Greek Groups Create Alliance

Their tables festooned with balloons and posters, members of UNC's nontraditonal Greek groups crowded the Pit on Wednesday to debut the new Greek Alliance Council.

The council, which sets up a support and communication system for the specialty Greek organizations, represents Alpha Epsilon Omega, Alpha Iota Omega, Alpha Kappa Delta Phi, Alpha Pi Omega, Groove Phi Groove, Lambda Upsilon Lambda, Phi Beta Chi, St. Anthony Hall and Theta Nu Xi.

The council is the result of more than a year of hard work by senior Theta Nu Xi member Mimi Patel and junior Alpha Kappa Delta Phi member Georgiana Mak.

Patel conceived the idea last year, but it stalled because she wasn't able to stay in contact with all the groups. But Mak called Patel during the summer, and the two decided to make the council a reality.

Mak discussed her work with Aaron Nelson, interim director for Greek affairs, whose efforts she said were instrumental in the council's foundation.

"(Nelson) has been our chief adviser," Mak said. "I am honestly not sure our council would work so smoothly without (Nelson's) support."

The council serves specialty Greek organizations, including service, religious, cultural and academic fraternities, by giving them a support group and a more efficient means of communication with each other, other Greek councils and the community as a whole.

"For the last seven years or so when the first nontraditional Greek organizations came on campus, they didn't fit into the traditional Greek council," Patel said.

She said the nontraditional Greek organizations previously belonged to a specialty group but said this group didn't have a support system.

Wednesday's event showed that the nontraditional Greek organizations are now able to work together in a way that they could not prior to its creation.

The program consisted of members of each group speaking at a podium about its goals and ideals.

Jessie Webb, a member of Alpha Iota Omega Christian Brotherhood, discussed the ideals that define his fraternity. "We believe that we should be reliable and honest men," he said. "We believe that God gives us encouragement so that we can encourage others in speech and in action."

After each group gave its speech, other specialty Greek groups' applause was among the loudest heard.

"It's easy for specialty groups to fall through the cracks because they are so different," Mak said. "We have a listserv now, and we post our events and encourage each other to come to them."

Nelson attended the program, arriving at around noon and praised the work of Patel and Mak in creating the council.

"They are a diverse group with diverse interests and I think that their struggle is to find their uniting force," he said. "I think they've done an excellent job of finding it."

The University Editor can be reached at udesk@unc.edu.