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Office of Greek Life

The Greek Member Experience

The Greek Member Experience (GME)

In order to emphasize individual member development and to further demonstrate the commitment of Greek organizations to be leaders within the Vanderbilt community, the Office of Greek Life launched the Greek Member Experience (GME) in the 2015-2016 academic year. The Greek Member Experience is designed to increase fraternity and sorority member engagement within Vanderbilt University.

This program allows our community to explicitly demonstrate to faculty, staff, prospective members, alumni and parents what it means to be a member of a fraternity or sorority. It makes it very clear that being a member of a fraternity or sorority comes with high expectations of engagement and personal development. This program focuses on individual member development and accountability and allows our community to share our story in a data driven way with an improved tracking system to ease the documentation process for chapter leaders.

Individual Member Involvement Profile

Each fraternity and sorority member is encouraged to be a member in at least one other campus organization. In an effort to recognize all the ways our members are currently engaged, we will ask everyone to complete a profile.

Each member will be responsible for updating their Anchorlink profile so that it reflects all of their current organization membership and leadership experiences.The Office of Greek Life will pull a report from Anchorlink that will reflect all involvement in September and again in January. These profiles would include the following experiences:

  • Student organization involvement and any leadership positions in those organizations
  • Engagement in residential colleges
  • Status as a student athlete, resident advisor, VUCeptor

VandyPASS

In collaboration with the Career Center, the Office of Greek Life will be promoting member engagement in the VandyPass program. Each member will be responsible for earning 300 points per academic year in an effort to earn badges across the eight career competencies provided by the National Association of Colleges and Employers. 

More information about the VandyPASS program is available here.

 

Each chapter is encouraged to find meaningful ways to contribute to the community.

The chapter will create and implement a community impact plan inclusive of the following elements:

  • Identifying an issue and how it impacts the Nashville community
  • Describing how they plan to engage with the issue through awareness, service, and/or philanthropic work that may or may not align with the focus of their inter/national organization
  • Outlining the ways they will educate their members about the issue and hold their members accountable to participating in service and philanthropic initiatives addressing that issue

Benchmarks:

  • Plan submission by September 29th 
  • At the end of the year, the chapter will submit materials showing their impact on this area, examples of materials include:
    • A letter from partner agency reflecting on the group’s impact
    • Personal statements or videos from members detailing the impact of the experience
    • Submission of evidence of the chapter’s work

The Vanderbilt Greek community will demonstrate their commitment to making the member experience more equitable and inclusive.

IgniteVU is a joint initiative between OGL and Student Center for Social Justice and Identity (SCSJI) using the the Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI) to guide the development of cultural competence among our community members. As part of the IgniteVU Program chapters will:

  • Have all incoming members participate in four core educational sessions
  • Craft a DEI statement that will describe their approach to inclusion 
  • Create a DEI plan that will outline internal and external actions a chapter will complete to move toward the next level of intercultural competence along the Intercultural Development Continuum  

Benchmarks:

  • Statement and Plan submission by September 29th  
  • Chapter member participation in IDI and core educational programs (as appropriate)
  • Submission of materials showing how they have completed their specific plan (i.e. program participation, connection to other organizations, etc.) and member engagement in each initiative