The Interfraternity Council and the Panhellenic Association, the groups responsible for governing most of campus’s fraternities and sororities respectively, both held executive board member elections for the one-year term starting in December this week in the Anderson Room of the Michigan Union.
In last night’s IFC election, Engineering senior Mike Friedman, former Triangle fraternity president, was elected as the council’s new president.
Friedman said in an interview after the election that the Greek community means an “immeasurable amount” to him and that he is looking forward to being as involved as he can be.
“I reflect a lot on how much I’ve grown as a result of my membership to a fraternity in the Greek community, and my goal going into this is that the presidency is a role in which I can give back as much as possible,” he said.
Friedman said his goals are both internal and external. He said he’d like to branch out on campus to organizations that are outside of the Greek community.
“We’re going to make sure that we develop programming that will benefit members and non-members alike in effort to portray and put forth a positive and lasting impact on the Greek community and on the entire community as a whole,” he said.
As far as internal goals, Friedman said he’d like to improve communication both among chapter presidents and between the chapter presidents and the IFC executive board.
“Fact is, there’s not enough personal bonds between the men around this table and we’re going to work to improve that,” he said.
Business junior Blake Toll, a member of Phi Kappa Psi fraternity and former IFC vice president of public relations, was selected as IFC executive vice president. Toll ran for executive vice president after losing the IFC presidential election to Friedman.
In a post-election interview, Toll echoed Friedman’s sentiments about reaching out to non-Greek organizations on campus but also mentioned that he’d like to reach out to the Junior IFC, the governing organization for younger members of the Greek community.
“I’m going to try and show them that they have power,” he said. “Their views about how the Greek community should be shaped can be brought to the IFC and I really want that to be more of a factor than it has been in the past.”
LSA junior Jeff Wojcik, former historian of Phi Gamma Delta – also known as FIJI – was selected as IFC judicial vice president.
Wojcik said after the election that he wants to mix up the way IFC runs their meetings by hosting them at their chapter houses to get all members more involved.
“I want to take IFC to our members instead of expecting our members to come to IFC,” he said.
During Tuesday night’s Panhel elections, LSA junior Katie Rosenberg, former Panhel delegate for Kappa Kappa Gamma, was elected as Panhel president.
Rosenberg said in an interview yesterday that safety would be a priority for her in the position. She said there are many dimly-lit areas of campus in the vicinity of Greek houses as well as non-Greek house. She said she would like to work with the Michigan Student Assembly to bring more light into those areas.
She said one of her “biggest goals” is to improve relations between Greek students and non-Greek students.
“I’d want to create more joint events and hopefully try to mend some of the gaps between the students,” she said.
Rosenberg also hopes to unite the various Greek councils by planning workshops about positive body image that many of the women in the different sororities across the Greek councils, not just Panhel, could benefit from.
“There’s obviously no concrete things I’ve done yet but I’m just really excited to get started and hopefully it’s going to be a good year,” she said.
Engineering junior Lianna Gordon, former Panhel delegate for Sigma Kappa was elected Panhel Executive vice president.
Gordon said yesterday that she hopes to increase sorority involvement among juniors and seniors.
“By the time people get to their junior and senior years, members aren’t living in their chapter houses and they feel very disconnected from the Greek community,” she said. “Obviously it’s not applicable to everyone but for the majority it’s definitely a growing trend, specifically senior year where a lot of chapter members tend to deactivate.”
Gordon said she hopes to improve this situation by having more workshops geared toward upperclassmen about how to “survive in the real world” as well as having social events for juniors and seniors exclusively.
Gordon, like Rosenberg, said she would also like to see an increase in social responsibility and safety awareness.
LSA junior Kimberly McCraw, former vice president of administration for Pi Beta Phi was elected Panhel Judicial vice president.
She said during her term she would like to increase awareness of the Greek Activities Review Panhel – the Greek community’s judicial body. She said she also plans to work toward creating more anti-hazing programs, and making them “more personal.”