Panhellenic Council
Nahbuma Gana to Be Next President of Panhellenic Council
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Nahbuma Gana has big dreams for Greek life reform. She is slated to be the next president of the Panhellenic Council.
The Cornell Daily Sun (https://cornellsun.com/tag/panhellenic-council/)
Nahbuma Gana has big dreams for Greek life reform. She is slated to be the next president of the Panhellenic Council.
The Saturday before last, I woke up to a flood of Facebook posts depicting a smiling young man, Antonio Tsialas ’23, an 18-year old freshman who, according to one of the posts, had just been hired as a campus tour guide. Antonio had been missing since Thursday night, when he attended a fraternity event, and the posts implored anyone who knew his whereabouts to contact the authorities. As the hours passed and more “missing student” posts appeared in my timeline, the pit in my stomach grew and grew, and I braced myself for a tragedy. Late Saturday evening, my fears — Cornell’s fears — were confirmed with a brief mass email that told us Antonio’s body had been found in Fall Creek. I had never met Antonio, so my entire knowledge of his personality, of his humanity, came from three lonely adjectives in the mass email: thoughtful, smart, outgoing.
As advocates of a safer social scene for more than five years, Cayuga’s Watchers greatly appreciates the sentiment of Panhellenic President Maya Cutforth’s ’20 efforts to improve event safety. We were founded in 2012 at a similarly pivotal moment, in the wake of another senseless student death. Cayuga’s Watchers positioned itself as a uniquely student-driven response to an intractable national crisis — the normalization of high-risk alcohol use and insufficient safety measures at collegiate parties. Our goal has never been to stop partying, but to instead educate and promote safer behaviors throughout Cornell’s vast social scene, building partnerships and only ever showing up when we are invited. The mandates proposed by Cutforth would see trained employees of Cayuga’s Watchers required at every event hosted by a fraternity.
How do we create institutional change? At a University that has existed since 1865, we fall victim to systemic problems that persisted since long before the conception of Cornell. When evaluating the campus problems we seek solutions for — issues that affect one, many or all Cornellians — the sheer length of the list makes taking action seem overwhelming and unachievable. But what if we take one of the institutional problems we are facing and put forth a conversation and some action items to begin to tackle it? Many organizations on this campus, like Cornell Minds Matter, are champions of this approach and are creating positive institutional change.
On Friday, the President of the Panhellenic Council proposed an unprecedented shift in Greek Life on campus: a freeze of all social mixers between member sororities and fraternities on campus until the Interfraternity Council and Executive Board upped safety measures for party-goers.
Half of respondents reported having experienced some form of sexual harassment during their time at Cornell.
Due to a winter storm that struck the greater Tompkins area Saturday night, Cornell University’s Panhellenic Council and Interfraternity Council had to make changes to their recruitment timelines, including pushing recruitment timelines back a week.
Cornell Panhellenic Council elected Christina Nastos ’19 and Juliet McCann ’19 as its new President and Vice President, respectively.
With tensions high after multiple racially charged events on and around campus, students filled Bache Auditorium for Student Assembly’s Thursday meeting looking for some action to be taken.
“It felt really rewarding to represent my sorority while doing something good for the community and giving back,” Friedman said. “The most rewarding part of my experience was meeting new people in the Greek community and working together to clean up collegetown.”