Opinion > May 1, 2008

By Cory Benedetti | Guest columnist

Change is good. We all know that. But it becomes increasingly difficult to accept these changes when they don’t exactly make sense.

Most of us sat back when the Mag Quad was renamed, football tickets became impossible to get and our lunch trays disappeared. So, maybe not all of these are part of the wooing “Strategic Plan,” but most of the changes occurring on campus are.

In addition to giving faculty members the boot from their homes on a minute’s notice and increasing class size, our current administration has brought in a marketing team that gave the university the following prognosis: take down the Greek letters. WHAT? Exactly what I said. As the prospectives and their families walk down the Quad on campus days (if you don’t know when these are, just go into the Pit and see all of your favorite foods there at the same time) they see these human-sized letters stuck to the sides of every dorm and think if they don’t become Greek, they won’t be “cool.” So in order to make them feel better and get them here, it’s been decided that these letters will be removed. But let’s not yell just yet, we will get plaques to put in front of our lounges. You know, like the ones for being in the National Honor Society in high school. Sweet.

So after these letters are stripped from our brick and those prospectives we want so badly are here, what happens next? What are they going to think when they finally arrive to Wake, and then realize that we are heavily influenced by the Greek community? Have we just tricked them into coming here? From Greek Week, PKA’s Pump Up for Piccolo, Wake ‘n Shake, Sigma Chi’s Derby Days, Theta Chi’s Annual Charity Golf Tournament and Pumpkin Carve, Delta Zeta’s Turtle Tug and Dunk a DZ, Kappa Delta’s Mr. Wake Forest, Phi Mu’s Charity Denim, Kappa Alpha’s blood drive, to general campus clean-ups, this campus is overrun with Greek events.

So, to put on the façade that the university does not emphasize these is, in my view, completely erroneous and deceptive. Not only does the Greek community give considerably in the realm of charity, but we’re on the social calendar nearly every weekend. From formals to theme parties, fraternities and sororities both show their might when it comes to the weekend. And yes, even independents come.

And who knows? Maybe they will become Greek. Forty-three out of the nation’s 50 largest corporations are headed by men and women who were Greek. And every U.S. president and vice president, except two from each office, were in fraternities. That must be good for something.

By no means am I bashing our current administration (of Wake Forest, that is), I simply don’t think taking down giant letters on the side of a building is going to change the way our Greek community is involved. So, let’s be honest with the kids who want to come here: we are heavily influenced by the Greek community. And even if you aren’t in a fraternity or sorority, you can still watch Viking Fest.

Cory Benedetti is a junior business major from Morehead City, N.C.