USC’s Sorority Council was awarded the National Panhellenic Conference Excellence Award on Monday.
The group is one of just 14 out of the nation’s 574 college Panhellenic organizations to be recognized with the award, according to NPC leaders.
Julie Johnson and Laura Sweet of the NPC presented the award to Sorority Council President Riley Shipman at a ceremony on the Osborne Administration Building Patio. The award recognizes excellence in a number of criteria, including recruitment planning and implementation, implementation of the judicial procedures plan and strong academic programming.
“This is a huge deal for your community … to recognize such an outstanding Panhellenic and all the work they do,” Johnson said.
University President Harris Pastides congratulated the women of Sorority Council for their leadership.
“This is a very high bar,” Pastides said. “We have outstanding leaders on our campus in the Panhellenic community. In this day and age, people say a lot of things about Greek life — they’re not all good, if you listen to people and pundits and bloggers all around the country. But I know it takes our great, large university and breaks it down into a smaller community.”
USC’s Sorority Council has won multiple awards in the past, including last year’s Southeastern Panhellenic Conference Overall Excellence award.
There are more than 3,000 women in 17 Panhellenic sororities at USC that raised nearly $490,000 for philanthropy last year. More than one-third of the women in sororities had a GPA of 3.75 or higher last semester.