Ashland University offers four sorority chapters and three fraternity chapters on campus, with sororities offering Alpha Phi, Alpha Delta Pi, Theta Phi Alpha and Delta Zeta. Fraternities offered on the Ashland University campus include Kappa Sigma, Phi Delta Theta and Phi Kappa Psi.

The current recruitment process at AU for sororities is a formal process facilitated by the National Panhellenic Council (NPC).

“This is really a team effort between our campus Panhellenic and the women’s chapters here on campus to ensure a smooth recruitment for incoming women who chose to go through the formal process,” Alpha Phi President Allison Kesner said.

Currently, formal recruitment takes place in the fall for sororities, and then informal recruitment begins directly after. This is set to change and is being discussed, while voting on the informal change is not taking place until late December.

On the Alpha Phi chapter level, the recruitment department is overseen by the Vice President of Recruitment in conjunction with the Chapter President and Collegiate Chapter Advisor. On the Panhellenic side, the recruitment team alongside the Panhellenic President and the FSL Director help to make decisions and allow for these changes to be smoothly instilled.

Sororities are expecting an overall shift from the more formal process to a partially structured recruitment process.

“The past few years, we have seen a shift on campuses across the country that show a decrease in individuals wanting to go through formal recruitment and an increase in people wanting to go through informal recruitment,” Kesner said.

This process will involve changes to make recruitment overall more relaxed for potential new members, and be more flexible for individual chapters to hold events.

“This change is being sought after in the hopes that our organizations can continue to thrive and grow in our ever changing social climate and world. According to Ashland’s Panhellenic Council in conjunction with the district NPC, our campus is looking to instill these changes before the Fall 2023 semester.”

On the fraternity side, the Interfraternity Council (IFC) makes the decisions regarding recruitment structure and restrictions along with the approval of the fraternities.

The recruitment process is critical to fraternities in order to cultivate new leaders on campus.

“Many people involved in Greek life also hold leadership positions or are a member of other clubs on campus,” said Robert Krzeminski, Vice President of Membership Recruitment for the Interfraternity Council. “The more people that are in Greek life, the more involvement there is on campus as a whole. The current process provides a structured environment to recruit new members.”

Recruitment for fraternities spans over about four weeks at the beginning of the fall semester.

During the first two weeks of this recruitment process, it is strictly IFC recruitment. No recruitment events are hosted by chapters at this time. Recruitment chairs and representatives of each chapter will meet with IFC to make the decision when fraternity chapters will hold these events.

A couple joint events with the Panhellenic Council are held the first two weeks of the semester before transitioning into individual chapter events for the two weeks before Bid Day, where potential new members select which chapter they would like to join.

Although this is the main time for fraternity recruitment, all chapters can recruit informally year-round outside of the four-week window.

The recruitment process does not have a specific place where it is held. Various places include the quad and the Fraternity Circle.

At this time, there is not any pressing motion to change the recruitment process for fraternities. could change as the new Interfraternity Council takes over in spring 2023.

Fraternities are looking into adding a week to recruitment and removing the extra week from the IFC. These changes will make it possible to add more time for fraternities to host events during recruitment.

According to Caleb Shriver, a member of Kappa Sigma, IFC and Panhel are looking to restructure their recruitment processes to “get more university students involved in Greek life.”

“Unfortunately, the numbers coming out of the pandemic are not what we had hoped for but with some more time to find ways to attract more students, we can hopefully see a return to past numbers,” he added.

All FSL membership numbers for fall 2022 dropped by 49 students to total 220 students since fall 2021, and all sorority membership numbers from fall 2022 dropped by 59 students to total 134 students since fall 2021.

On the fraternity side, all fraternity membership numbers increased in fall 2022 by 10 to 86 students total compared to fall 2021.

The recruitment process is integral to both fraternities and sororities because recruitment is how these organizations continue to thrive and grow on campus, and provide the campus community with all of the opportunities that come along with Greek Life in general.

If you are interested in sorority or fraternity recruitment, follow @au_fsl on Instagram or reach out to a chapter!

Numbers:

All FSL membership for Fall 2021: 269 students
All Sorority membership for Fall 2021: 193 students
All Fraternity membership for Fall 2021: 76 students

All FSL membership for Fall 2022: 220 students
All Sorority membership for Fall 2022: 134 students
All Fraternity membership for Fall 2022: 86 students