Ever wondered how many sororities were on campus or were curious about what they do? Did you know events like best dance crew and preppy olympics are put on by Greek organizations? Here’s a little overview on Christopher Newport’s fantastic Panhellenic sororities!

Alpha Delta Pi

Theta Nu Chapter

“We Live For Each Other”

Philanthropy: the Ronald McDonald House

What does ADPi do on campus? They host ADPiHop, and tie dye with ADPi! They also put on the annual preppy olympics every spring semester, an event which involves both endurance and prep.

Alpha Phi

Theta Phi Chapter

“Union Hand in Hand”

Philanthropy: the Alpha Phi Foundation (which supports cardiac care and heart health)

Recently, APhi hosted a series of different events for heart health week, a week designed to raise awareness on heart health and promote a healthy college lifestyle! They also hold their red dress gala every year to raise money for their philanthropy.

Alpha Sigma Alpha

Theta Gamma Chapter

“Aspire, Seek, Attain”

Philanthropies: the S. June Smith Center, Girls on the Run and Special Olympics

What does ASA do on campus? They host “so you think you can’t even,” a pageant event that searches for the most basic of men on campus. They also put on “rock-a-thon” and “play your ASA off.”

Delta Gamma

Eta Tau Chapter

“Do Good”

Philanthropy: Service for Sight

You’ll notice anchors are a recurring trend for the ladies of DG, because their events include “anchorman” and “anchorsplash,” which raise money for their philanthropy! They also host a deliciously fun event called the “desserts derby.”

Gamma Phi Beta

Epsilon Iota Chapter

“Founded upon a rock”

Philanthropies: Girl’s Inc., Building Strong Girls and Girls on the Run

These ladies host “best dance crew,” which raises money for G Phi’s various philanthropies. This event is one of the highest attended annual events on campus, and this year will be happening March 25!

Phi Mu

Lambda Epsilon Chapter

“Les Soeurs Fideles (The Faithful Sisters)”

Philanthropies: the Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals and the Phi Mu Foundation

Where can you spot these sisters? They host the Phi Mu auction and dance marathon, the proceeds of which all go toward their philanthropies. Dance marathon even got its own Snapchat filter last year!

Zeta Tau Alpha

Kappa Phi Chapter

“Seek the Noblest”

Philanthropies: Breast Cancer Education and Awareness and the Zeta Tau Alpha Foundation

What does Zeta do on campus? During the month of October, you’ll see Zetas everywhere with a lot of pink on for Breast Cancer Awareness Month. They host various events all throughout the month involving – you guessed it – a lot of pink.

The lovely Panhellenic sororities contribute greatly to our community here, and now you know a little more about what makes each of them so special!

Unless you have been living under a rock, it is pretty likely you’ve come across a BuzzFeed or Tasty video giving you a 30-second tutorial on how to whip up a tasty snack or treat.

A few weeks ago, my friends and I decided to make one of these videos a reality. We took on the challenge of making red velvet cake pops. We started off with store-bought cake mix and baked it according to the instructions on the box. After the cake cooled, we rolled up our sleeves and crumbled up our red velvet. After finely crumbling it, we mixed in cream cheese frosting. 

After mixing our frosting and cake, we began to create our cake pops! Things got a little “trial and error” from here. We realized as we started to make cake balls, rolling cake into quarter-size balls, that it would help more if we stuck the cake crumble in the freezer to chill. So, we put our mix in the freezer for about 10 minutes. From there, we were able to roll our cake pops and slide cake sticks into each. We then placed them in the freezer to set even more.

As the freezer did its magic, we danced around the kitchen to music to kill some time. After bustin’ some moves, we began to dip our cake pops in melted white chocolate. Once they were covered in chocolate, we put them back in the freezer to make sure everything set properly for a final time…

We finished our cake pops off with purple dyed chocolate drizzle and enjoyed the fruits of our labor. We realized that in reality, these fun little videos are actually quite doable! Give your favorite recipe a try, or master our Cake Pops!

Sing along if you please…

Hello. It’s me.

I was wondering if after all these weeks you’d like to meet

To go over everything

They say that time’s supposed to teach you all

But I ain’t done much learning

Hello, can you hear me

I’m on an island in the Caribbean floating by the beach

We’re so tan and stress free

I’ve forgotten how it felt before midterms disturbed my sleep

There’s such a distance between us

And I’m a million cares away.

Hello from the cruise ship side

I must have repacked a thousand times

To make sure I have everything that I need

But when I board I’m missing all of my shoes

Hello from the pool side

At least I can say that I tried

To make sure I passed all of my midterms

But it don’t matter because the grades are undeniable

Hello, how are you?

It’s so wonderful to see you so relaxed and carefree

I hope that you’ve slept all week

Did you see they have a new season on Netflix for this week

It’s no secret that all of us

Are running out of time

So hello from my puppy’s side

I must have cuddled a thousand hours

Don’t judge that it’s everything I’ve done

Because I know your Instagram shows you’re at home

Hello from the mountain side

At least I skied a bunch of times

I know that it’s going to end

But right now it so perfect I don’t want to think of school

Hello from the airplane side

It must be time to quit our paradise

To return to our desk in library

But I’ll always have memories from our time

Hello from the classroom door

At least I can’t fight it anymore

So begin the rest of the semester

Let’s make sure we kick butt for weeks to come.

Spring break is quickly approaching, and if you’re anything like me, you’re losing motivation to finish the week off strong because you can’t stop thinking about your plans for the break. With literally three days left and four midterms to take, I am struggling trying to hold on. Instead of packing for my spring break trip to Las Vegas with my sorority sisters, I’ve been dedicating all of my time to the library. I know that it is well worth it, though. After I pass these exams, I will not even stress about how well I think I did on them because I have spent so much time preparing for them.

To help out those who feel the same as I do, here are some tips for staying motivated as we countdown to spring break!

1. Turn on your tunnel vision and zone in on the light that is at the end! It is super easy to lose motivation right before the break because you just want it to be here already and you’re over attending classes every day. But, don’t lose sight of the light! It may appear dim right now, but we will be there quicker than you know. Stay focused in class and stay on top of your work so that when you do finally reach the light at the end of the tunnel, you have nothing else to worry about.

2. When you have free time, study! Don’t waste your time lying around or napping when you’re not in class. That’s what spring break will be for! Make sure you’re studying so that you will easily pass those midterms and make it to spring break smoothly.

3. When spring break finally gets here, enjoy it! You’ve made it to the end of the tunnel! Be safe and make sure you get some rest so that you will be prepared to dive right into the books when you get back.

The athlete’s life is grueling, time-consuming, stressful and arduous. Why do they do it? Why do athletes repeatedly wake up at ungodly hours to put themselves through strenuous physical and mental activity? Why do athletes give up much of their social life to be on the road and compete at far-off schools? Why do athletes put themselves through the stress of time managing their days up to the minute? Maybe for professional athletes it’s the money and the drive to be the best in history. Maybe for Division I and Division II collegiate athletes it’s about the scholarship, the experience and the ability to make a name for themselves. But what is it for Division III athletes?

D3 athletes don’t get scholarships. They don’t receive special treatment in the classroom. They don’t have special excessive services offered to them. They don’t have separate priority housing. Why continue to play? When offered no major perks, why do D3 athletes continue to relinquish their personal lives to wear their school’s colors and compete for them on a national level?

The life of a D3 athlete is about perseverance and self-sacrifice. These athletes don’t have to play. They have no scholarship riding on their performance. These athletes play for the sake of the game. They put themselves through physical and mental duress because they love what they do. The game-day feeling is kryptonite. The athletes at Christopher Newport are some of the most hardworking, persevering, dedicated, kind, fun, thoughtful people I know on this campus. So when you come here and you get to watch these incredible athletes play, proudly wearing our school colors, know they are there because they want to be – because they are proud to represent an amazing University doing something they know and love.

In which we need to have a much needed talk about feminism- Wait! Don’t go! I promise I won’t make you wear a “Suffragettes” sash!

You wait your entire college career for one single moment: the senior seminar class for your major.

Well, maybe that’s just me.

As an English major, I knew my final English class would most likely include some reading and writing. I also knew it would be centered around a specific theme, like Food and Culture or 19th Century Monsters.

What I didn’t know: how it would feel to sit in a class and know it was the capstone course of everything I’ve been doing for four whole years.

For four years, I’ve attended English courses at Christopher Newport. I’ve learned to throw away the five-paragraph essay format, to analyze literature with a multitude of viewpoints, including post-colonial, physiological and Marxist, to write journalistic accounts of my own life, and much more. I’ve read Austen, Shakespeare and Thoreau, but also Diaz, Morrison and O’Connor. I’ve turned in papers so long, they probably contributed to the deforestation of our rainforests.

And now, I sit in my final English class. It’s focused on literary families. It’s equal parts fascinating, tedious and thought-provoking (as are most college classes/college in general).

The end is near.

What I learned my freshman year was that it’s very easy to not get involved on campus. You see, campus organizations want you, but they don’t force you to join. In high school, everything you did was forced. Attendance was forced, lunch times were forced, bathroom passes were forced and sometimes even extracurriculars were forced. What many of us realize when we get to college is that everything is truly optional. No one is sitting over your bed telling you to get ready before you miss the bus, or making sure you have money to buy cafeteria food. Everything is on you.

When I arrived at Christopher Newport in fall 2014, I noticed there was a plethora of student activities I was dying to get involved with. Campus Activities Board, Student Diversity and Equality Council, Greek Life, Rowing Club, Nintendo Club – there were so many options! I left the club fair with a ridiculous number of flyers, and was beyond excited to start getting involved. Then Monday came, and my first set of classes began. I realized that education at Christopher Newport was no joke like high school had been, and my time would have to be managed very carefully. I also really wanted to be friends with everyone in my hall (as most freshmen do), and skipped out on a lot of interest meetings in order to spend time with my friends who lived so close to me.

I didn’t go to that Improv Club meeting I’d been waiting for all week because my friends and I wanted to go to the beach. I skipped out on that audition for Initiative Student Theater because there was a hall meal at the same time and I didn’t want to eat by myself. I forgot about that CAB Street Team application because no one I knew was applying, too. As a result, I made a lot of great memories with my hall and enjoyed myself thoroughly … until the spring. My hallmates had joined things, my roommate and I weren’t getting along like we used to and people just weren’t as friendly as before. They’d found their cliques and things to get into on campus, but I hadn’t really. Even though I had joined one club, I hadn’t been as involved as I could’ve been because I didn’t want to miss out on the things happening in my hall. It hit me at the end of my spring semester that I regretted not joining things and branching out.

It’s scary making friends, especially ones you don’t see everyday like in high school. With hallmates, you see them all the time and it’s basically like high school all over again. But things change, and you won’t live with them all next year. You also could be missing out on some amazing friendships by not joining clubs, and gaining life experience you couldn’t get in the safety of your residence hall. Now I’m a member of a sorority and a leader in the Christopher Newport community, and I’m so much happier.

I’ve made memories and friendships that never would’ve happened without branching out and following my passions. It was awkward, scary and definitely difficult for an introvert like me to do. But now I’m completely fulfilled. If you’ve thought about applying for membership in that group, or joining that club, do it. Christopher Newport is full of quality organizations that do absolutely amazing things. Get the most out of your experience here, and do it sooner rather than later. I promise you it’ll be the best decision you could make.

Familiar with “Pitch Perfect”?

Deke Sharon (one of the producers of “Pitch Perfect”) was here this past weekend, as he taught a masterclass to all six of Christopher Newport’s a cappella groups (Trebled Youth, University Sounds, Extreme Measures, Take Note, The Newport Pearls and Expansion).

Deke also worked on the shows “Pitch Slapped” and “The Sing-Off,” and is known in the a cappella community as the “Father of Contemporary A Cappella.” In his class he gave each group 40 minutes of working time with him, while the other groups took notes on what he was teaching them.

The class also determined who would open for “Vocalosity,” an a cappella show currently touring the U.S., and the pride and joy of Deke Sharon himself. The show will be coming to the Ferguson Center for the Arts on Monday, February 22, and Deke had to choose who would open for Vocalosity. Despite the class also being a competition, all groups involved learned so much about the a cappella music style, and Deke agreed that all of our University’s groups are phenomenal.

Want to see who Deke chose to open for Vocalosity? Click here to watch the announcement video!

Christopher Newport University has one of the best athletics programs. It’s not only great for the athletes, but also for the students and community who come out to support.

I recently attended a men’s and women’s double-header basketball game. Double-headers are the most exciting home games to me because you get to enjoy a full evening of nonstop sports action! Our basketball teams are great. The men’s team is ranked No. 5 in the nation, and the women are ranked No. 16. Cheering them on and supporting them is easy because they are so good, but I believe that if even if they were ranked last in the conference, the Christopher Newport community would still be their biggest fans. It amazes me that we have Division III athletics, but fans support like we are a top D1 school.

At the games, I noticed so much spirit it made me even more proud to be a Captain! The stands were completely filled with so much energy. There were people standing the entire game, holding signs, jumping around and yelling. Along with all the cheering, they were sure to wear their blue and silver. We have so much spirit that the students cheering in the stands began chants before the cheerleaders even had a chance to organize their next cheer. So if anyone asks if we have spirit here at Christopher Newport, yes we do!