Penn's Panhellenic Council wins big at regional awards

The University's 1997 Panhellenic Council has established itself as one of the country's top sorority organizations, garnering the highest honor at the annual Northeast Panhellenic Conference nearly two weeks ago. The "Overall Excellence" award is given to the top Panhel in the region, which includes more than 100 similar organizations. During the conference, which was held March 5-7 in Cherry Hill, N.J., regional Panhel alumni voted on the merits of Greek organizations in several categories. Penn also won the award for scholarship. Last year's Penn Panhel Executive Board sent the committee a packet in January detailing the range of events and issues which they worked on in the past year, according to current Panhel President Janelle Brodsky, a College and Engineering junior. Several other Penn Panhel officials said the awards were major achievements. "I'm so excited," former President Jessica Lennon explained, upon hearing the news of the award for overall excellence. "I felt we were very qualified for [the award], but I wasn't sure if we'd get it," the College senior added. In addition to the strong academic performance of Penn's sororities, many Greek officials attributed the awards to the organization's well-rounded programming. Office of Fraternity and Sorority Affairs Assistant Director Tom Carroll cited the women's health care roundtable discussion and AIDS awareness day as particularly effective programs. And Brodsky pointed out that the group's Women Against Abuse and Breast Cancer Health Day programs are both vital and innovative. Former Panhel Treasurer Mary Woland explained that the fact that programming affects more than just the sorority community may have been a factor in the decision. "We do more campus-wide events rather than just Greek events," said Woland, a College senior, adding that many of the speakers Panhel brings in are non-Greek-related. At last year's conference, Penn won one of several awards for outstanding Panhellenic chapter, scholarship, programming and public relations. And at the bi-annual National Panhellenic Conference last November, Penn earned another scholarship award. Woland said she was not surprised that the trend continued this year. "[Winning awards] is not so hard to do at a school like Penn where everybody's pretty exceptional," she said. Since the schools are grouped according to the size of their sorority systems, Penn competed against other Panhels with six to 10 sororities from the region, that extends from New England to Maryland and West Virginia. Although winning regional awards does not give the school an official edge in the national Panhel competitions scheduled for 1999, Brodsky said she believes this year's showing "makes a strong statement." The InterFraternity Council, which won three regional awards in 1995, did not submit an entry this year.