Story by Jeff Ramsay, Contributing writer
When Evan Ditty interviewed for the Coordinator of Greek life position last April, it was mentioned in his interview that a solid Greek Week hadn’t been established at the university.
At Edinboro University, Ditty worked as a full-time grad assistant for Greek life, which had a Greek Week consisting of 21 events in seven days. Ditty said he would like to see Murray State’s Greek life moving in a similar direction, but the return of Greek Week this year was all about laying a foundation.
Michael Mann, president of Interfraternity Council, said he knew when Ditty took the job for Murray State that his previous job experience of planning a large Greek Week would help push the annual event to the next level.
“This time Ditty said, ‘Let’s try and up it a little bit, next year it will be bigger and even bigger the next,’” Mann said. “Just like bringing in any new process, you have to ease it in.”
Planning for Greek Week, which was held all last week, began as early as last fall during the vice president elections for Interfraternity Council, National Pan-Hellenic Council and National Panhellenic Council. One of the biggest duties as vice president for these councils is programing for Greek life, with the biggest part of that being Greek Week.
Ditty said he wanted Brooke Hubbard, Greek life Graduate Assistant, and the vice presidents of each council to have the experience of planning a major program, so he put them in charge of coordinating Greek Week.
“I really let Brooke and the three of them drive Greek Week as much as possible,” Ditty said. “This is an event for students so it should be based on what the students want and planned by students.”
Ditty said most of what he did for Greek Week was logistics to make sure each event planned was feasible.
“I didn’t want to overprogram our students, who are already complaining about overprogramming,” Ditty said. “I didn’t want to make the week overwhelming since so many organizations already have big events planned throughout the remainder of the semester.”
One of the new events for this year’s Greek Week was Family Feud, which was chosen because it hadn’t been done by any of the organizations and got every Greek chapter involved through representatives.
Another new event for this year’s Greek Week was a rebate night at The Burrito Shack, which raised $184.
Even though this may seem like a surprisingly-low amount since all of Greek life was expected to participate, several factors had an effect on the rebate night’s outcome, including the amount donated being only 10 percent of sales.
“There was a miscommunication with The Burrito Shack and we thought the event started at noon, but it actually started at 4, so those that came for lunch missed out on donating,” Ditty said. “Other Greek philanthropies also had rebate nights scheduled during Greek Week, and the overprograming had an effect on participation.”
Ditty expanded on the topic by saying this was the first year Greek Week featuring a rebate night so this was simply somewhere to start, but also something to build off for next year.
The money is split between the three Greek councils and donated to the philanthropy each council decides on.
“A photo challenge was also something new added to this year’s Greek Week, which had three different opportunities each day for students to take photos that were related to what was going on,” Ditty said. “It got everyone involved throughout the course of the week and was an opportunity for each organization to earn spirit points for friendly competition.”
Ditty explained that #RacerGW16 was chosen as a unique tag for Greek Week at Murray State. It served as a way of labeling the photo competition, but also used the mascot to promote school spirit.
“We got really good participation for Greek Week this year especially via the social media challenge,” Ditty said. “The events that we picked out allowed the smaller chapters to be on an even playing field with the big chapters, which is what we wanted.”
In the future, Ditty said he would like to see trophies associated with Greek Week in hopes to establish more of an incentive for fraternities and sororities to participate.
Although All Greek Assembly was canceled due to the countywide power outage, the Greek life Office is currently planning to reschedule the event sometime before the end of the semester. The event is still set to feature a Greek God and Goddess Beauty Pageant, which was a new addition originally scheduled to be a part of the assembly.
If you have any questions regarding Greek Week or Greek life at Murray State contact Evan Ditty at [email protected].