Panhellenic Sorority Recruitment is going to look different this year than previous years. They have adapted their recruitment system and events to be socially distanced, while still giving potential new members. Recruitment will be September 17-20. The nights will be the same as every other year with Sisterhood Night first, then Philanthropy, then Preference, and ending with Bid Day on Sunday. All recruitment rounds will be held virtually with the exception of Bid Day. 

“Bid Day will still be part in person so that the girls coming in can experience at least part of the normal experience,” said Faith Wright, vice president of Recruitment for the Panhellenic Council. Wright planned this past Spring Recruitment and is working to make sure everyone gets the most out of this formal Fall Recruitment, despite the different circumstances. 

“The PNMs are going to be affected by this change the most. They are not going to be able to truly meet the women who they will possibly call their sisters,” said Wright, “Zoom is the closest face to face experience that they are going to be able to experience, which may make is hard to make connections and have good conversations.” 

PNM’s have already had the opportunity to attend Sorority 101, which was an introductory Zoom meeting August 26 to learn more about Marshall’s Panhellenic Community and how recruitment would be ran this semester. Sorority 102 will be held over Zoom again September 9 at 8 p.m.

Social media has played a big part this summer and semester in reaching PNM’s and allowing them to connect with Marshall’s four sororities, Sigma Sigma Sigma, Delta Zeta, Alpha Xi Delta, and Alpha Chi Omega. 

“Since we are not able to host events and recruit in person, social media is the main form of communication between PHC and PNMs,” said Wright.

Paige Reger, vice president of public relations for PHC, has been utilizing the PHC social media pages to communicate and update PNM’s as well as answering any general recruitment questions through private messages. 

“I’ve seen a spike in the individual chapters posting, which is great for PHC and recruitment,” said Reger, “Social media has always been used in recruitment, but due to the pandemic the posts are much more frequent and a lot of the chapters try to use this for PNMs to get to know the girls as well as the chapter in general.” 

Many of the sororities have taken to social media to post about their philanthropies, “meet their members” with Instagram story flyers, and members taking over the social media for a day to answer PNM’s questions and to get to know them. 

Currently, 71 women are signed up for recruitment. 

“Compared to last year around this time we are about the same in the number of women signed up,” said Wright, “This is surprising since we haven’t been able to have traditional recruitment.”

Although this has been a time of change and adapting for Marshall’s Panhellenic Community, Wright is optimistic that this will be positive for the future of sorority recruitment. 

“I know we all don’t like for things to change but going through this we are going to be more open to change and be better at recruiting for our chapters,” Wright said. 

Wright’s advice to women going through recruitment this semester is to stay open minded and to be yourself. 

“The best way to find your home is to be yourself and trust the process. I know it can be hard to put faith into a process that may seem so complicated but trust me when I say it works,” said Wright.

The recruitment link can be found on Herdlink or in the bio of the PHC Instagram @Marshall_PHC.

Abby Hanlon can be reached at [email protected].