Wofford Panhellenic has recently unveiled the women chosen to serve on the Panhellenic Executive Council for the 2023-2024 academic year. The five positions are filled by women representing all four of Wofford’s National Panhellenic Conference organizations, Delta Delta Delta, Kappa Alpha Theta, Kappa Delta and Zeta Tau Alpha.
Through the exhaustive interview and selection process, Meg Matthews ‘24 has been chosen to serve as the new Panhellenic president. Matthews discussed how being active in a Panhellenic organization has been beneficial to developing her own personhood, making her eager to “give back” through her new role.
“Coming into college, I was very unsure of myself and unsure of where I was going to fit into the Wofford community,” Matthews said. “I felt so much love and support from the Panhellenic community which helped me grow into the confident woman I am now, and I just really want to be able to help girls grow the way that I have.”
Though Greek Life can often have a reputation of animosity between sororities, Matthews emphasized the importance of unity between the four Panhellenic sororities at Wofford, stressing that Panhellenic is “one community” rather than “four organizations.”
Emma Catherine “EC” McLean ‘24, the new Panhellenic Vice President of Programming and Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, also noted the organization’s focus on creating a single, inclusive community.
McLean spoke on the significance of Panhellenic events for “diversity, equity and inclusion”
and their power to navigate Panhellenic in the direction of “one common goal.” McLean’s position will focus on carrying out these events, including Greek Week.
Sydney Partin ‘24, the new Vice President of Operations, also expressed her excitement to “bring the whole Panhellenic community together,” proving this sentiment to be at the heart of the new council.
The concept of this community created by Greek Life can often be seen as hypocritical, especially considering the unique formula of creating these communities through recruitment. However, recruitment has always been one of the major areas of involvement for the Panhellenic council in order to mitigate these concerns.
“This year is going to be very similar to last year,” said Diane Sanders, the new Panhellenic Vice President of Recruitment, “Much of our focus will be selecting the Gamma Chis and planning all the nights of recruitment so all the girls can have as many fabulous conversations as possible. I want to assist the girls in ending up in the best place for them.”
With the collaboration of each individual sorority and the Panhellenic council, there is hope that this process will once again run smoothly.
Katie Sullivan ‘25, the new Vice President of Judicial, is confident in the new council’s ability to “establish a really strong solid connection with each sorority’s leadership,” during the upcoming year.
“Obviously nothing is super set in stone,” Sullivan said, “but we want to make sure that we’re all working together and getting these connections started early instead of waiting for recruitment to have first contact.”
Regardless of the present uncertainty of significant changes to the council, there appears to again be a clear emphasis on the union of the Panhellenic community.
The new council members met for the first time on May 4 to officially turn over the executive positions and more thoroughly discuss their initiatives for the upcoming year.
The meeting ended in applause, hopefully signaling a year of healthy collaboration between the council members and Wofford’s four NPC sororities.
