I would like to take this opportunity to thank Tim Davis for printing my letter concerning bias against the greek system.

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to express my opinion and to spur campus-wide conversation about this topic.

I would also like to take this opportunity to respond to some of the letters that have been written to the Daily in response to my original letter.

I would like to respond to the letter written on April 10 (that started this controversy).

First of all, publicity is not the motivation for most greek chapter houses. All houses do at least one philanthropy event each semester. Our motivation is the betterment of our community and not self gratification.

Second, drinking Pepsi through a beer bong was not an event in this year’s Greek Olympics, nor has it ever been. It is that type of attitude that will continually show one side of greek life instead of greek life in its entirety.

I cannot argue with the fact that greek life is exclusive. While chapter houses invite non-greeks to join during Rush functions, greek life is not for everyone. Being greek doesn’t mean that you can drink lots of beer.

Greek life trains you for the real world and provides leadership skills that other organizations can’t.

Now I would like to respond to the letter written on April 12 by Mr. Randolph N. Langer.

I understand your concern for “your” lawn at Buchanan.

But if you have a problem with the way it is being treated, then you should address your problem to the university and not the Greek system.

It was the university that granted us permission to use the lawn at Buchanan Hall.

I would like to thank Ms. Kristen Tedesco for her poignant letter. It is nice to see that there are other greeks who will not stand by the wayside while our image gets trashed.

Finally I would like to respond to the letter written on April 17 by Ms. Cassandra Green.

I would ask that if you write another letter to the Daily concerning this letter that you please correctly quote me.

In your April 17 letter you quoted me as saying, “Iowa State’s most important event this year, the Greek Olympics….”

In my original letter, I wrote that the Greek Olympics was the most important event in the GREEK system, and not all of Iowa State.

Secondly, the main thrust of my original letter was not to promote the fact that Greek Week was dry, but instead to promote the positive events in the greek system.

The fact that Greek Week is dry is only a side note to all the valuable time spent helping others.

Finally, I can say that most greeks would feel open to more scrutiny by the campus at large because there would be more positive aspects of greek life and greek activities rather than negative ones.

In conclusion, I would like to say that we should continue to discuss topics such as greek bias so that we may gain a better understanding of others.

For it is only through dialogue that we can knock down the barriers that separate us.

Eric Weisenhorn

Phi Kappa Theta