Internal:

In response to our rapidly increasing numbers, Panhellenic has begun to explore Extension in order to add a 13^th National Panhellenic Conference (NPC) chapter to our campus! On August 2^nd, one representative from each chapter met as the Exploratory Committee to review recruitment and housing statistics. This committee will ultimately give the recommendation to our voting Delegates to either stay as 12 chapters or open our campus to a 13^th.  Stay tuned for more Extension updates!

I am pleased to announce that our CalGreeks Social Chair training will be held on August 25^th with presentations from Berkeley Fire Department, Berkeley Police Department, and the UC Police. Giving our chapter officers a refresher of City, University, and Greek social policies before classes officially begin means that we can start having safe events even sooner!

I also want to take the time to officially congratulate Gamma Phi Beta on their National awards! During the Gamma Phi Beta national convention in Orlando, they were presented with the Panhellenic Spirit Award and the Francis B. Haven Award for the most improved chapter. Congratulations to Gamma Phi Beta for these well-deserved awards! We are so proud of you!

In other exciting news, the Panhellenic GPA again topped both the All Cal Undergrad and All Cal Women’s GPA! Our chapters averaged a 3.38 GPA for the Spring 2010 semester, beating the All Cal Women’s by .06 and up an impressive .05 from last Fall’s 3.33. Congratulations to the women of Chi Omega for earning the highest GPA at a staggering 3.49! These numbers prove that Panhellenic women are intelligent and academically oriented. Good job ladies and keep up the hard work!

External:

Panhellenic’s participation in the Cal Move-Out and Re-USE Programs was extremely successful. In a letter to Chancellor Birgeneau and the Mayor of Berkeley, Tom Bates, Panhellenic was given a shout-out by the program coordinator, Caleb Dardick. We will definitely continue to work with these amazing programs for move-out next semester.

This Fall, Panhellenic chapters will be participating in the University Housing Move-In Program on both days of dorm move in. Our women will be rolling up their sleeves and helping students move in to the Units all weekend. Be on the lookout for us and let us tell you more about the Greek community and Panhellenic recruitment!

Programming:

The CalGreeks Programming Board has been busy this summer planning our major events for the Fall semester, Greek Carnival and Greek Week! Greek Carnival will be held on Monday, August 23^rd from 10pm-1am on Lower Sproul. Carnival is a fun and exciting late night event where students can meet people from each chapter on campus, play fun carnival style games, enjoy some free food, and dance to a live DJ! All 12 Panhellenic chapters will have booths; so if you are interested in recruitment, make sure to stop by!

Mark your calendars because Greek Week is the first week in October! Teams and events will be announced in September…get your game faces on and remember to start saving your change for penny wars!

Risk Management:

Greeks Fight Back is coming to Cal on October 10^th to teach Panhellenic women about self-defense in a hands on and exciting way! Attendance at this program will count towards chapter’s fulfillment of the CalGreeks/Panhellenic education requirement.

I am also excited to announce the first All-Panhellenic New Member Education event, which will be happening just before Greeks Fight Back. At this program, all new members from each chapter will learn about the Greek community in greater detail, including the Four Councils and Four Pillars, safety issues, and ways to prevent harmful situations. Our hope is that by educating our newest members early on in their college career, we can encourage safe habits and reduce risk.

Recruitment:

The majority of the work that goes on during the summer is to prepare for our Fall Formal Recruitment process! Chapters, Recruitment Counselors, and the Panhellenic Recruitment Team have been tirelessly preparing for what we are expecting to be our largest recruitment ever!

If you are interested in getting an exclusive tour of our chapter houses before recruitment begins, please join us for House Tours on Sunday, August 22^nd at 2pm, 3pm, and 4pm, leaving from International House (top of Bancroft Ave.). You will have a chance to speak with Recruitment Counselors, meet chapter officers, and learn more about Panhellenic and the recruitment process.

At 6pm on August 23^rd and 24^th, Panhellenic will be holding info sessions for interested women. Please come and ask us any questions you have about our community!

This year, recruitment begins on August 27^th and ends on September 2^nd. If you are interested in participating in Recruitment, please see the Panhellenic Recruitment page and register by August 24^th.

Whew! So much has been going on, the summer sure has flown by! But I know that with everything that will be going on this semester, school will be just as fun! Also, it is almost the “most wonderful time of the year,” football season! GO BEARS!

Fraternally,

Katrina Ziegenhirt

Panhellenic President

Internal:

Continuing on past semesters, CalGreeks hosted Chapter Officer training on February 6^th for Presidents, Social Chairs, Risk Managers, and others. Recognizing that chapters want to have social events as soon as the semester started, we arranged for a Panhellenic preliminary Social Chair Training that occurred on the first day of instruction. To continue relationships with chapter officers and create arenas for discussion, roundtables were held with Presidents, Social Chairs, Risk Managers, GAMMA reps, Sustainability Chairs and Philanthropy Chairs. Chapter Delegates met bi-weekly to get caught up on everything Panhellenic to report back to their chapters. A new program this semester is Woman of the Month, where each chapter nominates a member and one is chosen and featured in the No Matter the Letters newsletter. I want to thank every chapter officer for participating in these discussions and for taking an active role in the community. Without your involvement, there would be no flow of ideas between chapters and progress would be made more difficult.

External:

This semester we have improved on our relations with much of our community. First, numerous Panhellenic chapters took advantage of the Greek Opportunity Fund set up by the ASUC to fund their Philanthropy events. Ten out of our twelve chapters hosted philanthropy events raising thousands of dollars for their national philanthropies. Panhellenic has also created ties with the outside community through membership on the Chancellors Advisory Committee on Student/Neighbor Relations and the Neighborhood Relations Task Forced headed up by IFC Advisor, Brandon Tsubaki. Membership in these entities ensures that Panhellenic is able to participate in dialogues concerning risk management, neighborhood relations, and sustainability. In April, Panhellenic partnered with Kaplan Test-prep Services to gain a 15% discount on courses for Panhellenic women and host four strategy sessions at Chi Omega. Lastly, Panhellenic chapters are participating in the ReUSE clothing drive program during move-out to reduce waste.

Programming:

Panhellenic women were busy this semester with programming events ranging from sports nights to service opportunities. Panhellenic and IFC sponsored Warriors Night in March and Giants Night in April yielded huge turnouts and fun was had by all! The ASUC Voter Booths were enormously successful, leading to multiple Chipotle re-orders and voters opting to use their smart phones to vote instead of waiting in the long line for a laptop. We want to thank Greeks for voting in this year’s election because many of our Greek candidates won! The Pre-Cal Day Cleanup saw unprecedented numbers with over 250 participants, the majority of which were Panhellenic women. In addition, every chapter had a team for Relay for Life, the American Cancer Society’s event to raise money for cancer research. Thank you so much for your participation this semester and get excited for Greek Carnival and Greek Week (including Greek Benefit!) in the Fall!

Risk Management:

Working with a brand new Panhellenic Social Code, Panhellenic and Chapter officers worked together to plan and register safe events for members. It was difficult at the beginning to work through the new City Ordinances and Fire Permits, but now that everyone has the routine down, the number of registered events has increased dramatically! This means that chapters are making risk management and safety their priorities in planning events on and off site. I truly appreciate chapter officers taking the time and effort to work through this difficult semester. We definitely came out on top and next semester should be no problem! Panhellenic chapters also completed their education requirements through events like the Body Positive documentary screening and having BEARS come to chapter meetings. The CERT program was brought to campus in late April, allowing chapters to send representatives to a building on campus instead of a fire station. Look forward to Greeks Fight Back!, a self defense event and an alcohol safety event for new members in the Fall.

Recruitment:

Nine of twelve chapters were involved in Spring COB this semester, adding dozens of amazing women to our community! In February, 34 Recruitment Counselors were chosen and completed their semester long training in order to be effective in helping PNMs through the recruitment process in the Fall. Weekly Recruitment Roundtables with each chapter’s VP Membership were essential in getting everyone on the same page and sharing ideas. The Go Greek Book will be our official summer mailer featuring all four CalGreeks’ councils and providing more information about Panhellenic to incoming women. The Judicial Committee did presentations clarifying “dirty rushing” and educating chapter members on recruitment rules. I am so thankful for all of the hard work that chapters put in to recruitment events to make our community better. I am looking forward to an amazing recruitment in the Fall!

Reflecting on this past semester, it is amazing to see all of the wonderful things that have been accomplished and all of the excitement planned for next semester. None of these things could have been accomplished without the hard work and dedication of the Panhellenic Executive Council and all chapter officers. Please feel free to contact me at phc.president@calgreeks.com if you have any suggestions on how to make next semester even better! Thank you again for all of your contributions to the community and to your chapters. Together we are making the Panhellenic community better.

Fraternally,

Katrina Ziegenhirt

Panhellenic President

Ben Elkin – Alpha Epsilon Pi – A junior a 3.21 overall GPA as a Chemistry major and a minor in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Ben has served as his chapter’s treasurer, and community service chair. He is a member of the Berkeley Energy and Resources Collaborative, as well as the leader of a working group at the Science, Technology, and Society Center at UC Berkeley. Finally, Ben has also been involved in several research projects including research into myeloma and bone cancer, as well as research to develop a vegetative voltaic cell to be used as a low-power energy source in the developing world.

Dane Johnston – Zeta Psi – A sophomore with a 3.89 overall GPA as an Economics major, Dane has served as his chapter’s philanthropy chair. He holds the position of legislative liaison for the Office of External Affairs of the ASUC where he collaborates with city officials to increase student involvement in civic affair as well as represent the voice of UC Berkeley students to the city of Berkeley. Finally, Dane serves as research assistant in the Political Science department where he conducts research and analysis on political violence in Africa.

Daniel Kronovet – Delta Chi – A sophomore with a 3.93 overall GPA as a dual major in both Cognitive Science and Political Economy, Daniel has served as both his chapter’s alumni relations and finance chair. He also is a staff writer for the Daily Californian where he writes in the Arts & Entertainment section about film, theater, music, and literature. Daniel also serves as a cabinet member for the Berkeley Student Cooperative where he helps oversee long-term growth for the 1,300 member organization.

Kevin Sitek – Alpha Sigma Phi – A junior with a 3.55 overall GPA as a dual major in both Cognitive Science and Linguistic, Kevin currently serves as president of his chapter and has also served as treasurer of his chapter. He is Vice President of the Berkeley Project where he helps organize a 2,000 student volunteer day in the fall and a 300 student volunteer month in the spring. Kevin also serves as a Community Service Officer for the Berkeley Police Department. Finally, Kevin serves as a research assistant in the phonology lab in the Linguistics department.

John Tran – Pi Alpha Phi – A junior with a 3.55 overall GPA as a Business Administration major, John has served as his chapter’s recruitment coordinator and academic committee chair. John currently serves as Academic Affairs Vice President for the ASUC where he is responsible for for organizing campus wide programming and initiatives to enhance the academic experiences of students. In this position he oversees a staff of 32 directors and 50 interns who help carry the academic mission. He has also been actively involved in raising awareness about and raising funds for Hepatitis B initiatives.

James Zheng – Pi Alpha Phi – A junior with a 3.69 overall GPA as an Integrative Biology major, James has served two terms as his chapter’s president where he helped turn the chapter around by instituting a strong organizational culture. He has also served as his chapter’s VP of Internal Relations and as academic chair. Additionally, he has served as the IFC Academic Achievement Officer. For the past year James has taught a course on organizational leadership through the DeCal program. James has also conducted cardiac research for the VA Medical Hospital in San Diego.

Congratulations again to all our winners!

Before launching into the list, I want to thank all the chapter presidents for a successful semester. Although there is always room for improvement within our community, considering the issues we faced, you as chapter presidents were proactive in responding to our requests and making our work far easier. I look forward to what I hope will be an even more successful fall semester.

Internal:

From an internal perspective IFC was able to continue many of the successful practices from semesters past. At the beginning of the semester we held an officer training for social chairs, presidents, and other officers. Many aspects of our internal operations require active participation from chapters and I want to thank those chapters that actively participated in presidents meetings and were proactive in paying dues. Most importantly we successfully gave out the first semester of awards from our IFC Leadership Recognition Scholarship which was established with a $100,000 endowment last semester.

External:

From an external perspective we were able to further our relationship with the ASUC by informing chapter of resources available to them as well as continuing to work to publicize the Greek Opportunity Fund. Additionally, we launched a successful pilot recycling program in ten chapters with Greening the Greeks – an initiative which will be continue to be led by the new VP of Sustainability. Finally we saw the successful introduction of the 2020 Greek Strategic Plan which many chapters actively participated in and will help guide our community to continued success.

Programming:

This semester saw the continuation of two successful events – Greek Warriors Night and Greek Giants Night – including a great on-court free throw contest after the Warriors game. Again, chapter participation is crucial to the success of these events and I would like to thank those chapters which participated. We also hosted a very successful Greek Voter Drive which enabled members to vote in a convenient location. Finally we also hosted a very successful pre-Cal Day cleanup which helped show those in our community that we are active in maintaining the appearance of our neighborhood.

Risk:

Although we have faced many difficulties this semester, particularly in regards to the pending lawsuit, I want to thanks chapters for their active cooperation in registering events and receiving fire permits. These measures help show that we are proactive in ensuring that our events are held in a safe and responsible manner. Although there has been confusion at times, we have worked to make the registration process as clear and simple as possible, as well as work to inform chapters of the proper process for receiving a fire permit.

Recruitment:

This semester we were able to bring Dave Stollman and his nationally recognized Recruitment Bootcamp program to campus to speak to chapter members about recruitment. The program was very well received by those members that were able to attend. Additionally we hosted a Cal Day tabling event where we were able to speak with a number of potential new members and their parents and inform them about IFC. Finally we worked with all four councils to develop a Greek Recruitment Booklet which will be given to potential new members during the summer.

Fraternally,

Jeremiha Douglas – IFC President

Ramon Leon (Acacia)
ramonl51514@gmail.com

Josh Curtis (Alpha Gamma Omega)
joshfcurtis@gmail.com
909.524.2262

Brian Thomas (Alpha Sigma Phi)
brithomas@berkeley.edu
949.280.6779

Puneet Lath (Alpha Tau Omega)
atosummerhousing@gmail.com

Kenzan Boo (Chi Psi)
kenzanboo@gmail.com
805.300.9592

Ohad Gilberg (Delta Chi)
sargent.deltachi@gmail.com

Richardo Raso (Lambda Chi Alpha)
rkraso@pacbell.net

Will Sultan (Pi Kappa Phi)
zultan4life@berkeley.edu
626.905.8103

Patrick Lynch (Sigma Alpha Epsilon)
patricklynch88@gmail.com
530.867.6722

Michael Chuong (Sigma Alpha Mu)
michael.j.chuong@gmail.com
661.755.3685

Nathan Quintana (Sigma Nu)
najono@gmail.com
626.422.2903

Stuart Thompson (Sigma Phi Epsilon)
stuartbthompson@gmail.com
510.508.6712

Tyler Stock (Sigma Pi)
tyler-stock@berkeley.edu
310.760.6369

Francisco Quiroz (Theta Delta Chi)
f.quiroz.vazquez@gmail.com
619.250.2527

If safety is your priority, we need your help NOW….

Next week is really important for the legislative work of the fraternal world. Over 200 men and women who are fraternity/sorority members  - including the Cal KA president – will make visits to federal congressional offices to speak with members of Congress and various legislative aides about the Collegiate Housing and Infrastructure Act (CHIA).  In case you are not aware, this Act would provide for tax-deductible donations to be made to the fraternal foundations specifically for housing facility safety measures and improvements.

We need your IMMEDIATE help!  Please join the Facebook application called “Petition Your Congressman.”  You will be asked to sign a short petition, which will then be sent to your representative/senator.  All the petitions will be printed to use during the Hill visits, so we need to gather these signatures no later than April 17.

If Facebook is not your thing, then please visit www.fraternalcaucus.com and register.  At this site you can send an e-mail to your representative/senator in support of CHIA.  There is new information on the Web site, so now’s the time to begin sending messages. If you have not sent an e-mail from this Web site since January 1, 2009, please use the site now to send an e-mail message as the Bill had to be re-introduced to the new Congress so we start from Ground Zero again. April 17 is also the critical date for this action so the e-mails can be used for the visits. Chancellor Birgeneau has endorsed this Bill with letters of his own to our elected officials.

When John Edwards of KA gets to Washington, D.C., next week, we want him to be proud and pleased with the number of petitions and messages CalGreeks generated.  This is really easy to do and a great way to demonstrate our good citizenship. Please share this message widely with your membership, advisors, alumni, parents, and friends.

This past weekend, representatives from three councils (IFC, PHC, MCGC) traveled to San Francisco along with 900 other Greeks from across the country to attend the Western Region Greek Association Conference. Featuring keynote speeches from well known speakers about leadership development and other topics, the conference allowed council members to learn valuable skills that they could take back to their work at UC Berkeley. Additionally, smaller breakout sessions allowed council members to discuss ideas and issues with keynote speakers and other presenters in a more intimate setting. During the awards banquet, CalGreeks won the Inter-Council Relations award, as well as taking second and third places in the Order of Omega case competition. Several UC Berkeley IFC chapters were also in attendance, and your chapter should consider attending WRGA in 2010.

We all know how much fun attending sports games with friends is, so why not make a Greek night out of it? For the fourth year in a row, more than two hundred Cal Greeks attended the Greek Warriors night February 4th. For only twenty dollars, attendees got a ticket to the game as well as bus transportation to Oracle Arena.

Members of the Greek community got the opportunity to watch the Warriors play a great game against the Phoenix Suns, and even saw themselves up on the big screen. Events like these help promote unity between the different Greek Councils and provide us with an opportunity to meet members of other chapters.

This past weekend saw executive officers from all four councils-IFC, PHC, MCGC, and NPHC-in Marin learning about leadership, developing relationships with officers from other councils, and setting goals for the upcoming semester. Under the guidance of several CalGreeks advisors, council officers worked to determine ways to strengthen their respective councils, promote Greek unity, and be effective leaders within the Greek community.