On Monday, our nephew was married on the beach in Connecticut. At the reception, I chatted with the woman next to me whom I had never met. We talked about our offspring. Without knowing my affinity for GLOs, she told me about one of her daughters who went to a liberal arts college in Pennsylvania and joined a sorority. And that decision was a wonderful one for her, according to her mother. Ten years post-graduation, her sorority sisters are an integral part of her life even though they are scattered across the country. The daughter had just returned from a weekend with her chapter sisters. It was wonderful to hear an unsolicited, spontaneous affirmation of sorority life.
That conversation reinforced this informal, unscientific twitter poll which shows that friendship is what is at the core of our organizations. It is always heartbreaking to me when GLO members forget that and hurt their chapter members because of hazing. My hats are off to the parents Max Gruver and Tim Piazza who have been travelling the country speaking to fraternity and sorority members about the need to stop hazing. I cannot imagine their pain and I thank them for trying to keep another family from suffering the tragic losses they have endured.
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Condolences to the family of Southern Illinois University Chancellor Carlos Montemagno. He has been at SIUC for less than two years, but he had immersed himself in the culture of the institution and he will be missed.
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Condolences, too, to the family of Mary King Dyson, a charter member of the Theta Phi Alpha chapter at Clarkson University. She was killed in the tragic limo accident in Schoharie, New York, this past weekend.
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Kudos to this ATO chapter for raising funds for the American Cancer Society in honor of their former chapter adviser.
