It is time for recruitment at Shippensburg University and all the fraternities and sororities are buzzing about what event they have coming up next and encouraging students to join.

However, in Greek Life you pay for your friends. In Greek Life you join to drink, do drugs and party. In Greek Life you are hazed to be a part of an organization.

All these statements can possibly be heard from people who do not approve of Greek Life and the people who are a part of it.

I have been a part of Alpha Phi for about two years now and it has been the best decision I have made in my college career thus far.

But in Greek Life you pay for your friends, right? Sorority and fraternity payments, what members call dues, are used for fees from headquarters and funds to support events such as sisterhoods or brotherhoods, philanthropic events and alumni or parent events. As many in Greek Life have said, if I paid for my friends, I surely did not pay enough.

I joined to drink, do drugs and party. Being a part of a sorority or fraternity, there are events that involve alcohol. However, these events are approved by our advisory boards and each member has been given lessons on drinking and safety. There are also other events such as bonfires, dinners and BBQs that organizations hold to get to know each other and network without alcohol.

As part of a Greek organization, I also can strongly disagree with the idea that Greek Life gets away with things and that fraternity men are no good. Each organization has their own judiciary board in their own chapter, international headquarters and university. I also have never met better men than those that are in fraternities. I have never felt safer than I do around fraternity men because of the standards and values that they hold for themselves because of the organizations they are in.

Lastly, I can promise I have never been hazed. A few bad eggs have given Greek Life a bad name, but I am here to tell you a few fun facts of what Greek Life is really about.

According to USA Today, 85 percent of Fortune 500 executives were a part of Greek Life. College graduations rates are 20 percent higher among Greeks than non-Greeks. Greeks raise more than $7 million for charity each year.

These are the kinds of things for which these organizations truly stand.

Take a look around SU’s campus and think about the possible good that the people wearing those combination of Greek letters could have done.

Delta Zeta and Kappa Delta Phi NAS volunteered at a spaghetti dinner at the Chambersburg High School for the Cumberland Valley Animal Shelter on Feb. 5. Pi Lambda Phi will be collecting cans for Kings Kettle this February. Other examples include Phi Sigma Kappa for continuously raising money for the Special Olympics and Alpha Phi for raising money for Women’s Cardiac Care and Prevention every year.

It is hard to judge something you are not a part of, and as many Greeks say, from the outside looking in you cannot understand it and from the inside looking out you cannot explain it.

But as a member of a Greek organization, I ask you to try to understand and invite you to take a look.

The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the writer and are not representative of The Slate or its staff as a whole.

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