Greek Life had more rushes this year than expected.
Levi Harrel, dean of students, said nearly 120 students joined Greek Life this year.
“We had 107 women accept bids on bid day, and we had 11 men accept bids on bid day,” Harrel said.
Formal recruitment was Aug. 12-14, and bid day was Aug. 15.
Harrel said the Panhellenic community gave out more bids this year as opposed to previous years.
“More people were invited to be part of the community than they did last year, so we increased numbers in our Panhellenic community this year,” he said.
Harrel said this was not the same for the Interfraternity Council.
“In our IFC community, we actually decreased the number of bids,” Harrel said.
Grant Wilson, acting junior and Interfraternity Council president, said he believes COVID-19 played a role in the lack of new IFC members.
“Not many people are interested in joining a Greek organization in the middle of a pandemic,” Wilson said.
Maya Momon, dance management senior and Alpha Phi president, said the National Panhellenic Conference changed their rules this year to allow Panhellenic students to reach out to potential new members over the summer.
“For the first time, the rules got changed on a national level, and so we decided to take it and run with it,” Momon said.
Momon said the previous NPC rules did not allow any sorority members to reach out to potential new members to avoid creating bias toward certain chapters.
Harrel said the recruitment of new members is usually handled by recruitment guides.
“In years past, that has been solely the responsibility of our rho gammas, which are a small, select group of students who encourage potential new members to register,” Harrel said.
Delaney Horton, theatre and performance freshman, said she was reached out to by Greek Life organizations over the summer.
“Alpha Chi Omega and Gamma Phi Beta both reached out to me and asked if I was interested and told me all about them and what they stand for and stuff like that, and that was definitely a deciding factor in whether I wanted to do recruitment or not,” Horton said.
Momon said she believes these new rules contributed to the successful turnout of new members.
“This time it was like a no-fear recruitment. If you didn’t want to do it anymore, no one would know. It was such a private and intimate thing,” Momon said.
Gretchen Bush, music education freshman, said despite being on zoom, the sororities made formal recruitment fun.
“All the sororities did such an excellent job of keeping everything upbeat and positive,” Bush said.
Samuel Harris, finance and marketing freshman, said he also enjoyed the process of formal recruitment.
“It was like a calm wildfire of emotions,” Harris said.
Harrel said bid day events were allowed to be held in-person if campus safety guidelines were followed.
“All of our IFC fraternities and Panhellenic sororities had some component of their bid day activities in-person, though many of them also had a virtual option for their new members to participate in,” Harrel said.
Bush said Alpha Phi’s bid day theme was Party Like It’s Your Bid-Day.
“We went to the park, and we ate cupcakes and pizza and just got to know each other,” Bush said.
“We rented out one of those inflatable wrecking ball machines. It’s like a big ball that knocks people over,” Momon said.
Wilson said Lambda Chi Alpha also had their bid day in person.
“We were under the 50-person limit, and that’s a privilege we got that some of the women on campus wouldn’t necessarily get because there’s so many people in their organization,” Wilson said.
Wilson also said the new rules resulted in a smaller bid day than usual, as alumni were not allowed to be present.
Harris said the fraternities and sororities are going to continue following CDC guidelines for the rest of the year.
“There’s a lot of rumors going around that some of the frats and some of the sororities are enhancing the global pandemic,” Harris said.
Harris said he believes these rumors are misrepresentations of the Greek Life on campus.
“We want to be model citizens, inside and out,” Harris said.
Wilson also said the Greek organizations will be enforcing CDC guidelines and won’t be having parties.
“Having big parties during COVID is irresponsible and ridiculous,” Wilson said.
Wilson said the fraternities are going to continue giving out snap bids this year, which will allow new people to accept bids throughout the rest of the semester.
“It might look a little bit different because of the coronavirus this year. It’s going to be harder to meet people, but it will still happen,” Wilson said.
Momon said, due to COVID-19, the Greek organizations are trying to prepare for all potential scenarios that could happen the rest of the school year.
“Everything we have has like three plans,” Momon said. “If Lord reign down and everything opens up, we have a regular plan, if we have to keep it at 50 people, we have that one, and God forbid we have to go remote, that has a plan as well.”
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