By Lexy Gierszal, Contributing Writer
Fraternities and sororities are a staple of university life at Susquehanna. When campus shut down in the spring, the Greek community was hit hard. As a member of Zeta Tau Alpha, I have had an inside look to the effects the pandemic brought to the world of Greek life.
This semester the fraternities and sororities had to find a way to rework Greek life on and off campus. This week I took a deeper look into my fraternity to see what they have been doing to be together in a time where being apart is safer.
Zeta Tau Alpha is a women’s fraternity and currently has around 50 members. With current restrictions due to the pandemic, and having sisters located both on and off campus, it has been a struggle to keep all sisters connected.
Zeta is utilizing many online platforms to keep the sisterhood intact. Zoom and Discord have become essential to the fraternity. Online chat rooms have become a way for sisters to check in, talk about classes and hobbies and stay up to date on fraternity information all from the comfort of their rooms. Sisters have found ways to watch movies together, craft and do homework all while maintaining social distancing guidelines.
Zeta bases a lot of what they do around service. They usually focus on hands-on service, but for safety reasons they have shifted focus to virtual ways of helping the community. The Zeta Philanthropy Director has been innovating new ways to allow sisters to achieve their service hours such as being pen pals with nursing home residents, going on websites that give donations for actions or recording themselves reading a childrens’ book aloud.
Even in these difficult times, Zeta is still keeping its members engaged by finding ways to reach out to potential members. They are already workshopping their virtual recruitment and prepping their members for the recruitment season.
Zeta is excited for what is to come this semester. They are adapting to the new world we live in and are ready to take on whatever comes next.
