Greek women join together for recruitment

For many freshman, sophomore and transfer women, last night was a second chance to explore the opportunities that Penn’s Greek life has to offer.

Last night, the 14 sororities of the Panhellenic Council and the Multicultural Greek Council joined forces to host the Sorority Meet and Greet in Houston Hall’s Bodek Lounge as a part of fall recruitment.

This is only the second year Panhel and MGC have held this event. According to Stacy Kraus, the Office of Fraternity and Sorority Affairs’ associate director for programming and the advisor for Panhel, the event had an excellent turnout.

“This year we’ve fine-tuned the event and it should be even better,” Kraus said before the event.

Each of the sororities had a booth at the Meet and Greet where sisters distributed information about the chapter, their activities, their philanthropy and anything else they wanted potential members to know. They also displayed pictures from chapter events.

Additionally, the event offered attendees the opportunity to get to know members of the sororities and ask them questions about the recruitment process, living in a sorority house or any other aspect of sorority life.

This was the second sorority event of the fall semester. A similar event was held on Sept. 5 as part of the Undergraduate Assembly’s Late-Night New Student Orientation Initiatives.

“We wanted to get freshman women engaged earlier this year and give them a second chance to get exposure to Greek life,” said Panhellenic Council President Alissa Eisenberg, a College senior and former Daily Pennsylvanian editor.

Next week, registration will officially open for fall recruitment. While all of the sororities will host events at their chapter houses, it is up to the individual chapters whether to accept women this fall, explained Kraus. Fall recruitment is only open to sophomore women.

Traditional recruitment will begin in November, when each of the chapters will hold open houses for prospective women. This allows them to explore each sorority in depth before spring semester, when rushing begins, Kraus said.

She added that she expects recruitment numbers to remain steady this year.

Last spring, the number of women receiving bids from sororities rose to 328, a 19-percent increase from 2008.

“While some campuses have seen a decrease in sorority recruitment due to the current state of the economy, most campuses haven’t really seen a change,” said Kraus. “We expect that Penn won’t see a change, either, but ideally recruitment would increase.”

According to College freshman Alexa Stern, the event was a perfect introduction to the Greek system.

“I’ve wanted to rush forever,” she said. “I think this is a great way to see and compare each of the different sororities.”

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