Changes
→Highlights of 2014
Sigma chapter of Kappa Kappa Gamma holds chapter meetings in a multipurpose room in the lower level of their chapter house. It is a chapter owned facility on the campus of University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Our chapter has their own house that they love and take pride in. Our chapter was one of the first houses established on campus at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Due to this, it is now considered a national landmark. The house consists of three levels. We have two person and three person rooms on each level, and the occupancy of the house is 65 sisters. Active members from every pledge class love to come to the house and spend their free time there; it is unique, cozy, and makes our members feel "at home."
==Highlights of 2015==
The year 2015 brought many great things for the lovely ladies of Sigma Chapter. Once again, it was a busy and exciting year for us! After the installment of the new and eager officers in January, Kappa Kappa Gamma hit the ground running. Our Chapter Council hosted successful triplet meetings and the annual leadership day with a Kappa Trainer from Nationals for a start. This helped our chapter set new and strategic goals for the year, most of which were completed. The main goals we focused on this semester included increasing chapter involvement, increasing knowledge of Kappa Kappa Gamma history, and to increase accountability within the chapter. Steps were taken in the right direction to reach these goals throughout the semester. A great way that we facilitated meeting these goals was by hosting two Leadership Consultants, one earlier in the semester and one right before second semester, who met with each council member and gave tips for other chapters on how to meet our goals.
In the spring of 2015 we had three senior programs, the first was on interior design. Our seniors were able to go to a local decorating shop and be taught one on one skills about how to decorate small living spaces and on a budget. The next program was hosted by one of our Kappa Advisors and we called it Kappa Kitchen. The advisor taught the ladies great appetizers and mock tails they could whip up for any occasion. Of course afterwards, they got to be the taste testers. Our third senior program brings us to Celebrate Sigma. Celebrate Sigma is our final send off for the seniors and an end of the year banquet for the whole chapter. Celebrate Sigma was held on Sunday April 26th last year and senior week started Monday the 20th leading up to Celebrate Sigma. Senior week started with our senior ceremony on Monday and a day full of celebrating our seniors. We read sweet goodbye letters from their parents and wish them the best of luck in their future endeavors.
In addition, this semester included many different events and opportunities for us to grow as sisters and as individuals. Kappa ladies had the great pleasure of attending many fun events put on by our event chairman, Kathryn Dahl. These included both Mom’s and Dad’s day, a semi-formal and a formal. Other things included bon fires, bowling and game nights with other houses on campus. Spring semester 2015 we held 4 events for Kappa 4 weekends in a row! We started with semi-formal held with 3 other Greek chapters which was country themed. We then moved onto Mom’s Day which included lunch at the house, a parents club auction, and painting a fleur-de-lis canvas on East Campus by an art instructor. Next came Formal “Kites & Keys” held with Kappa Alpha Theta, which had a photo booth and pizza at a spectacular venue downtown. Lastly, for Dad’s Day, we had lunch at Kappa, Greek merchandise sale at the house, and bowling on teams with our dads. We were very privileged to have so many great events and memories made!
Other things Kappa Kappa Gamma was involved in this Spring include: Greek Week hosted by UNL, blood drives, a banner competition, study nights at the Kappa house, attending baseball games together, and sisterhood nights. Lastly, one of the biggest accomplishments we reached at the end of this semester was that we ranked fifth out of the fifteen Panhellenic chapters on our campus with a GPA of 3.498—the highest ranking and GPA we have held in quite some time. We had seventy-three members receive above a 3.5 GPA and sixteen members receive a perfect 4.0! The past few semesters have proven just how smart Kappas truly are. It was a great end to the semester!
The summer months for Kappa were also extremely exciting! In addition to recruitment planning, we had a big surprise this summer! With a special thanks to our wonderful house board association and many donations, the lovely 616 underwent a variety of changes including: the bedrooms in the house receiving brand new carpet and paint, as well as new furniture, including bed sets, desks, and dressers. We also received sleek gray curtains to replace the sliding closet doors, full length mirrors engraved with Kappa keys, new roof installed by the front door, and new washer and dryers that are free of charge to members. The ladies were extremely grateful for these renovations and very anxious to show off the new rooms during recruitment!
Fall semester started off strong under the recruitment process with the leadership of Amy Baumert, our Membership Chairman. Throughout formal recruitment, we were seeking women who share the same Kappa ideals that this chapter possesses. We worked hard with the members to represent Kappa Kappa Gamma in a positive light throughout the entire process by always maintaining a positive and energetic attitude. Along with a successful formal recruitment this fall, we were eligible to participate in a process called Open Recruitment. What this means is we had the opportunity to meet and consider women at UNL to be potential new members through a more relaxed process than formal recruitment. This was a very exciting thing for us, as it opened the door to many women that we might not have had the opportunity to consider for membership otherwise. Through Open Recruitment, we were able to meet with women in a casual setting, giving us the opportunity to get to know them and learn more about them. In the end, we were able to initiate 57 new women into the fraternity in November.
To get involved on campus, Kappa Kappa Gamma initiated a brand new event called “Kool Off With Kappa.” This was held the second week of classes outside of our University Union, where we had a table set up with a banner, and popsicles that we passed out to students as they walked by. Each committee went together at various times and wore special shirts; it got great feedback. It was an awesome way to get to connect with our committees, meet the new members, welcome students back to school, and to get involved! Following this event, we also competed in Homecoming week, where the theme of the week was Heroic Huskers, and we were paired with Beta Theta Pi, Farmhouse, and Kappa Sigma. The four of us worked together to build an amazing lawn display outside of Beta, create a Monday Night Live skit, participate in the blood drive, run a 5k, and participate in the biggest Husker fan competition. The week ended with the homecoming football game, which was against Southern Mississippi. The week was very busy and lots of fun! The seniors also had more senior programs, this time we arranged to go to the mall and get styling tips for professional wear, business casual, day to night outfits, and some ideas for dressier events like weddings. After the styling tips the seniors were allowed to shop around the store and get some great deals. In addition, a financial advisor from Northwestern Mutual came over to the Kappa house and presented to the seniors some good tips on how to manage your money after college. In November we will have our last senior program, which will be on etiquette.
The Fall semester brought even more social events for our Kappa women. We hosted Mom’s Day at the East campus party rooms consisting of lunch and painting pumpkins, which most girls took back to Kappa to decorate outside. We also had an a capella boys group, The Bathtub Dogs, come sing at the event replacing lyrics with “Kappa’s or Kappa Moms.” The members loved hearing their talent at this event. The last event of the Fall was formal, which we co-hosted it with Pi Beta Phi and Kappa Alpha Theta. It was called “Triad,” and we replicated t-shirts Sigma made in 1989 and also hosted it with the same houses. It was special to us to still be able to repeat other events that were special to previous Kappa’s at their time here at UNL.
Kappa Kappa Gamma also celebrated our founding sisters from Monmouth college on October 12th with cupcakes, cake balls, alumni, and some great presentations on the creation of Kappa Kappa Gamma and the foundation it has come to be today. Over all this year has been great and hopefully through programs and every day interaction we can keep building education into our Kappa lives.
As you can see, Kappa Kappa Gamma was blessed with another year of great events, involvement, academics, new members, and opportunities to grow as individuals and sisters. We are very proud of our year and the goals we met. The ladies became close through sisterhood events and encouraging each other to be the best women they can be! We are excited to enjoy our Winter Break and come back to see what 2016 has in store for us!
Our campus is undergoing the creation of a new Business college this year. It is very exciting to see the progress! We also got a brand new Student Recreation Center on both City Campus and East Campus, which our sisters like to enjoy together! In addition, our campus is constantly growing in students and Greek life. The overall nature of our chapter is involved, inspiring, close-knit, and energetic.
Chapter Philanthropy:
What organization(s) has your chapter historically/traditionally raised money for, or donated hours to, in your community?
One of our favorite ways to grow as sisters and individuals is through Philanthropy events, which were planned under our Philanthropy chairman, Sarah Lindstrand. We vote on our organizations every year! This Spring, we held an event for an organization called Emma Strong. The Emma Strong foundation is a fund that was started to help out a little girl battling a life-threatening illness, and it was brought to our attention by a Kappa Alumni. This is the organization that our chapter felt strongly about and voted on at a chapter meeting. We teamed up with the fraternity Kappa Sigma to put on a event to donate the proceeds to Emma Strong as, Kappa Sigma was supporting the Wounded warrior organization. We held an event called, “Kappa Karnival” this event was held in Kappa’s parking lot. It included music, cotton candy, snow cones, Arby's sandwiches, face painting, bean bags, and a dunk tank. Everyone that attended this event had a great time, and the women of Kappa really enjoyed getting to know some of the men of Kappa Sigma better. We made just under $4,000 at this event that we were so excited to donate to Emma strong! In the beginning of Fall, we held Kappa Kickball, a well-known philanthropy on campus. Many people enjoy this philanthropy because it’s during the day and all of the players get really into the game. This year we had great weather and a wonderful turnout with many different teams and with each team a “coach” which is a member of kappa. The players and coaches get into every game. The atmosphere during this day was great with cheering and laughter throughout the day. At this event we had Arbys, chips, cookies and water, for everyone to enjoy. For kappa kickball we made around $2000 for the Melanoma foundation, which again was a foundation we voted on as a chapter.
Why did your chapter choose this organization(s) to support?
We chose the Emma Strong foundation after it was brought to our attention by a Kappa Alumni. Because it was so near and dear to her heart, we thought it would be a great opportunity to show our support to her. We chose the Melanoma Foundation because one of our current actives lost her best friend due to Melanoma. To show our support for her, we voted on this foundation.
==Highlights of 2020s:==
