NPHC’s activity hour lets students unwind

This story originally appeared in The Rotunda

Longwood’s National Pan-Hellenic Council (NPHC) hosted their Activity Hour on Friday, featuring a ladder toss, music and a large game of Connect Four. The NPHC, a Greek life organization specifically created with African American students in mind, puts on the Activity Hour each spring semester to conclude NPHC Week.

Senior kinesiology major Quincy Goodine came out to support the NPHC as many of his friends are a part of the council.

“They post their flyers on their social media sites and things like that, so I just decided to come see how they get down,” he said during a game of Connect Four.

Brianna Allen is a junior and the vice president of the NPHC. A communication studies major and also a Zeta Phi Beta Sorority, Inc. sister, she just became the vice [resident this past semester, and has been a member of the NPHC for a year.

She explained, “Activity Hour is something that NPHC holds for the campus to just give the students a chance to unwind … It’s something we usually do every other week. We thought that this would be a good time, considering that there are students here for Crash on Campus, to give them an insight on what NPHC is all about.”

She also noted that, normally, the students are able to sit on the steps of the Lankford Student Union and watch the members perform their step routines. However, they were not able to do so this time, due to the construction work being done on the building and the scaffolding blocking the steps. To make up for this, they had to adapt by borrowing the ladder toss and Connect Four games from Fraternity and Sorority Life.

“This time, we decided to bring out games, so there’s something to do other than just sitting around and watching each other dance.”

Caitlin Close, a sophomore member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc. is the president of the NPHC. She has been a member of the NPHC since last month. Close actually began her role as President when her sister had to step down from the office, and then started her own term. Since she has not been a member for very long, she has played it safe in her term so far, re-using many of the activities that have done well in the past.

With NPHC Week, there were multiple activities, such as one about “educating people about candidates in the upcoming election, and then we had a movie night last night and then we had a ‘Know Your Rights’ session where the cops talked to us about our basic rights as citizens.”

When asked what is next for the NPHC, Close says that there will be “hopefully more activities.” She says that they have a meeting coming up where they will decide what is next for the group.