I am troubled by Wilson Boyd’s article, “Panhellenic abused vote,” published in last Friday’s Reflector. It was slanted and it did not depict accurately the way that Panhellenic sororities supported our candidates.
I am a member of a Panhellenic sorority and I am proud that we have amazing women on our Homecoming Court to represent us.
As any organization on campus may do, we selected well-qualified candidates to support for Homecoming elections, and then we voted for them.
There was no “horse-trading” involved. We didn’t go to any bargaining sessions as separate sororities. We selected women from the Greek community who would represent Panhellenic Council well.
Panhellenic’s candidates were elected because the majority of students not in a Greek organization did not vote. Less than 20 percent of students at Mississippi State are in fraternities or sororities (black and white). The other 80 percent of our student body clearly has the majority and the power to elect anyone they want to Homecoming Court.
The fact that most of the independents didn’t nominate candidates or even vote shows that they are apathetic about Homecoming elections. Someone can’t be elected if they’re not on the ballot.
There are numerous organizations on campus with large numbers of members. They have the capability to support a candidate for Homecoming. The fact that most of them didn’t has nothing to do with Panhellenic or the people that were elected to the court. There were plenty of deserving candidates who weren’t elected, but, in the end, it came down to the number of votes.
Panhellenic should not apologize for its unity or for encouraging its members to take action and vote.
Caitlin Baum is a sophomore in computer engineering.