Sorority involvement goes up

Samantha Donegan

Bid Night begins Sunday, with 60 percent increase predicted

Sorority recruitment has nearly doubled since last year from 170 to 338, according to the Center for Student Involvement.

“It’s exciting, mostly,” said Kali Price, vice president of public relations for Pan-Hellenic Council. “We used to have numbers like this a long time ago. It’s cool that this has finally happened here while we are still here at Kent State.”

Currently, some of the sororities on campus have numbers as low as 30, but some have numbers as high as 70. If all the women who signed up for recruitment go through the process, the Greek community is predicted to increase by 60 percent.

Wednesday was the last day to register for recruitment, but women have been signing up online since July. Megan Reed, vice president of recruitment for Alpha Phi, said over 200 signed up during the summer alone.

“The numbers of girls coming in has been a huge challenge, but a great challenge for us,” Reed said. “We always want more people involved in Greek life. Kent State is known for having a smaller Greek life than say Ohio State or Miami or other schools and universities.”

Price said the number of new women interested might be attributed to the large increase in advertising this year with the mailing of handouts to all freshmen women and more chalking on the sidewalks. Kent State has also made use of the Sorority Recruitment application on Facebook to make it easier for women to sign up and preview sororities.

Teniell Trolian, assistant director of Greek affairs, said even though there are 338 women signed up for recruitment, it is unlikely 338 will show up or stay around for the entire process.

“I think when the process gets so big, it starts to lose its personal touch,” Trolian said. “That is what chapters have expressed that they are concerned about. But most of the chapters have worked to accommodate those situations.”

Trolian said space in the ballroom for Friday night and busing from the sorority houses were the only main concern with the size during the recruitment process. Sororities are working individually to help new women get adjusted to sorority life.

“Our sorority has been working hard to create new programs for new members,” Reed said. “We’d rather them feel like a girl, rather than a number. We’ve been working on new member plans and we are having new member educators who will be meeting with girls twice a week.”

Pan-Hellenic Council has adjusted their recruitment process this year.

The women will go to three parties each day of a single weekend, eliminating two sororities each day. At the parties, the incoming women learn about the sororities and go to the individual sorority houses on Saturday and Sunday.

In previous years, sororities have hosted two weekends of parties. Katherine Causineau, member and party assistant chair for Chi Omega, said the week-long process should help retention rates during the recruitment process.

“I went through a two-weekend process and a lot of people wouldn’t stay between that week within the two weekends,” Causineau said. “They won’t have that whole entire week in between to decide that it is not for them. They’ll just have that one weekend where they won’t have those outside pressures like school and work and such.”

Bid Night is when the women going through the recruitment process will decide which sorority they will join. Bid Night will start at 7 p.m. on Sunday in the Student Center Ballroom.

Contact Greek life reporter Samantha Donegan at [email protected].