The spring formal recruitment for fraternities and sororities is now over, after a series of extremely high turnouts and new memberships.
“I am very pleased with the turnout this year,” Director of Fraternity and Sorority Affairs Monica Smalls said. “We are currently welcoming 200 new members into the fraternity and sorority community.”
The three community councils are the Fraternity President’s Council, the Multicultural Greek Council and the Panhellenic Association.
“Panhellenic Sorority Recruitment was record breaking this year,” President of the Panhellenic Association and junior Sydney Horne said. “The six Panhellenic sororities are proud to welcome over 95 new members.”
One of the reasons for the high turnout for Panhellenic recruitment is due to the unity that the sororities have shown in the past.
“Much of [the high turnout] can be credited to the Panhellenic shirts that all six chapters wore together,” Kappa Delta president and junior Abha Dhakal said. “It got the word out and showed just how many women are in fact affiliated within the Greek system.”
From Jan. 27 to Jan. 30, each girl who went through formal rush got to meet all six Panhellenic sororities. During this time, the girls were assigned a recruitment counselor – a current member of a sorority who volunteers to temporarily disaffiliate herself from her sorority for the week leading up to and during recruitment.
“The Panhellenic Association is formally structured, meaning all six sororities host events in a formal time period with each chapter having equal time with the potential new members over the course of the weekend,” Smalls said.
Multicultural Greek Council recruitment is done at a different pace. “MGC is not structured and recruitment events are hosted by each chapter, individually, at an organizationally specified time,” Smalls said. “Potential new members choose which chapters to pursue interest in.”
Fraternity Presidents’ Council recruitment is semi-structured. For three weeks, the FPC members all host various open recruitment events.
“Our numbers were roughly on par with last year and I think a lot of fraternities have larger classes now than they did a year ago,” Sigma Chi President Ryan Severson said. “It seemed like everyone is getting used to the deferred freshman recruitment system that began last year.”
The administration, in conjunction with the fraternities and sororities on-campus, have applied knowledge gained during an extensive assessment of the expectations and goals of the Greek community.
“Fraternity and sorority life at UR has been reviewed comprehensively, and as we move into the implementation phase from three years of planning, we have the potential to create the type of fraternity and sorority system that could become the envy of the higher education community,” Associate Dean of Students Matthew Burns said. “I’ve never seen so many administrators, faculty, students and alumni come together so consistently and work so hard.”
This year, a small change in formal recruitment was implemented at UR. “New member orientation is new to formal recruitment this year,” Burns said. “Each potential new member will need to attend a series of four workshops sponsored by The College – ‘Owning Leadership,’ ‘Accountability and Hazing,’ ‘Time Management,’ and ‘Alcohol, Drugs and the Fraternity and Sorority Experience.’ It’s a new idea, and it is loaded with potential.”
This past year, the newly formed Management Committee was responsible for implementing a new system of eligibility requirements.
“Students who are not in good standing in terms of discipline – usually meaning that they are currently on disciplinary probation or that they have outstanding sanctions from past cases – are not eligible to join fraternities or sororities,” Burns said. “Implementing this system has kept us busy, to say the least, since interest in joining fraternities and sororities appears to have increased this semester.”
Greek affiliates are optimistic as to what their community is going to experience.
“We all have been working extremely hard together and from the number of girls who rushed this year you can see that our hard work is paying off,” Dhakal said.
Administrators have a positive outlook on the Greek community.
“At UR, we have been working for almost two and a half years to review the system and then to build a strong college-based system,” Asbury said. “We want to find ways to encourage students to stay involved in the rest of the campus community and to become the best groups they can be.”Buitrago can be reached at jbuitrago@campustimes.org.
