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Miriam: You’re listening to KALX Berkeley 90.7 fm, and this is Berkeley Brainwaves, a 30 minute show that explores the Berkeley experience. I’m Miriam.
Daniel: I’m Daniel.
Lesya: And I’m Lesya.
All: And we’re students at UC Berkeley.
Daniel: If you’re anything like us, you avoid walking down Piedmont Avenue, AKA frat row, unless you really need to. I mean, how many beer pong matches do you really want to see?
Lesya: But what you may not realize is that inside all of those McMansions sorority sisters and fraternity brothers actually do a lot more than just party.
Miriam: Greek life leads important philanthropic events that benefit Berkeley and beyond.
Daniel: It’s a real home to those seeking community
Lesya: And an opportunity to bond with your brothers over shared values.
Miriam: So join us as we speak with Zeta Tau Alpha’s philanthropy chair, fraternity brothers, and a recent Delta Upsilon pledge.
You’re listening to KALX at 90.7 FM. I’m Miriam Reichenberg, and I’m speaking with…
Ellie: Ellie Franklin.
I am the current vice president of philanthropy for Zeta Tau Alpha.
Miriam: I sat down with Ellie to get a better understanding of how Greek life philanthropy works here at UC Berkeley. I’ll be honest– coming into our conversation, I viewed Greek Life as a system mostly centered on parties and other social events. But in talking to Ellie, in learning about the events she helps put on and why the work matters to her, I realized that philanthropy plays a much more significant role than I’d realized…
Ellie: So breast cancer awareness and education is our national philanthropy, and it’s been that way since 1952. [02:00]
Miriam: Zeta adopted breast cancer education as its cause after members saw how the disease affected their families and recognized the need for screenings and early detection.
Ellie: We’ll do all of our awareness events during the fall, which is like, our tabling on sprawl, where we’re passing out those Info Cards about early screenings… We usually do it as like a think pink week. That’s our kind of trademark, is think pink. And in the spring, we’ll do our more, like, kind of fun events to bring people together as a community and just like, create kind of a positive environment around such a dark topic.
And so we kind of partner with other organizations like the American Cancer Society, and that’s when we’ll do the Making Strides Against Breast cancer walk and zeta’s work the survivors and thrivers table. So we’re really trying to make that supportive environment encouraging those that are going through breast cancer treatment, or have gone through it, or had family members pass away from it, kind of just encouraging them on this journey. We’re supporting them. So we’ll work with the American Cancer Society. We also work with the Breast Cancer Research Foundation, and recently, at our most recent convention, we donated $1.25 million to the Breast Cancer Research Foundation, which is awesome. They’re doing some research on early detection and prevention strategies. And we also partner with the NFL, which is kind of like random, but it’s something that’s really cool. They’ll do the crucial catch football games with them, so the Breast Cancer Awareness games. So that’s kind of like the zeta side of how we choose. It’s just what we do. And a lot of girls join our sorority because they have such a strong connection, like I have a connection to our philanthropy, which kind of drives me and what I do, but we also like to support our other Greek organizations at Berkeley. The nice thing about the Panhellenic community and the rest of the Greek Life Community is that we’re like, we’re going to support you, and you support us. It’s a nice, uplifting community, and everyone’s doing [04:00] amazing things for their own respective philanthropies.
Miriam: I’m curious if you might share a little bit more about your personal connection and why you were drawn to zeta’s philanthropy.
Ellie: In 2020 my grandma got diagnosed for the second time with breast cancer, and it was kind of hard to watch her go through that alone, especially because I was so young, my family didn’t really want to, like, tell me the hard stuff that she was going through, you know, and watching her go through those treatments, seeing her energy levels go down was really difficult. But I’m happy to say she’s cancer free, you know, she’s thriving. She’s doing well, and so I’ve kind of just made it my mission to want to support those women that are going through that, because it’s a really dark time.
I also have one of my good family friends. She went through breast cancer treatment as well during covid, and she really inspired me. She danced her entire way through treatment. She was a Zumba instructor, and so she’d always be hosting, like, Zumba classes online while she was, like, going through chemo. It was really crazy. And so I’m just really inspired by her as well.
Miriam: Thank you for sharing that. I’m wondering what the planning process is like. How do you engage all your chapter members in advocating for this cause and sharing stories like this and raising money?
Ellie: Yeah, so as I mentioned, a lot of people do have kind of a personal connection, but, like, a good amount still don’t, so it’s a little bit difficult to kind of capture their attention, but we really want to emphasize the educational part of our philanthropy. The unfortunate news is that one in eight women will be diagnosed with breast cancer, and so it could be a family member, it could be a friend, it could be yourself, but it’s something that’s going to touch us all, and it’s not just women, it’s also men that can get diagnosed. And so I think our chapter understanding that kind of drives them to do what they do so as long as they have like, that mentality and that understanding I think the participation comes easy. But more kind of on the like, actual [6:00] planning end, on my end…
You want to figure out, like, what is best for our chapter, what does our community want to do? And also, like, what is going to make money, which kind of sucks to think about, like, in a perfect world, people will just donate money to a cause you’re passionate about. But that’s not always the reality. But we have some really awesome organizations that have been willing to work with us. We do have our own, like, big events as well. We do, like an eats and sweets, which is an all you can eat dessert bar in the spring. But we also have partnered with we just recently did an Edmonds fundraiser at Edmonds cafe at Berkeley. They were super awesome. We usually work with Kendra Scott in the spring, which is like a jewelry brand, it’s a female owned jewelry brand, they’re pretty big. They’re awesome.
Miriam: At this point in our conversation, after hearing how much coordination and emotional labor actually goes into planning these events, my assumptions about Greek life began to shift. I wanted to ask Ellie…
As someone who, I myself am not in Greek life, and I’ve come across this perception others might share who are outside of Greek life, who might see philanthropy events as like, you know, performative or just for show for that chapter, rather than reaching out and making impact in the wider community. So I’m wondering how you would respond to that perception, because from what you’ve shared with me, it sounds like this is a cause that’s really near and dear to your heart.
Miriam: I can understand where that perception kind of comes from. You know, we have all of these really big events all throughout Greek life where they’re all like, it’s so fun, like, we’re gonna do all these big things, but really it’s just, you kind of have to understand what’s at the heart of that event. You know, people are putting in a lot of work, putting in a lot of energy into these events to make it something that’s entertaining. Like, I can’t speak for all chapters, but for us, you know, breast cancer is not the most exciting topic to talk about. And if we had a big event that was all just like all these infographics and like all this stuff, it might not be the most [08:00] like exciting thing. And so we really just try to kind of bring in a community. We want to have that social aspect, to open the conversation, while also kind of having this event centered around breast cancer.
Miriam: Listening to Ellie, it all made total sense– if you want to make an impact, you have to start by getting people engaged and building a sense of community. Only then can you all work towards a common goal and focus on a more serious cause…
I asked her to tell me about a moment that has stuck with her from her time in Zeta so far.
Ellie: The event that kind of impacted me most my freshman fall was the Making Strides Against Breast cancer walk. I cried my like eyes out. It was so empowering just we were standing at the finish line. And I think it’s like a maybe a half a mile walk. It’s this, at the time, it was by Golden Gate Bridge. And so there were so many women. They were leading their families. They were dancing all the way through the finish line. And it was just super heartwarming to see them, like, being so positive. A lot of them had like, you know, when people go through chemotherapy, a lot of them lose their hair, and that was just always something that has always been so heartbreaking to me, was just to see someone in that kind of like weaker state, and to see them just go through this finish line with so much strength and positivity was really inspiring, and that also kind of encouraged me to take on a larger role within zeta philanthropy.
Miriam: Wow, yeah, I can imagine that’s powerful to see so much joy in the face of, you know, something that’s been hard to get through…
What do you wish people outside of Greek Life understood better about your philanthropic work?
Ellie: I wish that people understood more about just how serious of a cause this is. I think it’s easy, I do this myself, but when people are tabling on Sproul, you’re just like, I don’t care. Like, I gotta get from point A to point B [10:00]. I’m going to keep walking, but we’re fighting like, Hey, do you want a free ribbon for breast cancer awareness? People are like, No, I don’t want, like, whatever free thing you’re giving I just wish that people understood more, just the larger scope of what we’re doing. We pass out those ribbons to kind of be, like, a little bit of a reminder of this is still here. You know, it’s not going away anytime soon. And once again, I bring up that statistic of the one in eight women will be diagnosed. And I find more frequently with the men, they don’t take it as seriously, because they’re like, I don’t have boobs, you know, like, this is not something that’s gonna affect me, but it does, like they still I know my friend, I think her uncle had breast cancer like it affects men. And those men, they also have women in their lives. So it affects us all. I think also the American Cancer Society came out with a statistic too, that one in 43 women will die from breast cancer, which also is incredibly low. And that’s terrifying. And so I think really just doing what we can to encourage people. I keep saying encourage the early screening, because that’s like, really all we can do right now. There’s no cure, but the earlier you detect it, the you reduce the risks of kind of entering those extreme cases.
Miriam: Hearing her describe this urgency, it became clear that, for Ellie, these events aren’t just tradition– they’re about supporting real people and making a tangible difference…
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Daniel: I’m Daniel and you’re listening to KALX Berkeley 90.7 fm, and this is Berkeley Brainwaves.
Walking around Frat Row, we had the chance to interview active frat members on what exactly it meant to be in a frat, and the process behind it. Before talking Greek Life seemed to me as a straightforward process, one were people who joined mostly had the same archetype and interest.
But in contrast, I realized that a lot more plays into the members [12:00] who are there and that what fraternities are able to contribute is a lot more than I had expected. In the interviews, the questions were mostly brief. Catching, someone walking the frat’s dog, and another person setting up for an event.
To start out, we asked…
Miriam: What do you do in the frat? Like what, do you have like a job? Like do you take on any specific roles?
Frat Member 1: I’m, I’m in charge of risk. I’m a risk chair and new member education.
Frat Member 2: Uh, help out with setting up parties and that’s basically about it, helping out brothers.
Daniel: After knowing what they did personally, we wanted to find out a bit more about the frats as a whole.
Can you tell us a bit why you joined like this frat in general?
Frat Member 1: Honestly, I had no plans of, um, of joining Greek life when I got here. But a buddy of mine from home, he’s in this house, he like convinced me to come by one night and it was just a good time. It’s been a good time ever since. Um, I just, I love the brotherhood. I mean, it sounds like. You know, typical but cliche, I guess.
Frat Member 2: Well, initially I wasn’t gonna join a frat. Uh, my roommate kinda tricked me into like going to a rush event and I like really connected with some of the brothers. So, and that’s where I decided to accept the bid and actually go through with the pledging process.
Daniel: Can you break down what the rushing process was like?
Frat Member 1: Um, it’s essentially just a week of events that we invite. We have like open events, open invite, and then we have closed invite. Um, yeah, at the beginning of the week it’s open. We just let people come and then we’ll start inviting people and narrowing down picks for a new pc.
Frat Member 2: I know there’s like a poker night and just like a band night, and they’re like really fun. Um, I just got to, uh, meet a lot of new people and future like [14:00] freshmen who would like be in my pledge class, so it was just like really fun.
Daniel: We wanted to know more about their experiences, negative and positive.
Miriam: Are there any drawbacks? Are you like, oh, this one thing? If I knew I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t join.
Frat Member 1: For like for me personally, it’s hard to balance my social life and my academic life because there’s always something going on, especially living in, it’s just a constant, there’s just constant stimulation, like there’s something going on, it’s hard to focus a little bit. Uh, so for me, that’s the only thing. I wish I were more locked in, you know? But no, I, I wouldn’t, I don’t regret my decision.
Miriam: Do you feel that people may like judge you for what frat you’re in? Or like is there like a stereotype for the, for the one you’re in?
Frat Member 2: I don’t think, or we have like a really, I don’t think we have a stereotype and I don’t think people judge you for what frat you’re in. Um, I, I honestly am too, I haven’t been in like the Greek, like Greek life long enough to really experience any, like discrimination because you’re part of a different house or anything like that. And yeah, I just don’t think it’s that prevalent.
Frat Member 1: Rankings. I think they’re arbitrary. I think people judge the house based on its members and they’ll give it like they’ll, they’ll assign it a label almost. So there’s like, just based on the, the people’s personalities. So there’s that stereotype of like, oh, you’re a Phi Psi, so you probably like smoke or surf or something.
Daniel: In general, have you enjoyed like Greek life so far?
Frat Member 2: Yeah. I feel like if I wasn’t in Greek life, I wouldn’t have anything to do in the day. So it’s almost been like really fun. I got to compete in a lot of like cool competitions in Greek life and yeah, it’s been like really fun.
Daniel: [16:00] What’s been your favorite part so far of Greek life?
Frat Member 1: We went to Cabo last spring break. Yeah. That was pretty fun. None of the, none of the guys who went there are here right now. But, um, yeah, that was a fun trip. That was a fun trip. Uh, yeah. A lot of, uh, a lot of college students go to Cabo for spring break, so it was just a, you know.
Daniel: In general, what was your opinion so far of Greek life?
Frat Member 1: It’s just a great social network, like, genuinely. I mean, there are so many. I, I feel like there’s a stigma against Greek life or a stereotype that a lot of people look at it with, of it being like, I don’t know how else to describe it other than fraternal, like degenerate almost. But I mean, there are so many, quote unquote, normal people, like so many of the people in this house are super dedicated to their studies and are landing internships, job offers.
We have a full-time like. Biotech engineer who doesn’t even, he like withdrew from school. He’s just working full time.
Daniel: And finally their own recommendations on Greek life.
Would you give any piece of advice for people wanting to rush for Greek life? Like what would it be and would you recommend it in general?
Frat Member 1: Um, try it out. I’d recommend it. I’ve had a good time. I’ve found people that I connect with. And I don’t think it’s necessary to find people you connect with, but it’s definitely a good vehicle for that.
Frat Member 2: If you’re taking a more, I guess, professional path and a more rigorous major, um, the pledging process can be very time consuming and that might like affect your GPA, but honestly, it’s possible to have really good grades and pledge. Our house has like one of the best GPAs in the school, and it’s also very good for majors [18:00] that, uh, have a, like a focus on networking, so like a, a business major.
Daniel: Hearing from these members, it made it a lot more clear that frat life doesn’t necessarily have to be the typical party aesthetic that everyone seems to think that it is. In fact, the lives of these members differ from it and what the fraternity constitutes and means to them is a lot different from outsider’s perspective without knowledge. The social life and even educational life that these institutions have the possibility to affect are apparent and do make a difference to the members many of the times.
Frat Member 1: But, um, yeah. I’m going on a tangent. What was the question again? I’m sorry.
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Lesya: I am Leysa and you’re listening to KALX Berkeley, 90.7 FM, and this is Berkeley brainwaves.
Okay. To start off, could you tell us a little bit about yourself?
Dario: Hi, my name is, uh, Dario Huang. I’m a freshman international student studying, uh, math and economics here at Berkeley.
Lesya: And what fraternity have you joined?
Dario: I’m a member of Delta Upsilon.
Lesya: Um, so just to start off, why did you choose to join a frat?
Dario: Um, I think being an international student here, it can be a little bit tough. Trying to make new connections because I am like literally in a whole new world of people, and I think the brotherhood that you can find at a fraternity is able to create a sort of strong support system around you, and I think that was a very big attraction for me to join.
Lesya: Sounds good. You were part of Delta Upsilon, so why that frat specifically?
I think there is like a general consensus on campus, like a negative portrayal of fraternities because of a lot of like the negative incidents that occur with them. But then with Delta Upsilon, I think there’s something very special [20:00] in like the culture that they’re trying to breed, which is very distinct.
One of the older brothers called it the most non fratty frat because of how, like it really is focused on being social, but being social in a way that’s trying to develop connections and build friendship. I think that’s very, very unique on the fraternities here, on campus.
Lesya: Yeah. I believe it is called, well, it, it calls itself the oldest non-secret non hazing fraternity.
Dario: Yes. Yes we are.
Lesya: Do you think that that was the biggest factor in choosing this specific frat? Did you rush any other frats?
Dario: Yes, I did a rush previously, a fraternity named, uh. Oh, another fraternity. Yeah. Um, but I did feel that the secrecy was trying to breed a culture of exclusivity within and there was like a distinct separation between your brothers and the rest of the members on campus. And I didn’t find that very appealing because it sort of isolates you to be surrounded entirely with the brotherhood. And that kind of like, cult mentality wasn’t what I was looking for necessarily in the fraternity.
Lesya: I think, um, the, what from what I’ve heard from people that are in frats or sororities, is that there’s a very high time commitment. Um, what would you say is the level of commitment that you have, have to have or have chosen to have with being in a fraternity, like would you say it’s on par with how much time you spend on academics and and or other extracurriculars?
Dario: As an associate member, you’re mainly, your main expectation is just to learn the values of the fraternity and try to develop a, a bond with the fraternity members.
So we do spend a little bit of time going out to dinners and reading material about the fraternity. But I wouldn’t say that, uh, Delta Upsilon specifically [22:00] is a massive time commitment because at the end of the day, it does feel like you’re just hanging out with your brothers and you’re trying to connect with them more.
In terms of hours per week, I would reasonably say three to four hours about, uh, the more involved you are. For example, members of the executive board on the fraternity who do the planning of the events, who talk to headquarters, who do stuff with international and other organizations, they spend way more time, possibly like seven to eight hours. But even then, it’s not a massive, massive thing that’s like all encompassing.
Lesya: And just to clarify, is there a physical house?
Dario: Uh, yes. Okay. Located on 2425 Waring Street.
Lesya: Is that on Frat Row?
Dario: Uh, right at the end of frat Row about.
Lesya: And I’m assuming you plan to live there in the future or no?
Dario: Yes. I currently doing a renovations on the third floor right now. It’s a little bit dirty and a little bit sticky around, but uh, I do plan on living next, next year.
One big reason for people to join fraternities is the housing costs because it is substantially lower than what you’ll find elsewhere, and you don’t really have to deal with like a landlord, and instead you’re just dealing with like the house manager or like the international and they’re all members of the fraternity. So it is like a much more, it’s much easier, uh, finding like housing in that. That regard.
Lesya: I wanna talk a little bit about initiation, just because I feel like that’s a very.
Dario: Yeah, it is the most controversial thing right on, on campus.
Lesya: Yeah. And I’ve heard a lot of things, um, seeing as your frat is non-secret, I don’t know how much you can or want to disclose about it.
Dario: No, no I can, I can fully disclose.
Lesya: But what does that look like? And is that sort of the most intensive part of joining a frat?
Dario: Um, for other fraternities, it definitely is because they require you to do a lot more tasks or like, they call it the new membership education process. And generally you have to like, get points. But at our fraternity it’s more so that you have to learn the, it’s more, it feels more like we’re studying together and we’re learning about like, uh, the values of the fraternity and we’re learning about the history and what that history [24:00] means to, to us.
Our personal, uh, initiation ceremony just was a set of rituals where we all got together, we recited our, uh honor code. We recited what the, the songs were of the fraternity, and then we just learned the, uh, four foundational principles as well as like our ethos and our motto, and we learned what the insignia means and the code of arms and all that stuff. But it’s supposed to be designed around like the ideas of the fraternity rather than what at other fraternities. Um, they do is they try to like break your character down so you can build, you can, uh, be both together with other people. And that’s supposed to build some kind of, uh, brotherly culture. But at our fraternity at Delta Upsilon, we’re more based off the ideas of the fraternity rather than like forcing you to do crazy basically.
Lesya: So leading up to initiation week, um, did they make you do any specific tasks or would you say it’s it’s mainly just integrating into the social world and studying together, things like that.
Dario: Yeah, mainly just study halls going to get, uh, dinner together, going to activities.
Lesya: What kind of person do you think would like to join Delta Upsilon or is in that frat currently?
Dario: Um, I think there are a lot of people who are like me who are like, I do think there’s something very unique about like, men who are just together and they have like a shared idea of something, but they don’t wanna like. Nobody wants to get hazed. I would say people like get hazed and then they retroactively say in their mind, oh yeah, this is so much fun uh, we enjoyed this so much. It’s like, I think people who are looking for some sort of like community and culture that’s based off like ideas without you having to do, uh, embarrass yourself or like do any tasks that are demeaning to you to like prove your worth [26:00]. I think it’s more so that you’re joining into this thing because you agree with its values and you like the people in there.
All of the people, uh, I think our fraternity is particularly diverse. We have a number of like members from around California, we have international students as well, we have Manuel Martinez who is uh, from Mexico, we have another brother from the Philippines. I’m personally raised in Zimbabwe and a lot of transfers joined because it is like an easy way to like, look at these set of ideas, do philanthropy, uh, events with other brothers to talk to each other, to just build friends, which is one of our foundational principles. So like any guy who’s just looking towards building a better, like to bettering themselves and to making more friends and becoming more social and to live according to a set of ideas.
Lesya: Did you have any assumptions or ideas of what the process of joining a frat would look like or what it would be like that were different than what they ended up being?
Dario: I think initially, um, I did discuss this with, uh, a lot of other members on campus I knew this from other, uh, people in other fraternities who were rushing and there is like this very negative thing and it is true that a lot of fraternities on campus, the very secretive ones and also the ones who have recently lost their status as, uh, fraternities with the inner fraternity council. They do like, do shady things underneath like the cloud of like secrecy inside their houses they like close the blinds and they make the brothers there do, do like things that are honestly quite embarrassing and things that you wouldn’t really wanna tell like your parents about.
So I did kind of have like a little bit of an assumption that that was gonna happen at like all fraternities, but. After like looking around, I do think that there is like a real movement in the Greek community to both fraternities that are trying to do something better than that.
Lesya: To anyone thinking [28:00] of joining a frat, do you have any advice about navigating that process or anything that you wish you knew before you had started on the journey?
Dario: The fraternity process is very different from the sorority process, which is a lot more like formalized. And you’re, uh, communicating with the sorority IFC and they send out, like you send, uh, you get sent out to all the houses, all 16 of them, and then they send out bids. But the fraternity process is a lot more discombobulated because we kind of just like walk around houses and we like greet people and we say like, Hey, what’s up?
I think it is important to talk to like older members in the fraternity and members who seem like more open to telling you what it’s about, but also recognize that most of the non-secret, uh, the secretive. Most of the secretive uh, fraternities on campus, they hide a lot of what’s gonna happen during the initiation ceremony. And you kind of just have to like, figure out what all the brothers are about and like, try like eye your way to see if the fraternity is something that you really wanna be part of, especially if you’re, especially if you’re really not sure about like what you want out of Greek life. And also like think to yourself, what do I want my college experience to be like over the next four years?
Because these are people you’re gonna be around for the next four years. And think to yourself, are these go people gonna make me better or are they gonna make me worse of a person? Am I gonna enjoy if, am I gonna be able to look back on my college experience and think, oh, this is something that was really enjoyable and I really liked doing?
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Lesya: Thank you for listening to Berkeley Brainwaves. Once again, you’re listening to KALX Berkeley 90.7 fm. So the next time you’re in Frat row…
Daniel: Walk up to that beer pong game and say hello.
Miriam: No, but seriously, behind the music and the stereotypes, students are actually giving back, building community and finding their place here at Cal. [30:00]
