Fraternities and sororities around campus are in the midst of recruiting members, but they don’t all use the same processes and aren’t all getting the same results.
The University has nearly 40 Greek chapters split amongst four councils: The Interfraternity Council (IFC), National Pan-Hellenic Council (NPHC or ‘Divine Nine’), Panhellenic Council (PHC) and Multicultural Greek Council (MGC).
While recruitment methods vary, one of the most common types is formal recruitment.
For PHC this is a two-weekend long program where potential new members participate in events that build a connection with the council’s sororities and their members. Potential PHC members will have the opportunity to meet all sororities, PHC President Kelly Rowe said.
“The process can be a little confusing sometimes, but it is definitely a process to trust that helps guide both chapters to find their new members and PNM’s to find their homes,” she said.
Recruitment numbers aren’t as high as PHC had anticipated, but Rowe said that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. She accounted the lower numbers to the football game against Ohio State this Saturday, which was scheduled on the same weekend as recruitment.
“It can be hard to have multiple things going on at once at our University, but we can only keep a positive attitude, encourage women to join and continue providing PNMs and Chapters with the opportunities from the Formal Recruitment process,” Rowe said.
She said PHC hopes to see a membership increase in coming semesters and possibly even during the informal recruitment process.
IFC also uses part of the formal process but mixes it with informal recruitment, IFC Vice President of Recruitment Jacob Corsi said.
“Though relatively new, our formal process has drastically increased the numbers of fraternities since its inception,” Corsi said.
IFC’s formal process takes only a week, but there are events leading up to the week that help gain interest.
“Our numbers (for fraternities) are closing in on last years numbers quickly and every year has been larger than the last,” Corsi said.
He said while the IFC goal is to gain 400 new members and retain 75 percent of members who originally sign up for the formal process, his personal goal is not only based on numbers, but he wants to make sure that each new member is happy with their final choice.
“We always hope to get larger recruitment classes, but if we could retain more than half of those signed up, I would be very content,” he said.
Corsi said recruitment is better but more difficult all at once.
“The new Greek housing provides an attraction that formal recruitment for us is new too,” he said. “It also provides a chance for us to use our houses during rounds which has never been done, so organizing the process is a challenge.”
IFC will be playing an all-star fraternity football game from 5 to 7 p.m. Friday at Friday Night Lights on the intramural fields. Corsi said it is a great way for potential new members to check out the Greek community.
MGC President Maureen Doyle said MGC also partakes in various recruitment techniques.
The council is made up of five organizations including a service sorority, a progressive men’s fraternity, a multicultural sorority, a historically Latina-based sorority and a historically Latino-based fraternity.
Each of MGC’s chapters goes through their own form of recruitment, some a formal process and some an intake process.
“That is what makes our council unique,” they said.
Doyle expects 30 to 40 members to join this semester.
“Our goal this year is to help students find a home in our council and organizations, a place where they feel welcomed and can grow into prominent student leaders,” they said.
