“I didn’t know a lot about sororities but I met girls in my classes who were in sororities and decided to check it out.” states the 2024-2025 Houston Alumnae Panhellenic Foundation (HAPF) President, Sandy Lee. “I lived at home during college and since I had gone to an all-girls’ high school and then to a big university I thought joining a group would help me meet people and make friends.” Soon after beginning her college career at the University of Houston (UH), Sandy would participate in informal recruitment to be the first member of her family to join a sorority.
Informal recruitment involved going to “several different houses” but Sandy felt that “Phi Mu was the best fit” for her, which made it easy for her to get “involved right away” once she received her bid. With meetings “every Wednesday” and events such as mixers and philanthropy events, she attributes her time in a sorority as helping her in her “career and personal life”:
“I’ve learned so many things from being in a sorority-- leadership skills, interpersonal skills such as active listening and conversing, team building, organization skills, time management, as well as problem solving.”
Travel has always been a favorite interest of Sandy’s and some of her fondest sorority memories involve traveling to a sister’s home in Schulenburg for a sisterhood/recruitment retreat and her road trip to a Phi Mu Convention with her sorority big sister:
“This was before GPS and cell phones so we took a lot of wrong turns but we finally made it. We’re still good friends and still laugh about that trip.”
Since then, Sandy Lee has taken many more trips, with one being a recent trip to Paris with several Delta Gamma friends!
Sandy attributes making “so many wonderful friendships with women from all the other sororities” with her involvement with the Houston Alumnae Panhellenic Association (HAPA), but she didn’t immediately become involved after graduating in 1984:
“I became involved with the Houston Alumnae Panhellenic Association in 2017 when Candace Turner ΦΜ served as president.”
That year, Sandy became the HAPA Historian and has been active ever since, serving as the Phi Mu delegate and becoming involved in HAPF. Representing the Houston Phi Mu Alumnae chapter in HAPA is not the first time she has been involved in Panhellenic affairs as she was also the UH Panhellenic Council President in the early ‘80s. If you’ve read a previous sorority story, another HAPA member has also served with the UH Panhellenic since then as well:
“I first met Cathy Frank when she was the Chi Omega Panhellenic Advisor and I was the UH Panhellenic Council president in the early ‘80s. It’s so great that we’re still friends and still working on Panhellenic some 40 years later!”
Finding lifelong friends in a sorority doesn’t only mean in one chapter during the four years of undergrad, but working with women and sharing a bond through our lives. Sorority life does not end at graduation, but only begins to show the impact of the experience once stepping into the next phase of life:
“Joining a sorority is one of the best ways to experience college life and make new friends. Feeling connected creates more happiness and contentment in your life. By joining a sorority, you have the opportunity to establish friendships not only during your undergrad years but also years down the road. I’ve met so many Phi Mus from all over the U.S. in our alumnae chapter. We may have pledged at different chapters at different universities at different times but we all have a common bond.”
And although you may be the first to join a sorority in your family, you may not be the last and be able to create a legacy just as Sandy did: her younger sister, Susie, joined Phi Mu, and now share the common bond and love of the Phi Mu sisterhood.
Written by Robyn Daiss, Publicity Chair (2023-2025) on January 15th, 2025 for use by the Houston Alumnae Panhellenic Association and their website.
