Brain over brawn

Greek Week is upon us and since I am not affiliated with a fraternity, I have a few nagging questions. First, I’d like to preface this column by saying that in no way am I trying to put down Greek life in any way. I just want to give an outsider’s opinion of Greek Week.

As it’s described by the Georgia College Student Life website, Greek Week “events include can food structure building, Olympic-style games and a Greek award ceremonies.”  It goes on to say that the funds raised during the week are given to a community service organization. From this, from what I have observed, it seems as if Greek Week is heavy on the athletic portion side of the spectrum.

Greek Week is taking the idea of the Olympics from the Ancient Greeks and substituting flag football, tug-of-war, step competitions and other various athletic events for competition within themselves. I have no problem with this but, I think the Greek organizations are leaving another aspect to Ancient Greek life untouched—the love of knowledge.

I don’t think I would be remiss in saying that Ancient Greek philosophy is a large underpinning to western culture, and their advances in knowledge are regarded as very important for the collective advancement of human thought.

To not incorporate this into Greek Week is leaving out half of the equation of what made the Ancient Greeks who they were. So to keep in line with the competitive nature of Greek Week, maybe a debate competition judged by some professors could be had? Or an academic team type setting or trivia competition could be held? These inclusions probably wouldn’t be too costly, nor would they need lengthy practice time, as do some of the sports.

So, could Greek Week involve some sort of trivia or academic competition? Definitely. I think it may draw more people to the program. If I were in a fraternity, there would be no way that I could meaningfully contribute to many of the athletic events given my non-athletic build. I know Greek Week should be encouraging fellowship among the Greek community, but let’s be honest, every sorority and fraternity wants to win. I’m sure that not everyone in Greek organizations are extremely athletic, muscle laden individuals. Those who aren’t are doomed to be cheerleaders for the week. If there was some sort of academic competition, I think the Greek community would be better honoring their Greek roots.

Posted by Alex Smith on Apr 14 2011. Filed under Opinion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.