With the new semester comes changes within Greek life on campus. Six of the seven Greek chapters welcome new presidents and a group called Panhel comes together to help improve some of the Greek practices. 

The new presidents include Sid Hudson for Kappa Theta Psi (KOY), Nic Warrington for Alpha Tau Omega (ATO), Trey Teske for Sigma Alpha Epsilon (SAE), David Hollingsworth for Lambda Chi Alpha (Lambda), Hailey Kowzan for Pi Beta Phi (Pi Phi), and Scout Peery for Kappa Kappa Gamma (Kappa).

Delta Delta Delta is the only Greek house on campus that does not change positions at semester. Tri Delta’s current president is Caitlyn Potter.

“It’s been a little hectic,” Hudson said of the first few weeks. “We just got rid of IFC [Interfraternity Council] so that’s something. We’re trying to get all the presidents together so we can have a meeting, but all of us are extremely busy.”

All the presidents are settling into their roles and learning as they go, but they are also overseeing the other position holders, spring recruitment and engaging more with campus.

“It’s been pretty busy,” Kowzan said. “But I’ve enjoyed the opportunity to have this position and help the girls.”

Many Greek presidents fell into the job more than they tried to obtain it. Hudson’s big was a president before him and Hollingsworth’s sister was president of Tri Delta during her time.

“Part of me thinks that I’m a nepo baby,” Hudson joked. “My big [Drew Lundquist] was president, but as a junior, I am the second oldest in the house right now. They think I’m a good leader. I don’t know, but they see it. I ran unopposed, it was a unanimous decision. Next one up is kind of how it is.”

“With how small our chapters are, you kind of know who is going to be in which positions,” Hollingsworth said. “I started out as our social chair during my freshman year and then I went on to high beta, which is our vice president, and after my time there, it was just kind of seen that I was next.”

Once a new president takes over, they can start working on improving Greek life both in big ways and behind the scenes.

“We’re really focusing on being more involved on campus,” Kowzan said. “Many members are in many different organizations and clubs and sports, so supporting those all on campus. And we also want to do more service in the community, like going to Kiya Koda and the public library.”

“We used to have a strict set of everybody has to be in two things on campus, not counting Lambda like clubs or sports,” Hollingsworth said. “And that’s not been the case in the last few years, so I want to get back to that, so we have more Lambdas seen on campus doing things.”

While Lambda and Pi Phi are taking a more low-key approach, Hudson is ready to make some big changes in KOY.

“We’re working on getting our third floor at least livable,” he said. “Currently, we haven’t had people living on the third floor for about twenty years now. So, it’s gotten run down and with all the snow we’ve had a couple issues. And we have a public relations position now and they now have five posts they need to make across all platforms,”

On the opposite end, Hollingsworth is working more behind the scenes in his role.

“It’s kind of a saying for us that you shouldn’t really see what the president is doing because a lot of what the president does here in fraternity is all done behind the scenes,” he said. “Like the beta is the one in charge of brotherhood affairs. They put on our brotherhood events, get new things for the house like chairs, couches, we got a new pool table this last semester, stuff like that. So, you see a lot of what the other positions do while the president is more of a supportive role for them.”

“Another thing I’m trying to do is improve the relationship between all of the houses and make sure there’s no divide in Greek life,” Hudson said. “I think over the years that’s been something that’s been slowly growing and over the past two years it’s been slowly getting better, but I want it to improve a lot more.”

The sorority-overseeing body, Panhel, assists the sororities in their efforts to grow in members.

“We mainly focus on doing recruitment in the fall and getting women involved in the Greek system, but we all plan a lot of other activities on campus,” Panhel President Teagan Townsend said. “Like Greek Week is something we’re responsible for and we work pretty closely with a lot of fraternities as well to plan events like that.”

Every campus that has more than one sorority or fraternity is required to have a Panhellenic Association to make sure that all the laws of recruitment are being enforced to make sure the whole process is fair.

“We’re hoping to make some changes to the recruitment structure for next year, in the fall,” Townsend said. “It used to be a really formal process. Last year we switched it to a little bit more of an informal process and so we’re just working out some of the kinks that are still in that process to make it more approachable for a lot of people who wouldn’t have originally done Greek life because the formal process was pretty out-there for a lot of people.”

But Panhel also aims to destigmatize Greek life on Simpson’s campus.

“I really didn’t think I was going to join Greek life when I came to college. I was pretty anti-Greek life, actually,” Townsend said. “I signed up for recruitment as a joke at first, and then I went and met a bunch of people that I really enjoyed being around. I ended up joining Pi Phi and it was really important to me that others were able to get the same chance that I had because I had all these misconceptions of what Greek life was like.”

“I think that a lot of people coming into Simpson don’t realize that Greek life here isn’t like Greek life on other campuses,” Hudson said. “Every fraternity is very different than their counterparts at other schools. So, they come in here and they think of Greek life as this very exclusive environment and that you have to be some rich kid to get into it and that really isn’t the case.”

Both the fraternities and sororities have recruitment events going on over the course of this semester. Their doors are open to anyone interested in Greek life.