The Bloomsburg Greek Alumni Association (BGAA) organized the second Active Greek Chapter Summit. The first Summit happened after disaffiliation in 2021. The original Summit was needed because the Greeks were in uncharted waters after the University suddenly announced that Greeks were no longer recognized organizations.

*Greek men break-out session from the first Summit in 2021*

2021 was very uncertain time for Greeks, but after the first Summit meeting, Student organizations created a strategy for moving forward based on schools that had also recently faced disaffiliation. Many other schools created various state recognized business orientations, and continued as businesses. In many of the case studies, a strong Greek Alumni Association became the new central organizing body for Greek organizations at their school. Each campus creating solutions of various levels of oversight to best fit their needs.

Greeks emerged from that first meeting with tools to continue all their critical operations in a mostly cooperative way, and they have been getting better each year since…under their own management. However, much still remains to be done, and all the organizations recognize this fact. The hangover of Covid has created some challenges, as well as the shrinking size of the student body at the Bloomsburg campus.

The Greek Exec. Board Summit was created to give Active Greek students a venue to discuss what is working for them, what is not, and get new input in regard to “best practices” from a national perspective as collected and relayed by our Friday night speaker, Michael Ayalon.

You can see the full Agenda for the Summit HERE

The Summit - Day 1

Friday, August 19th, 2023 4:00 p.m.

A rousing talk delivered by Michael R. Ayalon of the Greek University organization.

Michael’s main area of focus for the evening was recruitment, and how greek organizations need to identify the changing faces of potential new members, and appeal to their specific needs and wants.

The event covered some history of different demographic groups, but then quickly settled in to a focused discussion of where Greeks are now, and how to best attract quality new members to current greek organization at the Bloomsburg University campus.

Michael talks at schools all around the nation, so his wide view of the national (and international) greek scene was a refreshing contrast to the insular opinions and experiences of most Greeks in the Bloomsburg “bubble”. Adding some perspective from a more broad perspective is helpful in creating innovation and a more creative mindset. This is what Bloomsburg Greeks need at this point in time.

*A packed house! Lots of Greek students yearning to do a better job!*

Michael’s talk was widely enjoyed and appreciated by the student, and many expressed excitement at the idea of bringing some new concepts back to their individual organizations.

The talk officially ended after questions and answers around 5:30 pm.

You can read a case study from the speech HERE
You can read a Press Release about the talk and Speaker HERE

Feedback taken directly after the talk:

Summit - Day Two

Saturday, August 20th, 2023

Bloomsburg Specific Workshops

Starting at 10:00 a.m the Greeks reassembled after an evening of pondering which of Michael’s ideas might work at Bloomsburg…and which might not. We started the morning with some introductions of the fairly new Bloomsburg Greek Alumni Association.

Saturday was all about the Bloomsburg University Greek Landscape

10:00 a.m. - What/Who is BGAA?

There had been some confusion and questions about why BGAA formed, and more specifically: why now? The BGAA Board Representatives Paul Frank and David Decoteau did a good job of addressing those questions and concerns and in a few minutes the eight-year consideration process that led to the final formation of the BGAA 501c-3 organization was outlined. The deciding factor was disaffiliation and the void left by campus.

You can find more about the creation of the BGAA on this website, but briefly, Alumni expressed their desire to help both Greek Alumni and Greek Active organizations have their best, safest, more rewarding experience both during their years at Bloomsburg/Commonwealth…and far beyond. The BGAA organization saying there is great value in Greek Life at Bloomsburg University. Value that until recently was not recognized or appreciated. The BGAA expressed a desire to represent that valuable group to the general public and to potential partners in the best possible light going forward. David Decoteau was heard to say, “If Greeks were a Union, we would like to be your Union Representatives. We think you deserve some respect as a valuable, historical part of the College experience, and we want to use our decades of accumulated knowledge combined with national data to make sure Greeks are treated fairly and respectfully.”

10:15 a.m.
Rose, Thorn, Bud.

After the introductions, a brief period advertised as “fun stuff” in the Agenda followed. It was a “ice breaker” exercise that had students dividing into groups of unfamiliar other Greek students and collaborating to fill out the “Rose, Thorn, Bud” sheet shown in the photo.

Andrea Kline, Treasurer of BGAA, ran the exercise and it had amazingly great results. It was the student’s first time to really work together, agree on some results, and express those ideas to the general Greek population: and they did so with gusto!

The conversation was so good, that it extended into the next section of the Agenda. But when students are clicking like they were clicking…you don’t slow that down.

You can see the results of this exercise HERE

*Some passionate feelings about Greek life were shared during this exercise.*

11:15 a.m. - Breaking into smaller groups…outside

It was so nice outside that it seemed like punishment to keep everyone inside. luckily for us, St. Paul’s Episcopal Church has some amazing grounds that seemed picture perfect for our size group.

This section of the day was advertised in the Agenda as a time to discuss what aspects of the talk from Friday night applied to Bloomsburg University…and which would be more difficult to implement here. From there, some steps were taken to figure out how to make the ideas that applied work in the Bloomsburg environment.

It had been a busy morning already, and as the students talked, thought of lunch were creeping into everyone’s head…

12:00 p.m. Lunch

(and an unexpected testimonial)

No one wants “Hangry” Greeks. It’s bad enough that they already had to come to school early for the Summit and forego a big portion of their first weekend at school, but to then deprive them of a good lunch would have been ill advised and possibly against the Geneva Convention. As a result, the Greek Alumni Association bucked up for about 70 hoagies from the Bloomburg University staple lunch location: Stef’s Subs.

…and this is where the unexpected testimonial happened.

When picking up the boxes of hoagies and accoutrements; Stef struck up a conversation that went like this:

Stef - are these for the Greeks?

Me (tentatively) - yes.

Stef - How are they doing?

Me - pretty good. They have been chugging along under their own power since the disaffiliation.

Stef - I am glad to hear that news. I think they do so much for the town. Town’s people used to complain about them all the time, but now that they see who moves in to the houses when the students move out: they don’t think Greeks are so bad anymore. I miss the days when greeks were a big part of the vibrant student community.

Me - Me too Stef, and that’s why we are here today. We would love to see that be the Bloomsburg environment again.

And with that, I was out of Stef’s Subs with my last box of deliciousness and headed back to hungry Greeks.

12:30 - Fraternities and Sororities get specific

We broke up the big group into men (downstairs) and women (upstairs). This was a successful action of the 2021 Summit because by lunch time it becomes very evident that the men’s and women’s organizations have entirely different challenges that need to be addressed by collaborating to some specific action items. This Summit is the time and place to make it happen!

Without getting into too much detail, both the men and women identified some sorority and fraternity specific problems; discussed them, and both groups left the meeting with some action items to be put on the ground immediately. For example:

greek letter Wednesday
A pan fraternity “meet and greet” time and date was set.
conversation about what can be done on the campus “common grounds”.
Rush related collaboration and an agreement to work more closely together going forward.

One area where the Board felt that existing Greek student REALLY have a stumbling block is found in the fact that there is no place for the general student body to come in contact with the ENTIRE greek community, in a safe and public place. A place that is free from drinking and other factors that make approaching greeks a fairly intimidating proposition for a lot of potential new members…and non-members alike. We agreed that we would all love a public place at which to put that foot forward.

1:30 - Wrap-up: what’s coming?

The part everyone was really waiting for…

The Summit concluded with the Board members of the Greek Alumni Association taking turns outlining the potential paths forward that the University is presently pursuing as the Bloomburg University Alumni Board works with paid consultant, Sara Diem of Lehigh University. The goal being the creation of a UNIFIED GREEK SYSTEM between all three schools in the Commonwealth system.

The University (and the Commonwealth system) is facing rapidly decreasing enrollment. Whether disaffiliation from Greek life is part of that decline or not, will be left to historians to decide, but the timing is pretty coincidental…if nothing else. Whatever the reasons for the Universities renewed interest in Greeks, we have to assume at some level: it’s associated with getting young people to attend Commonwealth University broadly, and Bloomsburg University, more specifically.

Although the results of the University study have not been officially announced or even completed yet, some of the present directions being considered are as follows:

ALL organizations wishing to be recognized will need to reapply to the school for reinstatement. ONLY orgs that fit the requirements set out by Commonwealth University will be reinstated…but even if the organization does meet all the criteria, the University is under no OBLIGATION to reinstate that group.
There will be party registration with campus and party criteria to be followed. Failure will result in sanctions against that organization.
There will be insurance policies that will need to be maintained.
There will be a need for multiple adult “Advisors”, potentially: one being a University staff member.
There will be best practices documents that will be created and will need to be followed above and beyond the existing laws of the land and the student code of conduct documents.

Remembering that the ultimate goal here is to create a UNIFIED GREEK SYSTEM across all three campuses of Commonwealth and that most of the existing greek organizations at Bloomsburg are not found at the other Commonwealth campuses, the student body needs to at least consider the fact that reinstatement of Greek life by the University may very likely mean that their organization (as they know it presently) will not be permitted to recolonize.

The Bloomsburg Greek Alumni Association is positioned to help organizations get into compliance with the University mandates, if that is what they choose to do. We are also positioned to help any organizations who DO NOT care to reaffiliate and continue to thrive, as they have been, in the two years since the University decided they wanted to dissolve the relationship.

The Bloomsburg Greek Alumni Association feels that these legacy organizations have value (and we think campus now also sees the value) and as a result, BGAA will act as the Advocate to see that these organization get the treatment they deserve as a valued part of the Bloomsburg experience. There are tools that the University could give greek organization to help them increase their odds of being the kind of asset that both Greek Alumni and the University want them to be. In the past affiliation with the University, no tools were given to Greek students and the relationship was always more punitive and reactionary than any real attempt at working together to create something great.

The Bloomsburg Greek Alumni Association made it clear to the Greek students in attendance that we are there for them, and we will do everything in our power to help them create the best version of Greek life at Bloomsburg that can be imagined.

The Greek Alumni Association has conducted similar research to the University over the years. We understand and agree that some new practices and procedures would benefit the greek community over time. Some of those new rules will be painful. But if we all want the best Greek system possible; we will all have to look at goals from a universal perspective and make the hard decisions that are needed for long-term viability.

Students have the same right to freely associate as any American citizen. BGAA won’t let Greek students be bullied or targeted for exercising that right. BGAA let the students know that this time around, we will be at their side, and together, the best days for Greeks at Bloomsburg University may very well be ahead of us. However, exactly what that looks at this point in time, is anyone’s guess. We asked them to be open minded, and in the meantime, just keep building the best greek community possible.

ADDITIONAL INFO:

Here is another review of the Summit from the perspective of the ISC organization who were in attendance:

https://www.bloomsburgisc.org/post/fostering-unity-and-progress-summit-weekend

2023 Greek Active Chapter Summit

You can see the full Agenda for the Summit HERE