Spring Break
Panhellenic president trains for triathlon
By: Matthew Dunnam
Issue date: 10/4/07 Section: News
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"Greek Life is a smaller community. Just like A&M, we have our traditions, songs and even colors. It is a smaller friendship network that you can rely on all four years of school," Rabalais said.
"For me, [Greek Life] has been an opportunity for personal growth that I never could have had with any other organization," she said. "Aggie Greeks have an amazing ability to serve others and do it with a big heart."
Rabalais was born in Baton Rouge, La., but grew up in Corpus Christi.
"I am best friends with my parents, and I talk to my mom 20 times a day on the phone," she said. "[My parents] are older, so they are really wise and they raised me right."
Rabalais enjoys to baking with her roommates, scrapbooking, running, playing the piano and training for her first triathlon.
"I have raced 5ks before but this is my first triathlon," she said. "I hope I don't drown."
"I got best dressed at the Theta 5k," Rabalais said. "I was a Spiderman princess with a crown, a wand and Texas Flag running shorts."
A self-proclaimed nerd, Rabalais can recite pi to 40 places and, with no intentions of applying to law school, took the LSAT to see how well she could do.
"Taking the LSAT made me realize that I would miss the sciences too much if I went to law school," she said. "So right now, I am thinking of staying with nutrition or going to nursing school [after graduation]."
As the president of the A&M Panhellenic Council, which consists of 12 sororities of about 2,500 Aggie women, Rabalais is busy on and off campus.
"We do things with the Tuition Policy Advisory Council and Bresciani's Student Leader Communication Group," Rabalais said. "I have lobbied in Austin for sustainable funding for higher institutions and gone to leadership conferences in Atlanta two years in a row."
The council meets every two weeks. Each chapter sends two delegates to hear the council's plans and to tell the council of the chapters' plans so that sororities "know about each others' philanthropies and current events," Rabalais said. "It creates a sense of unity for the whole council."
Rabalais said that A&M Greek Life has been growing exponentially but there are still difficulties to face on campus. She said that a big plus for Greek Life is that Texas A&M is one of the 10 universities in the nation with a Department of Greek Life.
"The hardest thing is being noticed on campus. We don't all wear uniforms on campus like the Corps does," she said. "If one day, we decided to wear a pink shirt, I dare say, you would hardly notice the khaki."
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