Lehigh’s Cultural Greek Council (CGC) will be joining the 11 other fraternities and eight sororities on the hill in Campus House 85, their new and first ever official chapter house starting fall 2022.
As of next semester, members of Phi Sigma Chi, Lambda Theta Alpha and Mu Sigma Upsilon will have the opportunity to live in the newly established CGC house.
CGC vice president Jenn Ocampo-Castaneda, ‘23, said this marks a milestone for the council.
“I feel like people will be more inclined to listen to who we are,” Ocampo-Castaneda said. “The CGC has always been small in comparison to the other Greek life councils, so now that we are growing and also have a house, it feels like we are the same now.”
Ocampo-Castaneda said the CGC currently has the largest on-campus membership since the organization started in 2009, making it an ideal time for the organization to get a house. She said this is also the first time every Greek organization has been on the hill at Lehigh.
In order to secure a house, Ocampo-Castaneda said the CGC had to have enough members and create a proposal explaining what the CGC was and why they deserve a house. After that, it was a matter of waiting for housing to approve their request.
Ocampo-Castaneda said the council wrote the proposal last semester but the idea of having a chapter house has been in the works for over a year.
“There was a long process to even get the ball rolling on the idea of the CGC having a house,” said Ray Campbell, president of Phi Sigma Chi and ‘23. “We are all excited to make this step. It also will make certain aspects (of CGC) easier to run.”
Campbell said having a house ensures a meeting spot for the organization, which allows members to gather and disperse important information with more ease.
Phi Sigma Chi member Steven Ho, ‘23, said he feels having a house will help to make the CGC a closer community.
Ho said members gather as a group once or twice every other week, however being able to live together would make for a tight-knit experience for the members.
“Right now, we meet in a place in Maginnes or in someone’s house, so having an official place to meet means a lot to us,” Ho said.
Ocampo-Castaneda said in the future they hope to get individual houses for each fraternity and sorority involved in the CGC. She said this will seem more achievable once membership increases to the point where one house doesn’t support all the members of the CGC.
Ocampo-Castaneda said the CGC also hopes that having this house will open up more opportunities for collaborations and relationships with panhel and the IFC.
While they are celebrating the acquisition of their house, the CGC looks forward to next steps, which involve establishing rules surrounding living in the house and picking out the design elements, Ocampo-Castaneda said.
“We are all excited, but now it’s time to get to work,” Ocampo-Castaneda said.
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2 Comments
My thoughts are that this exercise is yet one more example of Lehigh’s ridiculous pandering to the perpetually aggrieved “people of color”.
I have studied the information available on the Fraternity and Sorority Affairs website.
The most telling is the Fall 2021 grade report. It indicates there are a total of 25 students who are members of the CGC.
Lehigh’s occupancy rules for fraternity and sorority houses require them to be filled to at least 90% capacity. The capacity for building 85 is 29.
Thus it is questionable whether enough new members will be recruited this Spring semester to meet that requirement in the fall.
When you look at the grades for the CGC members, they are for the most part lousy.
The IFC and Panhellenic Council members are all 3.0 and well above.
Only Lambda Theta Alpha, which is a Latina sorority, is doing well academically, but has a small membership. I applaud them.
Mu Sigma Upsilon and Phi Sigma Chi are black organizations and have lousy grades. Its members are obviously struggling academically. I suspect they were admitted to Lehigh under affirmative action double standards that are so commonplace throughout the academic world.
I predict this experiment will end up as a monumental failure with no end of whining when it happens.
After studying more about Mu Sigma Upsilon I realized it may not be a “black” sorority. Rather it may indeed be more multi ethnic. Its website points out that it was founded by several Puerto Rican women.
Regardless the data in the grade report does show that their grades are lousy.