With COVID-19 leaving its mark on the entire country, college campuses this semester look very different than in previous years. Case numbers all across the country have skyrocketed on college campuses, making in person learning few and far between. Many campuses have switched to virtual learning, and some are going back and forth between in person and online based on the COVID numbers on campus. With classes virtual, it only makes sense that most events for Greek life organizations would be as well. Because of this, Greek life organizations are finding it difficult to recruit new members, as well as hold many events that make them who they are. Which include social events, fundraisers, and larger events for their philanthropies.
Over the past two weekends, The three panhellenic sororities as well as the local sorority here on Adrian’s campus held a virtual recruitment via zoom. 49 girls went through the formal recruitment process, which consists of round one, round two, preference round, all leading up to bid day which was on Sunday, September 20th. Bid day is where each chapter welcomes home new members! It was a very different process to say the least; however, as a sorority member, I’m glad our Greek life coordinator as well as Panhellenic executive board were able to come up with a process so that it was not cancelled all together. Abigail Wise, the vice president of risk management for Alpha Phi, commented about how the process went. “It was very different and I think everyone was really nervous especially about technical difficulties, via zoom, but it ended up working out great”.
Mens recruitment is a lot different than womens. They hold information nights rather than rounds, and all of these were held virtually as well. Matthew Gonzalez, the vice president of Sigma Alpha Epsilon, commented about their process, “It has definitely been difficult this fall with the recruitment process, the only plus was one of our active members is a resident assistant in Davis in the Freshman quad, which made it a little easier during these times”. Through information nights, fraternities are able to have virtual meetings with those who are interested and give them the facts. Here the men who are interested in joining fraternities are allowed to attend multiple different fraternities’ virtual meetings and base their decisions on where to join from that information. Through these connections fraternities are able to still have people rush to be in their fraternity.
In such uncertain times a lot has been thrown at organizations of sororities and fraternities. With the pandemic and the rules of no gatherings, not being able to partake in recruitment in a “normal” setting has been difficult. Yet there have been many ways to get around it and allow both sororities and fraternities to still stay involved with the campus. Overall, our Greek organizations are trying to make the best out of these situations, and looking forward to potentially getting back to normal come spring semester!
The College World 