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→Highlights of 2020:
How did your chapter include diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives in your programming this year? (e.g., adding a DEI officer, philanthropy events, social media awareness campaign, chapter training, etc.). This year was a busy one for our diversity and inclusion chair, Sami Weis. She put so many hours and a great deal of effort into our chapter to ensure that we promote diversity and inclusion. Sami was very involved within our chapters as well as other councils. Every chapter, Sami did a presentation a different student organization, their impact, and how to get involved. She also introduced a new segment called “council spotlight”. Within this spotlight, she highlighted new members every week across all four Greek councils on our campus. She discussed what organization they were in, their accomplishments, and a little about them. One activity ami started was the council wide “Boo Bag”. She made Halloween bags for a chapter within each council and they had to carry on the tradition of “boo-ing” another chapter. This kept all councils included with one another to promote friendship and diversity. Sami also created a presentation on diversity and inclusion and gave it to the chapter during FDL week to ensure we promoted a diverse and inclusive recruitment.
==Highlights of 2021:==
It has been a very busy year for the Beta Rho Chapter of KKG. It all started with virtual transition day January 21st of 2021. This was the first step of the new chapter council and seeing how we were going to work with each other. That next few months we continued to find our groove as a group, building our relationships and discovering our leadership styles with the help of each other. In February we had virtual trivia nights with SAE to celebrate Valentine’s Day and a sisterhood trivia night to spend time with each other and get to know each other a little more. As we moved into March, we celebrated our annual PIKE wedding over zoom and watched our sister Lucy get “married” for the night. We continued with chapter as normal and had a ritual review for the newest pledge class to help develop our ritual and tradition in the younger members. On top of this, we were amid the planning and rehearsing for our virtual COB initiation. April was a busy month starting with the initiation of our COB girls on Saturday the 3rd. The following week we got busy with getting involved in Greek week and earning points for Kappa. As April came to a close, the active members of KKG finished up the semester strong, acing their exams and preparing for a much-needed break of a very hectic and stressful year. We stayed close throughout the summer by sharing pictures and videos of vacations and the things we were up to during the summer months. Everywhere you looked there was a kappa somewhere living their best living; for one it was hiking Angel’s Landing out west, for another it was co-oping in Portland. Summer flew by and we were back to school. We started out the year with an energy packed FDL week to get ready for recruitment that was soon approaching. We spent the whole week together learning more about the values of kappa and connecting with our sisters we haven’t seen in three months. We started out the first day of school strong on April 23rd . The upcoming weeks were busy as we got into our rhythm of chapter council on Sundays, chapter on Tuesdays, and now bumping practice at least twice a week. We celebrated the beginning of school with a PIKE x Kappa two way on Friday, September 3rd. The following Sunday we did a virtual bumping practice with our sisters at NYU. After many, many practices, and a lot of hard work we started recruitment the weekend of September 17th to the 19th. We started virtual, giving girls a look into the house by creating a video sharing the stories of some of the house girls and providing some information on the logistics of living in the house and being a kappa. We continued in person after the open house round and had an opportunity to get to know each PNM on a deeper, more personal level. We celebrated the end of recruitment with an amazing bid day on September 26th welcoming our amazing 26 new members. October was just as action packed as the beginning of the new semester. We celebrated the UC bearcats with our parents during parents weekend the second weekend of October and anxiously awaited the coming of semi-formal.
After many successful chapters, program nights, and ritual reviews we were finally to October 22nd and ready to dance the night away at Twenties for Kappa Krush. The next week we participated in a virtual professionalism workshop that had been in the works since the spring semester. We celebrated the end of October with Founders Day on the 30th and got to interact with our amazing alumni and cerebrated our sister Elena as she received the Gloria S Gehring award. November started with a bang, homecoming was in full swing, and we had a full week of events with our partners Sigma Chi. We had movie night, a cookout, karaoke night and even speed dating. We watched the parade from the Kappa porch eating breakfast with our parents, friends, and family before heading off to tailgate and to watch the bearcats pull out another win. We celebrated mental health week right after homecoming, raising money for our philanthropy during our fundraiser pups and slush with Men for Mental Health and posting bingo boards on our social medias. I-week happened the very next week with a full week of bonding time with our sisters. We used this week as a reflection period to look back on our years of Kappa and what we wanted our future look like an upperclassman active or alumni. We had bowling night on Tuesday, family dinners on Wednesday, movie night on Thursday, and closed the week out with initiation on Friday night and Saturday morning. After a crazy busy month, things settled down as we prepared and voted on the slate, welcoming our next chapter council on November 30th. Despite the unrecognized challenges of moving back in person, every Beta Rho member faced these challenges head on and showed up eager to get involved and represent what it means to be a Kappa. The perseverance and support of each member during yet another transition period was a really special thing to watch. Here’s to a great year and to the years to come.
Our local philanthropy is Adopt-A-Class. To those of you who don’t know what that is or what it entails, we basically adopt a classroom, just like the organization says, at the local elementary school Ethel M. Taylor. Every Friday, a group of active members attend our adopted classroom to participate in a snack and an activity. Sometimes our activities include reading a book to the students or doing a craft with them. Occasionally a special guest joins us and does an activity for the class. For example, this year around Halloween a scientist joined us and did a special experiment for the kids using dry ice, some dish soap, and a pumpkin. What better way to give back to our community than to help positively influence the future generation of it. It’s also an awesome to way to help some the teachers in our community by providing extra resources and special experiences for the kids.
This year we rebranded our philanthropy event and instead of having dog night we had pups and slush and had the wonderful opportunity to partner with the UC organization Men for Mental Health. Pups and slush included selling slushies on the front porch and having therapy dogs around the whole night for everyone who bought a slushie to hang out with. This was a huge success for us, and we raised a larger amount of money than we have in the past with dog night. Partnering with Men for Mental Health was a great way to better market ourselves and spread awareness about the fundraiser. We even made the fundraiser a bit of a competition by having two different colored slushies, blue for Kappa and red for Men for Mental Health and seeing which color (organization) could raise more money. Partner with these men also brought more customers and donors that we may not have reached by ourselves.
We incorporated two DEI chairs into our chapters to help continually educate us and inform us about ways we can become more inclusive. They were especially important during Black history month, offering bits of info nuggets and fun facts to better educate us on black history and how we help our current political and social climate regarding racism and stereotyping. Our DEI chairs were incredibly helpful in making our members more aware of their privilege and how we can use our privilege to help others in the most respectful way. For example, it was recognizing the little things we could do to help, like not wearing a costume on Halloween that appropriated another culture and calling out people who were. We wanted to focus on cultural appreciation not appropriation.
This year we were much less restricted by the different rules and regulations surrounding Covid-19. Thankfully we were able to have a hybrid recruitment this year. Our first two rounds were virtual which allowed us to share a video of the Kappa house and talk with many, many girls. The next weekend we were able to speak with all the PNMs in person and get to know them a little better. It was interesting having to recruit with masks, but the chapter faced this safety measure head on and didn’t let it hinder their own experience or the experience of the PNM. After we recruited our wonderful new member pledge class and an energy filled bid day on the front porch, we were able to plan multiple date parties and fun sisterhood events to further build the new bonds we had created with our new members. It was exciting to finally be able to get together in person; creating and deepening the relationships with our new members and sisters is just better when you can do it face to face. Initiation was amazing and it was so exciting for the chapter to be able to have it in person. Each pledge class put in a ton of work learning the new songs and making it a special time for the new members. Our current senior pledge class is the only pledge class before this year to have been on the active side of initiation, so it was a learning process for everyone.
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