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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.)
'''Note to Chapter Registrar[[File:''' Eta Mu1.jpg|thumb|recruitment]]•Please refer to your chapter archives including chapter meeting minutes and back issues of The Key to fill in any gaps in the above historical highlights[[File:Traveling. jpg|thumb|Chicago]]•If your chapter archives are not complete, please research your university library, campus newspaper and yearbook archives for newsworthy information about your chapter[[File:Social Distancing. jpg|thumb|buying plants]]•Please double check your work for accuracy[[File:Graduation. Contact chapter Advisory or House Board members, local Alumnae Association members, or your Province Director jpg|thumb|some of Chapters for assistance. Your efforts will ensure a complete and accurate history of your chapter for future generations to enjoy!the graduates]]
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|Image= [[File:Eta_Mu.jpg|200px]]
|Founded= {{start date and years ago|2007|04|29}}
|College= [httphttps://www.ucsc.edu/ University of California, Santa Cruz]
|Location= Santa Cruz, CA
|Homepage= [httphttps://ucsckkgucsc.celectkappa.org/welcome Eta Mu Homepage]|Media= [httphttps://wiki.kappakappagammakkg.org/index.php?title=Category:Eta_Mu Media related to Eta Mu Chapter]}}
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RIF is a nationally recognized organization that is working to improve literacy in kids by providing them with access to books of their very own through community involvement and donations. Kappa Kappa Gamma has been a long time partner with RIF and our chapter wants to help raise money for this amazing organization. We held our Kappa Kickball tournament and have given our time to the Boys and Girls Club of Santa Cruz as our Reading is Key events in order to raise money for RIF. We also choose to support local breast cancer awareness organizations, homeless shelters, and Camp Kesem because the missions of these organizations are close to many of our sisters' hearts.
==Highlights of the 2019==
2018 proved to be another lovely year with another lovely bunch of Eta Mu Kappa women. To kick off the year, we had a smooth transition of chapter council, sworn in by last year’s president, Kamille. Meetings were filled with an unparalleled amount of gifs and memes in officer reports -- always a pleasure to see. On the philanthropy side of things, we’ve continued bringing in money for Kappa Kickball, a kickball fundraiser for the Santa Cruz animal shelter. This year at Spare The Hooters, we raised over $1100 for breast cancer research with help from the gentlemen of Sigma Pi, a new record for money raised at the event! Our Reading is Key events went well per usual and many books were collected for the Boys & Girls Club at Sapphires on Skates, a new and popular Kappa fundraiser taking place at the Santa Cruz Roller Rink. May was filled with events like our annual Greek Week in which most Greek organizations participate in a bit of friendly competition. Our ladies participated in basketball, game night, and of course, pizza eating. We had a beautiful Formal at Coconut Grove on Cinco de Mayo where one of our very own, Nicole S., drew the design for our shirts. Our girls got closer with events like sorority powderpuff, where many of our members practiced for months, which is what this chapter is all about: getting closer to an stronger with our Kappa sisters. The event brought in over $300 to Camp Kesem, a national nonprofit with a chapter at UC Santa Cruz dedicated to giving children whose parents have or have had cancer a free week of summer camp. In June we watched and honored our 2017-2018 class of Kappa girls graduate. Our seniors shared a special last year together with events like Senior Tea and Senior Send-off. It was our first year with an informal spring recruitment which brought our lovely Sigma class to us. Fall recruitment was stunning and organized as Kappas talked, sang, and smiled our hearts out to our new Tau class women. We’ve had some wonderful sisterhoods put on by both Standards and Ritual committees. From voting on our favorite Halloween costumes to watching “To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before” we’ve laughed our heads off considerably in each other's company. The always delicious Thanksgiving dinner at Terra Fresca was a success, leaving members more stuffed than the turkeys we ate.
This year has been a year of growth, laughter and learning for our Kappa chapter. Chapter Council came together to work though any and all issues and provide support to neighboring officers. This chapter as a whole is a group of beautiful, empowering, and always compassionate young women and we are sure to see next year bring even more progress. This was our first year in Panhellenic recruitment that our chapter participated in informal spring recruitment. Officers who were a part of the initiation and new member process preformed most of their tasks twice, a change that was smoothly carried out by the designated officers. This chapter has provided ongoing support to RIF and the Kappa Foundation, but outside of KKG Sanctioned organizations, we have provided donations and support to the Walnut Ave Family & Women's Center and Camp Kesem at UC Santa Cruz. Kappa Kappa Gamma has been a long-time partner with RIF, an organization that promotes literacy in children by providing them with access to books of their own through community involvement and donations. We have also worked with the Walnut Avenue Family & Women’s Center which provides resources for women, children, and families in Santa Cruz County and has done so for over 80 years. Camp Kesem at UC Santa Cruz is a student-run, national nonprofit that provides an entirely free week of camp and year-long support to children who have been affected by a parent's cancer. At UC Santa Cruz, the Camp Kesem chapter has lots of Greek involvement, but the highest percentage of Greek life affiliates are Kappa women. Our Meetings are traditionally at the Jack Baskin Engineering on campus at UC Santa Cruz. For special occasions and bigger events, we may meet at Kresge Town Hall which is also on campus, like we do for sisterhoods and Founder's Day. ==Highlights of 2020== Eta Mu Chapter has undergone numerous improvements and troubles this year. We began this year with a new Chapter Council that helped our chapter work on challenges, supported us through the pandemic, and made the virtual experience of meetings meaningful. At the beginning of this year, our sisters helped volunteer for our school’s Colleges Against Cancer Blood Drive and helped collect 30 units of blood! In February, we hosted a Family Day that was filled with fun and games for our sisters’ families. Following that, we celebrated our Founder’s Day at Meder Park and got to experience the VR tours of how Kappa Kappa Gamma was founded which were provided by HQ’s Minnie Stewart Van. We then raised $700for the Walnut Avenue Family and Women’s Center through our annual Kappa Kakes Fundraiser. Our PR Chair, Cesia Villa Bello, made sure to represent all our members through fun Instagram Features like Kappa Meets (Hobby a Member does), Senior Spotlights, and Kappa Krushes where sisters would make shoutouts for each other. At the end of February, we had our Semi-Formal that was planned by our Event Chair, Victoria Caballero, and our Risk chair, Avery Bowen, who made sure everyone was safe and having a fun time! Our chapter operations changed dramatically when COVID-19 hit, and we all had to go back home for our Spring Quarter and do online learning. During the Spring Quarter, we faced hardship when horrific police brutality events sparked and caused discussion within our chapter. Our BIPOC sisters stood up and spoke about the injustices they have faced being in our chapter and were supported to use their voice. These discussions continued throughout the summer and into the fall quarter which really made us reflect and listen to each other. Our chapter participated in virtual recruitment with our other panhellenic organizations and made sure the recruitment went smooth and easy for PNMs. After recruitment, we welcomed 22 New Members who have made our Chapter filled with joy and optimism for our future. We had meetings every Sunday on Zoom where New Members would do programming with our New Member Chair, Aryn Williams-Escobar. During the Fall quarter, we made T-shirts to raise money for the Norcal Fire Relief Fund, and turned out to be a huge success! And towards the end of the quarter, our new members got their big sisters through a virtual big/little reveal. I also planned our virtual initiation for our new members and it went extremely well! All members were initiated and they did an outstanding job with completing their workshops and paying their dues. At our last meeting for the year, we swore in our new officers for the 2021 year, and it was quite emotional as this was a tough year for us all and we couldn’t have done without our 2020 CC.Our Chapter supports RIF to help under served kids discover the joy of reading and books. We also help support local organizations to give back to our Santa community.Our chapter added a DEI officer to our Chapter Council in an effort to educate our sisters and give voices to our BIPOC members. We elected Aryn Williams-Escobar as our DEI Chairwoman and she did an outstanding job in our Fall Quarter. Every meeting we would do a spotlight on a sister who talked about her identity which helped educate our sisters about new cultures and family dynamics. For example, our Indian sisters presented an informational presentation about the Punjabi Farmers Strike happening in India and shed light on what it means to be an Indian American in the U.S. and the stereotypes it follows. Furthermore, our PR Chair has made sure to represent all sisters in our Instagram Account and made posts about what it means to be an ally, a statement supporting the Black Lives Matter Movement,informational guides on what gaslighting and microaggressions are, and many more posts and stories. We celebrated at a local park with crafts and games. Also, the Minnie Stewart Van visited and we got to tour around the van to see the historical events that led to Kappa’s Founding. Sisters also experienced a VR tour of Monmouth College and how our founding sisters founded Kappa. On October 13, our PR Chair posted a celebration picture celebrating our Founders Day as well. [[File:Etamuphotos.png|thumb|virtual]] ==Highlights of 2021== Although this year for Eta Mu was mainly online, we still managed to strengthen ourconnections with each other. Starting off the year, we had workshop for the whole chapterhosted by the Behind Happy Faces Program. The Behind Happy Faces Program is a two-partsystem to teach lessons. The curriculum utilizes creative PowerPoint presentations to exposeparticipants to the knowledge necessary for understanding mental health in their lives. Theinteractive exercises that coincide with the PowerPoint presentations have been constructedto maximize retention and improve participants’ emotional relationships to themselves andothers. This system is designed to deliver information in a short time frame, in order to meetparticipants where they are, in the culture that they live. This program helped us be morehonest with each other and reflect on our mental health in especially in a college setting. InFebruary, we had our annual Presents Brunch for our Phi Class to celebrate big/little pairingsand bigs were able to present speeches about their littles. During Spring Quarter, we hadCOB Recruitment and were able to get nine new members for Chi Class and I initiated themthrough a virtual ceremony. We then celebrated Eta Mu’s Birthday by meeting at a nearbypark to take pictures and hang out socially-distanced. Towards the end of the quarter, ourMembership Chair came up with Kappa Kash which helped incentivize members to come toevents and promote Kappa Events in turn for points and prizes. We then hosted a seniorbanquet for our seniors before graduation in June.During Fall Quarter, we had another virtual formal recruitment and were able to get 24 newmembers for Psi Class. We were able to do bid day in person at a nearby park as well asbig/little reveal, so that was amazing to see and hopefully made the new members feelwelcomed. Not many events were held to due to COVID procedures in place on campus andoff campus and all of our meetings remained online. I initiated Psi Class on November 21stand following that day we voted on our new Chapter Council for 2022. It was more of a slowyear but I hope that as COVID procedures loosen, our chapter can have more events next yearin person. We support Mental Health for America to live fully in the service of others by becomingadvocates for mental health and well-being. Kappa members will unite to educate, raiseawareness and reduce the stigma around mental health and well-being through fundraisingand service.This year we raised money for our philanthropy through a virtual Kappa Talent Show, a Yogaevent, and a fundraiser at Woodstock’s Pizza.Diversity, Equity, and InclusionWe had a number of DEI presentations this year held by our DEI Chair. We hosted culturalpresentations during meetings that spotlighted member’s cultures. We also hostedpresentations on African-American History Month, Asian American Heritage Month, andsome discussion panels on more gender-neutral language within sororities.Operating in a Pandemic Mostly everything was online until Fall Quarter where there were a few events held in personincluding bid day, big/little reveal, and philanthropy events. However, all meetings wereonline including elections and initiation.