New chapter to colonize in 2014 to accommodate continued growth
With Fraternity and Sorority life expanding significantly over the past several years, the Office of Fraternity and Sorority Life and Sorority Council have made several executive changes for Fall 2013 sorority recruitment.
Recruitment will now take place the week before school starts, meaning dorms will have to open early for girls who register, and the majority of recruitment will be over before classes even begin.
“This change stems from many negative evaluations that we have received from numerous potential new members the last two years,” Sorority Council Vice President of Recruitment Alex Rodbell said.
Sorority members and potential new members are prohibited from socializing with fraternity members during formal recruitment. A football game during formal recruitment would compromise that rule and possibly make it difficult for members to follow and recruitment staff to enforce.
“This year, we also would encounter a home football game against UNC in this gap that would take place on Saturday during preference round, not allowing any members to attend,” Rodbell said. “[This would also] greatly affect the no-contact rules that are involved during the recruitment process.”
In Fall 2011, Sorority Council voted to change the first two rounds of formal recruitment to last for two days instead of one. Many chapters found that the long days took a toll on members and potential new members.
This change caused the schedule to last for more than two and a half weeks and into the first week of classes.
“Many [potential new members] said to us that the weeklong gap in between [the third round and the final round] caused them severe anxiety and [made them less willing] to participate,” Rodbell said.
According to the Office of Fraternity and Sorority Life, 1,377 women registered for recruitment for the Fall 2012 term, a dramatic increase from 2004, when 587 participated.
To ease the burden of these growing numbers on already large chapters, USC has been adding chapters of National Panhellenic Conference sororities to the fraternity and sorority community. Phi Mu colonized in Fall 2009 and Alpha Gamma Delta in Fall 2012. Fall 2014 will bring yet another new sorority to USC.
“Our recruitment process has been growing and we haven’t been expanding at a rate that has been growing,” Kappa Kappa Gamma President Jamie Gardner said. “It will lessen the size of our pledge classes and create closer-knit bonds, which will alleviate a lot of the problems large chapters run into.”
Additional options may attract more potential new members and make the recruitment process more exciting, former Sorority Council President Chelsea Ostebo said.
“You generally expect that more people will want to join a community when a sorority is added for a number of reasons, including excitement about growth,” Ostebo said.
Ostebo is currently the chairwoman of Sorority Council’s extension committee. The extension committee voted to add a new chapter to USC’s fraternity and sorority system Monday night, though the name of the organization was unavailable at press time, pending approval of the organization’s grand council.
“The addition of another group is a result of trying to lower chapter size. You never expect just one sorority to be able to do that; it takes several years and several sororities to level the numbers out,” Ostebo said.
With the additional chapter in Fall 2014 as well as a revised recruitment process for the coming fall, Ostebo said that the changes to sorority life at USC will be beneficial.
“As a Sorority Council, we are elected to represent our community because of our desire to act in the best interest of all the women we represent,” Ostebo said. “We hope that even though they will have to be returning to school earlier, the trade-off is worth it for them.”