Greek life goes hand in hand with college. At OSU, I hear and see Greek life constantly even before joining a sorority, but that could be based off of the people I surrounded myself with which influenced my decision in joining a sorority.
Now everyone you meet is always like "We're brothers for life" or "My sisters will be my bridesmaid at my future wedding". Although I may have similar sediments about my siblings of Gamma Rho Lambda and how much they mean to me, this article isn't about how wonderful my siblings are. It's actually about the bigger picture.
No like literally the bigger picture.
I'm talking about the council. We see the entirety of what is Formal recruitment and girls in booties running to their house of choice. That is put on by their council, with the help of the staff in Sorority and Fraternity Life. Then we see huge events like the Step Show that's hosted by the National Pan-hellenic Council. Or perhaps you've even heard about Greek Week that's put on by the Greek Programming Board.
But what about my council? Have you ever heard about the Multicultural Greek Council?
Probably not. Even if you're in Greek Life. I've overheard people say things like "Gamma Rho Lambda? Where's your house? What's the multicultural greek council?". Look, if you're my co-worker with absolutely no interest in Greek Life, I'll give you a pass. But you're sitting there, letters on your shirt saying you don't know about the Multicultural Greek Council??
It gets a little upsetting when people keep asking you to explain what it is. But to be fair to them, I didn't know much about it before joining a sorority myself. I believe that we can use better advertising to let people know what our council is about.
Low key, it feels like a catch all council at times. It felt like all these greek organizations were different enough from say the Panhellenic Association(PHA) and the Interfraternity Council(IFC) and weren't obviously part of the National Pan-hellenic Council(NPHC) but didn't have a good place to put them. And thus, the Multicultural Greek Council(MCGC) was created.
The funniest part? We can't even call dibs on the acronym of MCG(like every other university that has one) since the Men's Glee Club was here first.
My council may have given me a bad impression at first when I joined, we weren't in the best of shapes then or now. I know that we are working on a lot of different things right now, but we are going to be killing it in the future. The passion that we have on improving and the support we get from our advisor? Stupendous. I also love how we have similar enough issues within our own communities or bubbles that we can still support one another without tearing each other down. I love how supportive we are of one another's events. I honestly don't even mind the size as I get to know all the members on a better level. I've seen some people in PHA that don't even know their own sisters well, let alone a council. (I went to a sorority house for a Greek Week event last year and they didn't know it was even a collab event and asked if I was part of the house) I was thrown into the VP of Marketing and External Communications role during my last semester here at OSU. But I honestly couldn't be happier. I love the bonds and the laughs I get to form with these other leaders of their chapters and I love the marketing I get to do.
Is this article a self plug? Maybe, just maybe...
But I honestly feel warm and happy being in this space and I can't wait to see how my role as an alum can give back to this council the further the experience at the collegiate level.
Here's the shameless plug for the Instagram page that I manage: @mcgc.osu