The PODIUM
Student NEWS
Finding Hope in a Hopeless Situation
by Porscha McClanahan, Elise Parker, and Caroline McReynolds Zeta Nu - TBΣ University of Northern Iowa
S
pring of 2020 was a difficult time for everybody, however, coming back in the fall seemed like an impossible challenge. People all over the world struggled finding their place in this new norm of the pandemic - especially college students. The traditional college life of majors, experiences, and organizations -especially our fraternities and sororities has changed dramatically.
TBS During the Pandemic
When the pandemic hit, we were instructed to not meet in person for the time being. Our chapter decided to do meetings and rituals over zoom. At the beginning this was hard to adapt to, but we slowly figured out how to use zoom to our advantage. Toward the end of the pandemic, we used zoom and all its functions available to us. During elections, we used the polls; during meetings, we shared screens to play kahoots and do educational lessons; during rituals, we still dressed up and went all out to make them as similar to in person as possible. We even started every meeting with a song played by the president to get us all in the TBS spirit. It’s really hard to bond over zoom, but we did our best. We did a lot of zoom events like speed dating with our sisters to get to know each other. We got split up into breakout rooms with one other person and got to chat with them. We also did game nights and crafts via zoom. While this wasn't the best case scenario for us, we got to know our sisters more than we would’ve without these events. In terms of service, we did projects outside and followed all the CDC guidelines. For our fundraisers, we continued with those that we used to do, but were forced to change the way we did them. For example, we do a lot of restaurant fundraisers which allow us to take friends and family to the chosen place and eat, and a portion of the profits will be donated to us. During the pandemic, restaurants wouldn’t let us sit in the entryway and advertise our fundraiser. In order to combat this, we made posters and hung them on the doors and posted them all over social media to spread the word of our fundraisers. A couple of our fundraisers done this way, ended up being some of the most profitable in our chapter. While we saw each other in person very rarely, we used the resources we had to do as much for the bands as we could.
How the Pandemic Changed Us
The normality of life changed drastically for all of us as what we used to call “normal” was no longer that. For starters, we were
20 - Kappa Kappa Psi & Tau Beta Sigma
PMB Band Banquet - Back left: Logan Green, Elise Parker, Trishyan Anthony, Zoe Meyer, Marissa Bys, Kelsi DeBrower. Middle Left: Autumn Sharp, Katie Larson, Lizzy Richardson, Miranda Michelle. Bottom Left: Porscha McClanahan, Alaina Stoltenberg, Brianna Berthiaume. able to go back to in person meetings and events. Our meetings are held in a large room in our campus music building giving everyone the opportunity to distance themselves and wear masks. During our meetings, we brought back our educational aspect by giving the lesson and then completing a fun game, such as chalkboard races and Kahoots, to test our knowledge of the information. The service projects we’ve participated in have been mostly outside or in larger rooms. For example, we participated in the Walk For Alzheimers and rang bells in small groups outside of grocery stores for the Salvation Army. With football being back in season this year, our marching band was able to perform at games. We, as a sorority partnered up with our fraternity, Kappa Kappa Psi, and served the band by helping serve lunch before the games, refill water containers between the quarters, provide and pass out fruit, and clean up after the band was done for the day. Our bonding and recruitment events were also able to be in person. We’ve had
