Tracy Lungrin
Greek adviser and leadership coordinator, 308.865.8519
UNK– The University of Nebraska at Kearney Student Senate recently approved a new Greek Life organization, the Multicultural Greek Council (MGC).
The MGC is comprised of three nontraditional Greek organizations on campus: Sigma Lambda Beta, Lambda Theta Nu and Sigma Lambda Gamma. Similar to the traditional Panhellenic and Interfraternity Councils, MGC will be the governing body for the nontraditional Greek organizations.
“It has taken us close to a year to create the council,” said Tracy Lungrin, UNK Greek Life coordinator. “We are very excited to do some programming for our traditional Greek brothers and sisters about multicultural Greek organizations, and we hope to attend the Cultural Greek Conference in Costa Mesa, Calif., to learn more about how to build a successful council.”
Executive board officers include President Daniel Jaimes of Lexington, Vice President Vianett Nunez of Gibbon and Secretary/Treasurer Mariana Cruz of Grand Island. Also serving on the board are Karla Green and Nina Batenhorst, both of Grand Island, and Danny Granillo of Lexington.
“The purpose of the MGC at UNK is to bring together the nontraditional Greek organizations to help each other and to better serve our needs in ways that neither IFC nor Panhellenic could do,” Jaimes said. “This group was created to better serve the needs of the nontraditional organizations on campus. We have different sets of ideals/pillars/principles, and as nontraditional Greeks, we are mostly multicultural. Thus we tend to emphasize that fact more and promote cultural awareness.”
“The founders of MGC went through a long process of creating this group throughout this past fall semester,” Jaimes said. “The chapter president and one delegate from each organization met once a week, and drafted a constitution and bylaws for our own MGC.”
The founders researched of MGC organizations on other campuses from Nebraska to the University of Nevada-Las Vegas and also asked alumni for their input. The members took qualities from each organization, and created their own constitution and bylaws.
“After the constitution and bylaws were in place, we then voted on our executive board,” he said. “Once the executive board was in place, we then took a copy of our constitution and bylaws and submitted them to the Student Senate for approval to be recognized as an official UNK organization.”
“We believe that with MGC in place our three separate organizations can prosper in ways they have done before,” Jaimes said. “With the three organizations being able to help one another out much more than they have in the past, it will be much easier to get our programming accomplished. These programs can include, but are not limited to, social events, fund-raisers and a variety of cultural awareness events.”
In addition, other nontraditional Greek organizations have come forward to colonize on campus.
“It is up to us whether we allow them to [colonize] or not,” Jaimes said. “At the same time, we can also extend invitations [to colonize] to other nontraditional Greeks and offer them the possibility of coming to UNK.”
