Plew has spent three years with Recreational Sports but is new to her current position. She works with representatives from sororities and fraternities on councils to increase participation from the IU greek community. Last month she spearheaded the “Greektober” campaign, a group exercise challenge among sorority chapters on campus.
“It’s our goal as a council to try to get more girls involved, to try to keep that excitement going,” Plew said. “We had a great turnout from the chapters, and it got more chapters starting to get involved on the council as well.”
For the Greektober challenge, Plew kept track of sorority members who participated in Recreational Sports’ group exercise classes for the month and announced chapter standings at the end of each week. At the end of the month, Delta Phi Epsilon was announced as the winner.
“The competitive drive was definitely there, which is really important to get people to participate,” said Megan Doody, a Recreational Sports sorority council representative for Gamma Phi Beta. “I kind of get after all the girls in my chapter when we fall down in the rankings, try to pull us back up again.”
With the conclusion of Greektober, the council had expressed an interest in continuing an exercise campaign for the next month, Plew said. This week is the beginning of the “Movember” step challenge. Every sorority uses the app Charity Miles, which is designed to donate money to the charity of the user’s choice based on the number of steps the user takes each day.
“We thought that since this event was so well-received, what should we do next?” Plew said. “We’re always looking for feedback about the Recreational Sports programs, and I’ve really enjoyed getting the girls’ ideas firsthand while watching them step up and take leadership roles.”
In order to participate in the challenges, sororities needed a representative on the Recreational Sports sorority council. Since the challenges started at the beginning of October, 57 percent of sororities have participated, and 65 percent have a representative on the council, Plew said.
Much of what Plew does with the Greek community comes directly from the council representatives. She tries to introduce different approaches to fitness and health with every meeting, but the desire to try different activities and campaigns is driven by the chapter members, she said.
“We kind of had to start from zero with these programs, but the more of them we do, the more people love competing and participating,” said Taylor Brockmiller, a Recreational Sports representative for Alpha Omicron Pi. “It is so important to be healthy and active in college, and I think these programs really put a focus on that. It would be a great thing to finally get that across to people.”
Plew said she hopes the programs with the sorority council will lead to similar programs and campaigns for other groups on campus.
Her work with the fraternity council has led to a points system to encourage fraternity participation in intramural sports. Further goals include potential exercise challenges between residence halls.
“We’ve always had these greek community councils for Recreational Sports, but Ellen has really taken the feedback she’s gotten and run with it,” said Mandy McGhee, assistant director of marketing for Recreational Sports. “We hope to build off of her experience with the sorority council and use it as a springboard for other councils and programs.”
The sorority representatives are just as excited as Plew about expanding Recreational Sports’ outreach on campus, Doody said. Many chapter members have said they want to keep coming up with monthly campaigns for the sorority council as well as helping with other groups on campus.
“Group programs that are really fun help us build friendships in healthy ways, and that’s not necessarily something you see a lot on college campuses,” Doody said. “If we think outside ourselves a little, we could help make this something really big. The stuff with sororities and fraternities is just the beginning.”
