Kent State sororities voted to bring a new chapter to campus for Fall 2016 due to increasing interest in joining Greek life.

Kent State’s Panhellenic Council currently has seven chapters on campus. All chapters and their members voted Sunday on the top three sororities they wanted to come to campus for presentations this fall.

Hallie Mast, Greek life intern and member of the Greek Life Expansion Committee, said the committee sent out a bulletin to the National Panhellenic Council announcing Kent State was looking to add a new chapter. 

Mast said nationally the Panhellenic Council is comprised of 26 sororities, and each one was given the opportunity to tour Kent and submit a request to come and present in the fall if they believed they were a good fit. 

“Out of the organizations who submit a request to come present, the Panhellenic Council picks two to three to actually come,” Mast said. “We narrow it down to save time and money. It also shows which organizations we are serious about.”

Mast said the expansion committee consists of a representative from each Panhellenic chapter at Kent State so that everyone has a voice in who comes to campus.

Leslie Cancelliere, vice president of recruitment and retention for the Panhellenic Council and member of the expansion committee, said the main reason the council is looking to add a new sorority is due to the increase in chapter sizes.

“Our chapter numbers are at 196, and some chapters even exceed that number,” Cancelliere said. “Once you have a chapter that is above 150, that’s when you start to see retention issues with members.”

Cancelliere said it is hard to find venues large enough to hold so many girls during their events. She said by adding another sorority, the Panhellenic Council hopes to even out the chapter sizes across the board. 

Cancelliere said the committee is looking for a new sorority that shares a lot of the same core values as other chapters on campus.

“Something that is very noticeable on our campus is the passion for philanthropy,” Cancelliere said. “If the organizations who want to present did their research, they would see that is something very important to us. We want whatever chapter does come to understand that.” 

Contact Zabrina Hvostal at [email protected].