A lonely bench by the fountain at the library would often make a suitable place for Victoria Eymard to sit—alone—as she’d hope for a friend to come along. Maybe. But all of that changed when she joined the Phi Mu Sorority, where she now has a whole house of not only friends but sisters.
Being a Phi Mu is the best thing she’s ever done. She said pledging Phi Mu made her and other members, more active in the community and on campus.
“Now, if I see another Phi Mu sitting alone, I’ll go and sit by her,” Eymard said.
She noticed that most of the people that are active on other popular organizations are Greek because they know more people and become more comfortable with interacting with others.
Although Eymard, a sophomore kinesiology major, has to maintain a certain grade point average to keep her scholarships, she appreciated how Phi Mu has helped motivate her to not only keep her grades up for a minimum GPA but actually helped to better her grades.
Eymard now serves as a delegate on the Panhellenic Council and is also the council’s president. And as council president, she had a major hand in this year’s Greek Week.
Greek Week brought the two Greek councils together to showcase Greek life at ULM. It offered a mixture of fun events and charity drives including everything between step shows and blood drives.
Shayla Cockerm, a senior political science major, said there are many sides to Greek life.
“Greek week is more than getting out, wearing your letters, showing everyone who you are and strolling,” Cockerm said. “It’s more about giving back to the community, which is ULM first.”
Greek Week was a week to show the campus how each organization is active on and off campus.
Every day of the week, each fraternity and sorority sponsored an event that gave back to the community in a festive way and in a philanthropic way.
Monday through Thursday, the Greeks hosted a blood drive, which was held in the student lounge and on the Blood Bus. Students, faculty and staff came out to donate blood.
On Tuesday, students were able to “Meet the Greeks.” There the Greeks talked about their organization and answered any questions students might have had regarding membership or about the organization as a whole.
The Greeks spent the remainder of the week hosting social events. Kappa Alpha freshman nursing major Nick Blundell said the dunk contest was his favorite social event of the entire week.
“It [Greek Week] was definitely different seeing how everyone embraced the experience. I found a new pride for my fraternity,” Blundell said.
Other students agreed that their favorite event was the free Crawfish Social on Wednesday, which was also sponsored by CAB. Students were leaving the baseball field with at least two full plates of crawfish.
