“Yeah, I’m going to need to leave work early on Monday because I am kinda responsible for this sorority at NYU.”  It felt awkward uttering the request to my manager at work, but here’s the deal.  I loved being in a sorority at OU.  I met a ton of people and felt a deeper connection to my campus.  It’s the same feeling everyone gets from being involved at OU – that strong sense of commitment and community at OU by getting involved and connecting with other groups on campus.

So when I moved to New York right after graduation, I had to go from a campus of 25,000 of your friends and peers to a city of 7 million where I knew but a handful of people.  I joined the NYC Pi Beta Phi Alumnae club and met a lot of energetic and ambitious women from all over the States and spanning various industries and careers.  I became very close to these women, and they formed a core group of friends when I was starting out in New York.

A couple years after graduating, I heard Pi Beta Phi was colonizing a new chapter at NYU.  I started volunteering for their recruiting events and mentored some women of the new chapter at NYU.  This year, I volunteered for their alumnae advisory committee and really got to know more about the women in the organization at NYU.

Sitting in on the NYU chapter meetings as an advisor really brings back a lot of OU memories.  The NYU students always ask me about OU and what it was like being in a sorority there.  Their mouths drop when I talk about the chapter houses and the functions and community service events we used to have.

It’s not about being in a sorority or fraternity that gets me excited about OU memories.  It’s that enthusiasm and passion you had as a student involved in any campus activity – CAC, housing, Honors College, the business school.  The feeling of running through the dark streets behind Sarkeys at 2 a.m. to get more chicken wire for the Homecoming Day float.  The feeling of leaving your books in the Bizzel library while you and your friends run to the CAC office to sort out t-shirts before you return back to the library to study until 4 a.m.  It sounds crazy but on those nights, you felt like you could accomplish everything and that you and your friends would drop whatever you were doing to help each other out.  It was that feeling that if you had an idea of how to make OU feel more like a community, you could just speak up, organize something and make your idea come to pass.

Being a volunteer advisor for a student organization at NYU really makes me appreciate the opportunities and supportive friends and University administrators. They made my college experience priceless and memorable.