Greek members gathered last night to hear motivational speaker Lori Hart Ebert talk about changing the perspective of greek members on the Penn State campus.

"The only expectation I have coming here tonight is that you want to make your organization better," Ebert said to the hundreds of greek community members who ventured to 100 Thomas Building. "Your biggest challenge as greeks is knowing what you are and fighting the stereotypes."

Ebert asked sorority members to describe the stereotypical fraternity member. The answers ranged from "drunk" to "womanizer." Some fraternity members returned the gesture by naming the stereotypical sorority member as "extremely dramatic" and "easy."

Ebert used personal experience and statistics to speak about improving recruitment and making current greek members stronger.

"We wanted a motivational speaker who was talking about what is going to make greeks great," Anita Triggs, assistant director of fraternity and sorority life said.

Ebert said the recruitment process becomes a package that members try to sell to interested students. Once a student joins, however, the next few weeks are about partying and not about the values for which they joined, she added.

"Do what you say and say what you do," Ebert said. "If you want to be a drunk be a drunk, but don't associate that with your organization."

Ebert, who was president of Alpha Omicron Pi at Auburn University, ended her speech by telling sorority and fraternity members about leadership positions -- both of members who have formal positions, and younger members who have the opportunities to move up.

"I try to base this [speech] on partially real life experience, part research, plus what I think they need to hear," Ebert said. "[My goal] is to be empowered to make their organization better and they have the power to do that."

Danielle Elicker, greek week overall chair, said the speech was inspiring.

"She helped us set goals for not only our organizations but also ourselves as individuals," Elicker said. "I hope that she left an impression [on greek members] when she said that our organization can be as strong as our weakest link, so I hope that our weakest link is pretty strong."