Female students interested in forming new friendships and becoming leaders on campus may consider joining a sorority this semester through informal recruitment.

Less structured than formal recruitment, which takes place in the fall, informal recruitment is a more relaxed process when each sorority hosts individual events open to potential members, said Samantha Mittler, president of the Panhellenic Council.

The Panhellenic Council, the governing body of the one local and six national sororities on campus, hopes to promote sorority life to students who may not have previously considered going Greek, Mittler said.

During formal recruitment, sororities actively advertise their organizations and seek out new members. During spring recruitment, potential new members are primarily introduced to the idea of going Greek through friends and classmates who are already sorority members or through Kent State’s Greek life Web site.

Carissa Richardson, Panhellenic Council vice president of recruitment and retainment, said a common misconception of sororities is that they are only interested in recruiting freshmen women. The Panhellenic Council would like to reach out to upperclassmen and transfer students who may not have had the opportunity to pledge during their freshmen year.

“Some of the girls who join as upperclassmen really become some of the great leaders,” Richardson said. “They might not have joined sooner because they weren’t ready or didn’t have the time.”

Mittler said she wants students to know it is never too late to join a sorority; some members pledge as late as their senior year.

Because formal recruitment is heavily monitored by individual sororities’ national headquarters and is under a strict schedule, Mittler said women who go through informal recruitment have the opportunity to spend longer periods of time with the women they meet. During formal recruitment, potential new members often talk to sorority women for as little as five minutes.

“The girls can come and be in the same atmosphere that we are in every day,” Mittler said, calling informal recruitment “more in-depth than formal recruitment.” Most informal recruitment activities include laid-back events, such as “Sex and the City” marathons and pizza parties.

Students interested in pledging a sorority this spring should visit the Panhellenic Web site at www.kent.edu/campuslife/GreekLife/Sororities.cfm, where they can visit individual Web sites of each national sorority on campus.

Contact Greek life reporter Kate Bigam at [email protected].