Fraternity rush ends, over 500 freshmen rushees receive bids

Fraternity rush officially came to a close last night as over 500 freshmen men gathered in Meyerson Hall to sign bid cards.

The event also marked the installation of the new InterFraternity Council board members, led by IFC President and Pi Kappa Phi brother Conor Daly.

According to Scott Reikofski, director of the Office of Fraternity and Sorority Affairs, 566 bids were issued this year, an increase in comparison to last year's total of 450.

"The numbers are the testament," Daly said, noting the consistent rise in interest over the past two years.

Before the actual bid signing process began, both Reikofski and Deputy Provost Peter Conn addressed the pledges and welcomed them to the Greek system.

Conn described the University's involvement in fraternity affairs and emphasized his hopes for the implementation of the University's 2001 Fraternity and Sorority Program for Excellence, which he described as a "terrific document."

"I think it's important... for me to situate what you're doing inside the academic institution of the University," Conn said.

Conn described the Program for Excellence as a blueprint for taking on major issues in the Greek community, such as increasing faculty involvement and community service and setting academic standards for each chapter.

Reikofski described joining a fraternity as "the best supplement and complement for a rigorous academic experience," and advised the new pledges to "respect yourself and your chapter and stand up for what is right."

"I hope this is the best experience that you will go through at Penn," he added, noting Penn's 150-year-old commitment to the fraternity system.

Daly also shared some insight from his personal experiences with the new pledges, describing his involvement in Penn's Greek community as one of the best decisions of his college career.

"Take every opportunity that this experience will afford you," Daly said. "Join a house, work hard for it, have fun, but always make sure that you give something back."

Daly stressed the Greek system's commitment to service, saying that "the system can experience a Renaissance... if the people within the system give of themselves."

As the speeches came to a close, pledges lined up to receive and sign their bid cards. Most, however, had already received phone calls from individual houses over the weekend notifying them that they would receive a bid.

While the majority of rushees received only a single bid, a few were faced with the decision of deciding between several houses.

For some, this decision was a simple matter.

Wharton freshman Seth Weissman, who received bids from both Phi Kappa Psi and Tau Epsilon Phi, said that he chose to pledge TEP based on the brothers whom he got to know both before and during the rush process.

Others, such as College freshman Greg Bagnoli, who received bids from both Beta Theta Pi and Delta Kappa Epsilon, spent time weighing their options. Bagnoli said he ultimately selected Delta Kappa Epsilon because he wanted to be in the same house as his friends.

Weissman said that although he had a clear idea of which house was his first choice before the recruitment actually began, rush gave him the opportunity to meet new people.

College freshman Drew Conrad, who accepted a bid from Pi Kappa Phi, agreed.

"I enjoyed rush thoroughly," Conrad said. "It was an eye-opening process."

Conrad added that one of the factors that influenced his choice to join a fraternity was the prospect of quality off-campus housing for next fall.

The pledging process, which is conducted independently by each house and culminates with new member initiation, will begin this week and continue through late March.

And while pledging is often looked at as a stressful time, Bagnoli was optimistic.

"I don't think [pledging] is going to be as bad as everybody makes it out to be," Bagnoli said.

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