The greek community changed things up this year in the way they do Greek Week pairings. Instead of choosing pairings, there was a random drawing.

Greek Week is an annual tradition at Iowa State. With this tradition, each chapter gets paired with one or two other chapters as a team. The overall objective is to gain the most points and win Greek Week.

Before this year, the chapters had an option to choose who they wanted for their pairings. Small fraternities would seek a larger fraternity, and then the large fraternity would find a sorority. The three would then become a pairing, as determined by the Greek Week chairs.

Maggie Gerhls, co-chair of Greek Week, said that they chose to change the process this year due to difficulties in the past. 

“After difficulties with how the process worked in the past, we decided to create this randomization system to even the chances for all house be paired with various chapters over the years,” Gerhls said. “This system will also take the pressure off of chapter co-chairs trying to line up pairings.” 

Some people think this change is detrimental to their chances of winning, while others think this method is more fair.

Cade Kiddoo, freshman in mechanical engineering and member of Theta Delta Chi, said this method is more fair, because “otherwise power houses could choose to pair with other power houses, and dominate Greek Week and homecoming.”

Tim Goldrick, freshman in journalism and mass communication and member of Sigma Alpha Epsilon, said that he wishes things would have stayed the same.

“It would have been nice to keep the same method for this year so it wouldn’t be so up-in-the-air and random,” Goldrick said. “It also would have been good to have been paired with bigger houses to have a better chance to win.”

On Sunday there was a “Pairing Selection Day.” Large and small fraternity co-chairs attended this event. The large fraternities were drawn out of a hat to determine the order that they will draw the sorority’s names.

After this process, when all large chapters were paired, small fraternities went from largest to smallest and drew their pairings from a hat.

Once the pairings were determined, the fraternities serenaded their new sorority.

This new pairing system may also bring about some not-so-positive changes.

“The negative effects are that some houses may be paired together that may not particularly get along, and problems may arise because you will always have long lasting rivalries between houses,” Kiddoo said.

This change is expected to have new winners that aren’t as predictable.

“Now I think that the winners will be more evenly dispersed instead of the same houses dominating Greek Week each year,” Kiddoo said. “You have more of a chance to be with a different partner. Before, there would be power houses that would tend to win it every year.”

During Greek Week, there are activities such as lip-syncing, softball, and karaoke. Some events score more points than other activities.

Small chapters want to be paired with bigger chapters so that there is more diversity within their pairings.

“When you’re with a bigger house, you have more chance of having people that are good in different areas,” Goldrick said. “Which is why the bigger pairings tend to always win.”

Pairing Day took place Dec. 8 in the Gallery Room of the Memorial Union.