Far from Greece’s Mt. Olympus, ‘The Games of the Gods’ have found a home on the Hill.

Greek Week 2002, which this year has been titled ‘The Games of the Gods,’ began Monday with Ultimate Frisbee and will end with a dance marathon sponsored by campus radio station Z89 on Sunday. During the festivities, participating fraternities and sororities compete against one another on 12 teams named after Greek gods for points that will be tallied up at the end of the competition.

The annual event was organized by the Greek Leaders Cross Council Committee, which is made up of representatives from the Interfraternity, Panhellenic, Latino Greek and National Pan-Hellenic Councils.

Other events include community service at the Westcott Community Center on Tuesday, Broomball at the Tennity Ice Staking Rink on Friday and a Family Feud-style game show on Friday in which contestants attempt to match answers with results from a survey of greek students on campus.

This year, officials divided the various chapters into teams using a random system. This differs from previous years, in which chapters were allowed to pair off in the same manner as for Homecoming activities. The new system assures that all teams are made up of at least four chapters, said Lansing Dimon, president of Kappa Delta Rho and an organizer of the event.

He added that this method encourages chapter pairings that are not usually seen, specifically with the inclusion of some of the Latino Greek and National Pan-Hellenic Council’s chapters.

‘It builds unity,’ said Lansing, a music education graduate student. ‘I would like to think that it is the start of a trend.’

Lansing is on team Apollo along with Gamma Phi Beta, Alpha Epsilon Phi and Lambda Upsilon Lambda.

Another member of team Apollo, Gamma Phi’s Erika Schlissel, said that the only damper on the festivities so far has been the weather during some of the outdoor events. Schlissel, the activities chairwoman for her chapter, said that even with the inclement weather the turnout was impressive.

Greek Week is traditionally held after Spring Break and before formals and finals begin, said IFC advisor Vince Kuss, who also helped organize the events. He added that the most encouraging thing about the event so far has been how well all of the randomly selected teams have mixed.

‘All of the teams are working together and getting along,’ Kuss said. ‘So it seems pretty positive.’

Published on April 2, 2002 at 12:00 pm