ISU’s Collegiate Panhellenic Council (CPC) received the College Panhellenic Excellence Award by the National Panhellenic Conference (NPC) in July.

“Not many councils in our region were awarded it so that kind of makes us one of the more outstanding councils in our region and throughout the nation,” said Kara Rex, senior in agriculture and society and president of CPC.

This is the second year Iowa State has earned this award and is the only college in Iowa to receive the Excellence Award this year.

“NPC is proud of all our College Panhellenics receiving recognition and I congratulate them all on their successes,” said Frances Mitchelson, Panhellenics chairman. “Since the Excellence and Achievement Awards for College Panhellenics were created, we have increased the number of College Panhellenic Associations receiving recognition to 42 campuses this year.”

In late May, CPC applied to be scored on seven criteria by the National Panhellenic Conference. The criteria includes recruitment, Panhellenic structure and programming, communication with National Panhellenic Conference area advisor, judicial procedures, academics and Panhellenic community impact and relations.

“We answered a series of questions based on different statistics and programming we offer for our council,” Rex said.

More than 670 campuses and 3,184 have sororities representing National Panhellenic Conference. CPC at Iowa State has 17 sororities under its jurisdiction with 2,456 members as of the spring semester.

“While it’s always great to see the great job that we are doing, it kind of gives us motivation to see we can further improve,” Rex said. “It kind of allows us to reflect on our past year and how we have done.”

According to the Greek Affairs website, CPC chapters “look for women with a 3.0 cumulative GPA from high school or a 2.5 GPA from college.” The active member cumulative GPA for CPC during the 2017 spring semester was 3.27.

As for philanthropy, the greek community raised $188,000 for Special Olympics of Iowa and wrote them “the largest single donation in the history of Special Olympics” in April, according to the Greek Affairs website.

Greek members also participate in philanthropies and service events such as Greeks Give Back, Dance Marathon and Greek Trick-or-Treat.