The greek system’s spring recruitment is finished, leaving leaders waiting for an official count of new members.
The official recruitment period, which was last week for both sororities and fraternities, consisted mainly of chapter open houses. Students went to as many houses as they wished to meet the members and hopefully find a house they would like to join.
Panhellenic Council President Kristy Tippen said although the numbers have not been finalized, early estimates of the 16 sororities she oversees suggest the week went well.
“We were very happy with the turnout - the numbers remained steady throughout the week,” she said.
After the last open house at the end of the week, sororities took a few days before they extended bids to students they wanted to join their house.
Tippen, a psychology junior, said sorority members gave out their bids Tuesday night after 10 p.m. Students had 24 hours to accept or reject the bid.
Fraternities began giving out bids Thursday, several days earlier than sororities, and potential members began responding to the bids at noon on Friday, Interfraternity Council President Josh Tudor said.
“All the chapter presidents I’ve talked to expressed they were impressed with the quality of the potential members that came through,” said Tudor, a political theory and constitutional democracy senior. “It appears that numbers will be good and comparable to numbers in the fall.”
However, he said he won’t know the official number of new fraternity members for a couple weeks.
Delta Sigma Phi had roughly 30 students come through the house during Spring Recruitment, said Phil Vernengo, the chapter’s recruitment chair. They extended bids to 12 of the 30, and all of them accepted; initiation was Monday.
“Spring is usually slower than fall, but it didn’t go too bad,” the human resource management junior said. “We’re not losing very many people from our house this semester, so it’s not going to hurt our numbers.”
Delta Sigma Phi now has 80 active members, 15 of which pledged in the fall.
Packaging sophomore Matt Swenson visited three fraternities during Spring Recruitment.
He said he liked Delta Sigma Phi the most because the members were friendly and “every time I came back it felt like I was coming back to my house instead of coming back to their house.”
On Thursday, Swenson received, and accepted, a bid from Delta Sigma Phi.
“I was ecstatic, I couldn’t have felt better,” he said. “I immediately called up my parents and told them.”
