In April, the sorority launched a yearlong celebration marking the centennial of its Omicron Beta chapter in a virtual event that was broadcast from the Wren building and attended by about 200 students and alumnae. These accomplished women each trace their success back to their time with William & Mary, and specifically Chi Omega. The tradition of public engagement among Chi Omega members has lived on since that time as well, with more recent alumnae such as Kathleen Gayle ’15 and Caitlin Oakley ’12 also making their mark in Washington - Gayle as a congressional legislative and communications director and Oakley as national spokeswoman for the U.S. Stephanie Murphy ’00, Denise Feriozzi ’01, Amanda Turner ’00, Jen Psaki ’00 and Boardman Grubbs herself have made lasting impacts as a congresswoman, consultant, White House press secretary and lobbyist, respectively. Around the turn of this century, Chi Omega was a unique group of motivated women, true to the “work hard, play hard” mentality.Īnd now, about 20 years after graduation, many of these women have achieved enormous success in political or policy-related fields. “It was not a normal thing to do, and I think we knew that at the time, but it was just so much fun,” says Christy Boardman Grubbs ’02, one of the pajama-wearing, C-SPAN-watching, Chi Omega sisters.Ĭoming from different political backgrounds, many of them had interned on Capitol Hill or were studying government, and current events were almost always on their conversational menu. If you walked inside the Chi Omega sorority house on a typical afternoon in the early 2000s, you probably would have seen sorority sisters gathered in pajamas on the couch with hot drinks and snacks, watching C-SPAN or White House press conferences. The following story originally appeared as an online exclusive for the W&M Alumni Magazine.

Grace and Grit by William Murphy