Sororities invited a slightly higher number of women into their organizations this year compared to last year, according to the organization that oversees sorority recruitment.
The process was completed Tuesday and 240 women were invited to join one of the eight organizations on campus under the Panhellenic Association, the group that oversees those eight Greek-letter groups. Last year 219 women were invited to join sororities.
“Recruitment went extremely well this year (since) a record number of women registered,” April Black, president of the GW Panhellenic Association, wrote in an e-mail. The National Pan-Hellenic Council and the Multicultural Greek Council also oversee Greek-letter groups on campus and have separate recruitment processes.
Potential new members (PNM’s) of the Greek-letter organizations began the process last week.
The eight sororities began the recruitment process by allowing potential new members to meet each chapter and its members. The meetings, called parties, are a means for PNMs to determine which sororities they are interested in joining. After four days of getting to know one another, sororities gave PNMs invitations, or bids, to pledge a sorority.
“Recruitment is a mutual selection process between the Panhellenic Association sororities and PNMs,” she said.
All sorority recruitment parties were held in the Marvin Center except the preference night parties, which were held on Monday night at various locations on campus and at local hotels. All locations for these parties were approved by the GW Panhellenic Association.
Dean Harwood, director of Greek Life and assistant director of the Student Activities Center, said he was pleased last week’s activities.
“Grace Friedberger, Panhellenic Association vice president for recruitment, and the rest of the Panhellenic Association executive board did an exceptional job of managing the weekend’s activities,” he said. “I was really pleased with the entire process.”
While ads for recruitment were posted on Facebook, sorority recruitment counselors and Panhellenic Association officers were required by Panhellenic Association to remove any indication of sorority affiliation on their profiles.
In addition, members of all sororities were required to edit their Facebook profiles as viewable only to current friends, until recruitment ended last Tuesday. This measure was taken on the social networking Web site in order to provide more objectivity in a PNM’s decision-making process.
“I strongly believe that disaffiliation of (recruitment counselors) and Panhellenic executive board members helped PNMs through their recruitment experience,” Black said.
Reasons for pledging vary among freshmen and sophomore women.
“I wanted to join a sorority because it makes it easier to get involved in service opportunities, and even if I don’t pledge, I’ve already met a lot of new people,” freshman Megan Wexler said.
Some PNMs were not as satisfied with the recruitment process and felt it was too time consuming.
“I went to recruitment because I thought it would be cool, but I dropped out because I realized it’s a very big time commitment,” said freshman Danielle Mayer.
Though sorority recruitment has ended for 2006, GW will be welcoming a new chapter, Pi Beta Phi, to campus. According to Black, Pi Beta Phi’s colonization will start Oct. 3 as they begin recruiting for founding members. Fraternity recruitment with the Inter-Fraternity Council begins Monday.
