Greeks Go Green: O Brothers, Where Art Thou?

Since its founding in 2011, Greeks Go Green (GGG) has worked to involve members of the Wake Forest Greek community in reaching our campus sustainability goals.

Representatives from participating chapters meet bi-weekly to talk about the many junctures between sustainability and Greek life. The effort is facilitated by sustainability interns Emily Pence (WFU ’15) and Stewart Rickert (WFU ’16).

To date, GGG has gained traction mainly with the sororities of the Panhellenic Council on campus. This year, however, the student interns are working to expand the GGG network to include both sororities and fraternities on campus. “Although in the past sororities have accounted for the vast majority of GGG involvement, that doesn’t mean that members in fraternities on campus aren’t passionate about the environment or principles of sustainability too,” said Pence.

There may be several explanations for comparatively lower fraternity involvement: initial enthusiasm for GGG was expressed most visibly by sorority members; past student GGG interns have all been sorority women. With the addition of Rickert to the leadership team this year, the network gained its first male GGG student intern and a highly visible advocate of sustainable interests within the Greek community. According to Rickert “we began working to make Greeks Go Green more appealing to fraternities and have seen a substantial increase in participation from fraternity members this year.” Pence added that, “the increased interest that we have witnessed from fraternity members over the past semester shows a lot of potential for effecting change on campus.”

The organization currently enjoys active participation from the following fraternity and sorority chapters on campus:

Kappa Beta Gamma                                 Kappa Alpha Theta

Kappa Kappa Gamma                             Alpha Sigma

Chi Omega                                                 Delta Kappa Epsilon

Kappa Delta                                               Pi Kappa Alpha

Alpha Delta Pi                                           Theta Chi

Delta Delta Delta                                      Kappa Sigma

Delta Zeta

This year, members of the Greek community can look forward to a screening of 180º South and a campus cleanup day, in addition to annual energy conservation, waste reduction, and carpool challenges.

If you’d like to get involved, contact Greeks Go Green interns Emily Pence (pencef11@wfu.edu) or Stewart Rickert (ricksj12@wfu.edu) for more information.

By Joey DeRosa, Communications and Outreach Intern