I showed up at the Greek Week opening cookout on Sunday night a little after 8 p.m. Even though it was supposed to be going until 9 p.m., Eric Wolfe, a greek life coordinator, and his crew were already wheeling away the grill and leftovers were cleaned up. Despite not getting food or a T-shirt, I couldn't be upset - there was no one there.
Three days later, I received a frantic, last minute house email urging my attendance at a Greek Week speaker in Kresge Auditorium. It had already started and apparently the Interfraternity Council fraternities were not well represented. Once again, not many students showed.
That's when I realized that Greek Week events were never going to have a hugely successful turnout. By its very nature, Greek Week is set up for failure. It cannot succeed because of the individuals who make up the Greek community.
Generally speaking, there are two types of Greek students: active ones and apathetic ones. The active greek students at DePauw are generally highly-involved individuals. They are active in clubs, sports, media and their chapter houses, among other things. It makes sense that when you ask these students to attend additional, optional events that many simply won't be able to show up because of prior obligations or school work.
And then there are the apathetic ones - the people who hardly participate in their own chapter's activities. These people are even harder to lure to events like Greek Week, especially now that recent changes have eliminated the week's competitive appeal. Between the busy people and the apathetic people, there simply aren't many greek students left to attend all the Greek Week events.
Of course, the one exception to this observation is Greek God and Goddess. But I can't help but think that the whole Greek community only shows up for that because in the past, it has been on a weekend night, and they could drink before they went.
Hopefully, I'm wrong. Hopefully, people showed up for the Greek Week events I didn't make it to and the Step Showcase tonight. But if they don't, and if you are wondering why, it probably just wasn't meant to be.