I am writing in response to the ignorant letters from non-Greek CSU students. The Greek System happens to be one of leadership, scholarship and fellowship.

I am a member of the Greek community and would like to educate my fellow students about our organization. Contrary to popular belief we actually do care about academia (gasp!) and we currently have a higher GPA than all campus, all women and all Greeks.

Each woman works exceedingly hard in school and several maintain 4.0 GPAs. Sorority women are not only scholars but also well-rounded, and the diversity of majors and interests spans the entire CSU spectrum.

Additionally, we do philanthropic work for multiple organizations, and our house nationally raised more than $194,000 last year. For two days last week, members of our house stood in front of the Clark Building and collectively raised $1,400 for the victims of Hurricane Katrina. Unfortunately, that did not make headlines.

Regarding the alcohol situation, each girl makes her own decisions as to her drinking habits or lack thereof, and this decision has nothing to do with being Greek. There is absolutely no alcohol involved in any organized sorority event, especially initiation, and hazing is strictly forbidden. I am not going to deny that there are possibly a select few in the Greek System that routinely live up to recent headlines, but as a whole, the stereotypes are blatantly wrong.

Greeks are held to a higher standard than other student organizations on campus because the expectations for us are greater. I am not making an attempt to change anyone's opinion of Greek Life because you cannot entirely comprehend it from the outside, but please do not criticize something you have not made an effort to understand.

Mary Wilson

Liberal Arts/Dance Major

Sophomore

I am not a Greek. I am not a conservative. But I am getting a little tired of all this hypersensitive, ultra-liberal nonsense as well as these campaigns like "I Am." The aim of all those posters and all those "new labels" is rendered absurd from the beginning. Anything that can be applied to any group of people (like I am a scholar, I am a homosexual, I am a feminist) cannot be applied to a single group if the aim is to make that particular group standout. The whole thing is an ill-fated attempt on the part of the Greek community to change their image without changing their essence – as well they shouldn't.

Philanthropy on the part of the Greeks has always been a pretense – a reason for them to get together and fill in the time that they are not socializing. Some of the Greeks take their philanthropic duty very seriously and I commend them. But service and volunteering are not the reasons people join social fraternities; they join them to socialize and those who aren't interested in their mission should leave them alone.

As a student organization they do represent the university – or an aspect of it. That aspect is networking and social development. Take a random survey of all the Chief Executive Officers in the United States and I would bet a large majority were, at one time, boozing Greeks who are years later still benefiting from the connections they made in their fraternities and sororities. And if you say the university doesn't benefit from these groups then why don't you tell that to all the Greek alumni who give back donations. They now have little reason to do so, despite the fact those groups typically maintain a stout allegiance to their Alma Mater.

Simply put: the university is not the parents of these people, neither are you moral-crackpots and Pollyannas. If they want to drink and have parties I say eat, drink and be merry! If laws are broken and people need to be held accountable, we have the police – that is why they are there; and eyeing over the blotter lately, I reckon they probably have the time to do it.

Sterling R. Quinton

B.A. candidate for teaching licensure

Certain facts about Hurricane Katrina and relief efforts have been overlooked in recent letters in this paper. For example, some writers seem to have overlooked the fact that individuals in New Orleans actually shot at the relief workers. Rival gangs were having gun fights in the streets. Doctors and nurses could not even evacuate the sick and injured because of all the violence in New Orleans immediately following the hurricane. I find this behavior among Americans to be embarrassing. After the tidal wave in India and Indonesia last December, the gangs had the good sense to call a cease fire to work together for the good of the community.

I'm also embarrassed at the looting. It seems that the term "looting" needs defining because some CSU students have a mistaken understanding about what constitutes looting. Taking food and clean water, the basic necessities of life, can certainly be overlooked. Flat screen TVs and X-Boxes aren't necessary for human survival and taking them is looting. It's downright stealing.

Finally, I'm embarrassed at the response of all three levels of government. (Or perhaps I should say lack of response.) There's no disagreement that the federal government did a poor job of providing emergency assistance. So did the local and state governments. And yet the mayor of New Orleans and the governor of Louisiana are quick to point fingers of blame at the federal government. This behavior on the part of state and city officials provides an interesting contrast in the study of leadership. Compare Mayor Rudolph Giuliani in New York after 9/11 with the mayor of New Orleans.

The fact is that local government, as the level of government closest to the daily lives of people, is always the first responder in a disaster situation. They are also responsible for planning for disasters. A hurricane like Katrina had been predicted for many years. State and local governments knew that a category-5 hurricane was a threat that could occur one day.

One would think a city that lies at an elevation lower than sea level would have planned for such an eventuality. The local government had plenty of warning that this hurricane was coming and they were completely unprepared to help their citizens. In fact, more than two hundred school busses could have been used to help the poorest residents of the community evacuate the ravages of a hurricane that was predicted for several days. Rather, the city of New Orleans took no action and allowed those school busses to become inundated with floodwater. Smart state and local officials would have used those school busses, or at least have moved them to higher ground in anticipation of what was predicted to be a category 5 hurricane. They also would have had the Superdome stocked with food, water and medical supplies, and they failed in that as well.

All levels of government, state, federal and local, failed to come to the aid of its citizens. And Congress just passed emergency legislation allocating $50 billion plus to the federal government for cleanup? You'd think we'd learn.

Dan Wonstolen

Sophomore

Health and Exercise Science