Greek life is a key part of many college campuses, Ursinus included. However, there has been an emerging opinion that Ursinus’s Greek life has been somewhat “lacking” in certain departments. Sure, parties and small fraternity and sorority events are held, but there are times when a feeling of “community” among all of the Greek organizations feels lacking.
Enter Greek Week. Ursinus’s Greek Week is held every year right after the end of the Spring Rush (that is, once everyone who wants to join a Greek org in the spring has), and is a week-long celebration of the organizations that call Ursinus home. The week is filled with a mix of games and community work, and it concludes with an awards ceremony on the f inal Sunday night.
Greek Week has always been a beloved event amongst participants, but it still often felt like something was missing. With this being Ursinus’s 119th year of Greek Life on campus, there was a new goal to make it truly feel as if Greek Life had returned to the campus, with a greater emphasis on a community and building a time that truly felt like Greek Week. With the event having concluded just a few weeks ago, the question remains, is Greek life back, and is it here to stay?
A Week of Competitive Fun
Greek Week is a week of competition between the organizations, and for this year it was themed around Jim Henson’s Muppets. Each organization was assigned to a team and given a Muppet mascot.
Team 1: Phi Alpha Psi (Kermit the Frog) Delta Pi Sigma (Pepe the King Prawn) Delta Phi Epsilon (Janice) Pi Omega Delta (Animal)
Team 2: Tau Sigma Gamma (Miss Piggie) Alpha Phi Epsilon (Sam the Eagle) Kappa Delta Kappa (Beaker) Phi Kappa Sigma (Fozzie Bear)
Team 3: Sigma Sigma Sigma (Camilla the Chicken) Alpha Delta Pi (Gonzo) Sigma Pi (The Swedish Chef) Sigma Gamma Rho (Rowlf the Dog)
With each team set and introduced through an easy-going night of s’mores and lightly competitive teasing outside of Lower Wismer, the games began, with each team itching for the exclusive first place prize.
The Games of the Week
Ursinus Greek Week featured four games, two clean-up volunteering events, and two nights of peaceful, non-competitive fun, with each event (besides the nights of peace) awarding points to each team that attended them. At the end of the week, an awards ceremony was held to crown the winning team.
The week truly kicked off on Tuesday, April 7, featuring a campus wide scavenger hunt, from group pictures to a “subtle” manhunt of Dr. Gundolf Graml, the scavenger hunt was an overwhelming success when it came to competitiveness and team spirit.
You might have seen the Field Day on Wednesday, April 8, if you walked by the Berman Lawn between noon and 1:30 PM. Games included flag football, potato sack racing, tug of war, Giant Jenga, and more. T he Field Day was an hour and a half of hectic fun, with some highly competitive moments and a wealth of good music.
Thursday was much calmer, a pleasant night of Jeopardy and snacks in the Olin auditorium. 10 of the 25 questions centered around the Muppets, while the other 15 centered around Ursinus’s Greek life and history. The most notable moment of the entire night had to be the impressive Muppet Sweep done by Team 1, which left them with an almost impossible to beat score.
With the main game days ending, Friday was something of a rest period, though rest isn’t exactly something you get at a trampoline park. All teams were invited out to Urban Air, where ziplines, jousting, dodgeball, and plenty more games awaited. People soared above the heads of others from the zipline while others dived into cushioned pits. A few even found their way through obstacle courses made for people much, much smaller than them. The night was tiring, yet fun, and it was a well-needed break before the upcoming two community cleaning events.
On Saturday, the teams split off for a day of service, participating in the Perkiomen Watershed Conservancy’s Community Stream Clean Up day. The teams went to three different locations, and, as the name suggests, worked through the morning to help and do their part in keeping the world just a little bit cleaner. They were awarded with a lovely barbeque out behind the Reimert Suites. Sunday took the various teams back to home turf, where everyone gathered to clean the litter across Main Street. In the end, both events were a grand success, with countless pounds of trash and debris being lifted from the street.
Sunday night, Greek Week ended with an awards ceremony featuring snacks, music, and that feeling of community that some had once felt was missing. After some time to socialize, the awards were f inally given out with the placements of the teams.
Each prize featured custom organization lettering, with Team 3 taking third place, and being awarded with custom engraved keychains; Team 1 took second, with their award being custom hats; and finally, in first place was Team 2, who won organization personalized t-shirts.
Is Greek Life Back?
Greek Week 2026’s success certainly suggests it might be. Greek week provided a feeling of community that has been missing at times. People across organizations interacted in ways they don’t normally get to. A sense of competition was brought that some deeply yearned for.
But, at the end of the day, there’s only one true way to know if Greek life is indeed back, and that is to go ahead and see for yourself. Interact with the organizations, go to events, talk to the people. Ursinus’s 120th year of Greek Life is coming up just next year, and if this first year of the new Greek life is anything to base it off of, then it might just be the blast everyone is hoping it will be.