Greek life adjusts to decreased campus alert level

Greek life organizations are adjusting their plans due to Oklahoma City University’s alert level decreasing to moderate. 

The alert levels were created during the pandemic to help create a structure for COVID-19 safety guidelines based on COVID spread within the campus community and the surrounding area. On Nov. 17, the campus raised the alert level to high. On Feb. 10, the university announced a return to the moderate alert level.

With OCU transitioning from high alert to moderate, sororities and fraternities on campus are now able to have more flexibility and plan in-person events while maintaining the moderate level rule of 25 people or less for an activity.

Hannah Grundy, exercise & sports science freshman, is a member of Alpha Chi Omega. Grundy said sorority meetings will be now split between in-person and virtual venues.

“For the most part, most people will be on Zoom for meetings, but for every meeting, eight people will be able to sign up. We’re prioritizing seniors over freshman right now,” Grundy said. “We have some seniors signing up for every single week because they just want to experience as much as they can.”

Gamma Phi Beta and Phi Mu will be doing something similar, with limited sign-up sheets for people to participate in meetings at the sorority houses. 

Ian McEntire, economics/political science freshman, said Lambda Chi Alpha will be taking advantage of the looser restrictions by dedicating more time to philanthropy projects and getting new members caught up.

“We’re going to be doing a lot more community service. We also will be getting new members initiated. We had stopped in-person new member education, but with new guidelines we can do it in person. I’m also really excited about our philanthropy,” McEntire said. 

Andrew Celedon, marketing freshman, said Kappa Sigma members are looking forward to spending time with their current and prospective fraternity brothers. 

“We just recently had our victory ceremony where we found who our bigs were,” Celedon said. “We’ll be running our meetings in person, and we’re trying to rope in new spring pledges. This is an opportunity to meet them in person while adhering to the new university guidelines.”