Many changes are under way during Interfraternal Council (IFC) and Panhellenic recruitment this year on Bradley’s campus.
The Greek community hopes to increase focus on values and getting to know their prospective members through a more welcoming process, said Jesse Koch, the Associate Director of Fraternity and Sorority life.
IFC recruitment, which started Aug. 25th, is now more informal than years past. Fraternities now participate in one less formal round, encouraging chapters to hold their own recruitment events, such as cookouts, for prospective members to attend as they please.
“In my opinion, there are many benefits to informal recruitment,” said IFC Recruitment Chair Jake Adcock. “It gives both the fraternities and potential new members a chance to feel out greek life in a more relaxed environment.”
Informal recruitment events will continue through Sept. 9 when invitations to join fraternities are given during IFC’s Anadeixis Ceremony, or bid ceremony.
“Because of the nature of informal recruitment, we can expect to see even more men joining fraternities after Anadeixis,” said Koch.
Panhellenic recruitment’s most dramatic change is the role of recruitment counselors. Recruitment counselors are Panhellenic women who are disaffiliated from their chapter in order to guide prospective members through the recruitment process. In the past, prospective new members didn’t meet their counselor until the first day of recruitment. Now women will be assigned a recruitment counselor the day they sign-up, encouraging relationships between counselors and prospective new members through the entire process.
According to Koch, this is to ensure prospective members are well informed of what to expect from the recruitment process.
“Our recruitment counselors are doing a great job of getting to know their women; they set up personal meetings as well as plan fun events for all of the prospective members in their group,” he said.
The Panhellenic community’s main focus is making the recruitment process as welcoming as possible for those interested in joining a sorority.
“[The panhellenic community] as a whole… [is] presenting ourselves as a more unified community this year more than any,” said Vice President of Recruitment for of Alpha Chi Omega Alexis Noll. “Because of this, there will be a better retention during the recruitment weekend.”
The first fraternity on campus was founded in the second semester of the first year Bradley opened. Today, 33 percent of Bradley’s undergraduate population are members of the greek community.
“The energy that surrounds recruitment is tough to describe,” said Koch. “Welcoming new members into our organizations is a thrill. Seeing a chapter’s hard work pay off with a great new group of men or women to advance the organization is what makes it all worthwhile.”
For more information and to sign up for recruitment visit:www.bradley.edu/campuslife/reslife/greeklife and click “How to join”.