Hi little, only one day until reveal i can’t wait for you to finally be mine!!

Fraternity men after singing to a little about how much her big loves her

Getting a little, this is something that when one enters a greek organization is faced with. When a new class joins a chapter they are are suppose to learn about the chapter through many different avenues. Membership education and their membership director are there as a guiding force to explain the traditions of the national organization. While membership education is important to the sororities and fraternities on a national and local level, the most education about living as a member of the greek community is suppose to come from their big. A big sister or big brother is a mentor and guide for the new member process to initiation and through all areas of their university lives.

The problem is that with sororities today, the fight to be the best, most wanted, most successful big is that of great expense. Once informed of who their little is bigs spend countless hours shopping and crafting, hundreds of dollars on baskets, clothing and sorority related items to spoil their little. This is all to make their little feel welcome in their chapter, but that is not the case. These measures are done so that they can convince their little that they are the best choice for a big and that because they have spent all of this time, energy and money on them that they will forever be the best big and will be a part of the best family in the chapter, because that is what their big did.

From hundred dollar baskets full of name brand items and too many canvases for someone to hang on walls the littles go through clue week showered with the love that their “big” already has for them. But this love comes at a cost for bigs, the relationships that they have with the other bigs in their chapter. This is no longer a competition for getting the best little, it is one for making all the littles think that you are the best big.

How to be the best big during clue week:

1. Go over the basket price limit each day so the the bigs that are playing by the rules have extra stress
2. Have fraternity men sing to your little under the flags in the commons
3. Repeat #2 for every day of the clue week
4. Buy name brand items for your little
5. make the basket the most beautiful big basket of the day so that no one else can compare.
6. Repeat #5 for every day of the week

A “small” basket received by a little on the first day of clue week

While the majority of sorority bigs do go over in price limit and do have fraternities sing to their littles. This is a tradition that has gotten out of hand for some chapters on our campus and is looked down upon by many of the other organizations that follow similar rules but do not express them in the same ways.

This echoes “the Problem with Presence” as many groups in the christian religion do not express their traditions in the same was and with those differences problems arise between the respect between the groups. This is something that greek life experiences especially in the two week period that we are in now — PHA clue week(s) .