Towson’s Greek Life busts a move to give back

By: Meghan Hudson, Assistant Arts & Life Editor
Meghan Hudson/ The Towerlight

Towson’s fraternities and sororities celebrated the campus’ spring 2019 Greek Week last week, with individual Greek life organizations competing against one another for a charitable cause.

The bi-annual celebration consisted of a series of competitions, giving students the opportunity to earn points and raise money for the AileyCamp Baltimore. This year, Greek Sing raised over $7,000.

The AileyCamp Baltimore aims to help young people explore their own creative abilities through dance and creative writing.

“This year will be the fourth year we will be working with the Camp,” Vital said. “Our community at Towson has made philanthropy a primary focus since former director (now Assistant Vice President of Student Affairs) Matt Lenno took over the office in 2011. Administrators affiliated with Ailey Camp recognized the work of the community and wanted to partner in supporting Ailey Camp, and since 2016 we have done just that.”

According to Erin Sherlock, director of programming for the Panhellenic council, “The Alvin Ailey Camp is the sole recipient of all the proceeds. Proceeds do not benefit anyone else but the Alvin Ailey Camp.”

The competitions were divided into three categories: sorority, fraternity and co-ed.

On April 8, a karaoke battle kicked off the competition. The following day starred two new events to Greek Week, a game show competition and a volleyball tournament.

By the end of the week, the winners of Greek Week were Kappa Delta sorority, Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity and Tau Beta Sigma co-ed.

This year’s Greek Week wrapped up with the infamous Greek Sing dance competition. This final event was held in SECU arena on April 11.

“Greek Week has been an established week of competition for quite some time,” said Roodinz Vital, Coordinator for the Office of Fraternity and Sorority Life. “Greek Sing started in 2011 as a way to do an event during Greek Week that encompassed more of the members and builds bonds in the process of preparing for the competition.”

This semester brought a new twist to the competition: the themes laid in the hands of each group. Each fraternity and sorority brought both an original theme, as well as an original choreographed dance to the stage.

Kappa Sigma opened Greek Sing, dancing to the theme of “James Bond.” The film theme continued with Kappa Delta Rho’s theme of “Men in Black,” and Chi Phi’s of “Back to the Future.”

Sigma Alpha Epsilon and Phi Mu both danced through the decades, while Alpha Epsilon Pi commemorated powerful hits in their theme, “Power Hour.” A popular artist amongst this year’s song choosing was Ariana Grande. Zeta Tau Alpha’s theme of “thank you, next,” resembled Grande’s “thank you, next” music video.

Alpha Phi, on the other hand, took a trip to “Alphipalooza” music festival, a spin off of “Lollapalooza.” Other spins included Tri-Delta’s theme of “Delta Airlines” and Kappa Delta’s theme of “KayDee’s Best Dance Crew.”

Bringing it home with a comedic twist were Pi Kappa Alpha with an infomercial like theme of “Frat Boyz Apparel,” Zeta Beta Tau with “ZBT Radio,” and Alpha Xi Delta with “Money,” which featured a college student dreaming of finally having money.

Other themes included Alpha Sigma Pi’s western, Phi Sigma Kappa’s boxing match, Alpha Gamma Delta’s “shipwreck,” Alpha Omicron Pi as “Charlie’s Angels,” and Delta Phi Epsilon’s “search for a theme.”

Winners of this year’s Greek Sing dance competition were Zeta Beta Tau fraternity and Kappa Delta sorority.

By the end of the competition, groups were seen giving lots of hugs and taking photos atop the SECU arena stage, where they will return in the fall to battle it out once again.