigma Nu received training on how to talk to and respond to victims of sexual assault. They also provided us with information on all of the resources that Stanford has to help victims of sexual assault and the steps that can be taken when someone experiences sexual assault.
Some of our fundraising events included:
'''Kirk’s Steakburgers Fundraiser'''-For this fundraising event we partnered with a local restaurant to raise money for the Joyful Heart Foundation. The owner kindly agreed to donate 20% of all proceeds after 7:00 P.M. that night to the Joyful Heart Foundation. We made a Facebook event and several members of the Stanford community came out to eat some good food and support our cause. We raise approximately $200 from this.
'''Celia’s ‘Unspecial D’ Fundraiser''' For this fundraising event we partnered with a local restaurant to raise money for the Joyful Heart Foundation. We made it an “Unspecial Dinner” where members of Kappa were all allowed to invite a date and come eat some good food with good company. The owner kindly agreed to donate 20% of all proceeds that night to the Joyful Heart Foundation. We had a great turnout, and we were able to raise approximately $455 from this.
'''Valentine’s Day Awareness Campaign/Fundraiser''' At a sisterhood event, our organization decorated little boxes of sweethearts and candy bags with facts about the Joyful Heart Foundation and sexual assault and a venmo handle for an optional donation. On Valentine’s Day, we had members of Kappa hand out the candy at White Plaza in order to collect additional donations and raise money and awareness for the JHF. We ended up raising about $400 dollars through this.
'''Parents Weekend Brunch''' On Parent’s Weekend, Kappa decided to host a brunch at Narnia for our families. We charged $10 a person for the brunch. In order to save money and have more money to donate to the Joyful Heart Foundation, we had several of our members volunteer to go early to cook the food and set the tables. The parents loved having this opportunity to eat brunch amongst other Kappa members and their families. Overall this event was a huge success and we raised upwards of $800.
We also reached out to Stanford organizations as well as local businesses for funding, support, and general co-sponsorships.
'''Voices for the Vineyards''':
In light of the recent fires in Northern California, our chapter came together at a sober event in support of the victims by hosting a benefit concert with Kappa Alpha and Stanford Concerting Network. Nine talented students from different corners of campus performed pro bono on the lawn of KA while about a hundred students listened in appreciation to their music.
Overall, with sponsored t-shirts, Pressed Juicery certificates, a $100 gift card from Coupa Cafe, pizza, a Snapchat geofilter, Kappa designed fliers, and stickers designed by a Kappa member, we raised over $5,200. All of the money went to Redwood Empire Food Bank, an organization that donates food and offers to support to people displaced by the fires. Redwood Empire Food Bank is able to turn that money into 10,000 meals for families in need. The fires affected so many Stanford friends and families that we believed it were imperative to take action, utilizing Stanford talent to be the voice for the suffering; hence the concert's name: Voices for the Vineyards. In addition to our main philanthropy, our chapter also engages in a variety of other community service events. Throughout the year, we have partnered with Kappa Sigma, Kappa Alpha, and Pi Beta Phi to cook and deliver breakfast every Tuesday morning to the Opportunity Center in Palo Alto. Additionally, last October we partnered with Sigma Chi to host a pumpkin carving event where all of the proceeds went to the Huntsman Institute for Cancer Research. In the Spring, we partnered with Alpha Chi Omega to prepare and deliver toiletry kits to a local women’s shelter.
Finally, this year, we are hoping to engage more with our national philanthropy, Reading is Fundamental. This fall, we are planning a Reading is Key event where members of our chapter will go to an underprivileged school or community to read to the kids and do some other educational activity with them. At the end of this event, we will send each child home with a new book. Lastly, Kappa created a team for Dance Marathon and received the “Gold Level” for Greek Sponsors. In keeping aligned with our chapter’s passion for focusing on women’s issues, we were hoping to host an event at a local women’s shelter like Heart and Home where we could engage with the children of the women at the shelter and possibly partner with Kappa Sigma to raise money for the shelter prior to our event. We struggle with attendance at Philanthropy events and generally only have 50-80% in attendance, we hope to increase this in the coming year with the incentive plan that we are currently creating. Moving forward, we are excited to continue this marry our national organization’s philanthropic endeavors with our chapter’s deeply rooted interest in sexual violence prevention, gender, identity, and intersectionality.
As mentioned above, we have chosen to support the Joyful Heart Foundation as our main philanthropic endeavor because we feel it aligns with both Kappa's goal of empowering women, and is highly relevant in the campus climate that we live in today. Moving forward, we are excited to continue this marry our national organization’s philanthropic endeavors with our chapter’s deeply rooted interest in sexual violence prevention, gender, identity, and intersectionality.
