Bids increase for fraternities, sororities

Approximately 130 men pledged with fraternities while 190 women pledged with sororities  this semester.

Panhellenic Adviser David Gillette said the three largest new member classes for sororities were Alpha Gamma Delta with 40 pledges, Sigma Kappa with 37 pledges and Delta Zeta with 37 pledges.

The recommended class size for all sororities was 36 women to help keep the chapters relatively similar in size, he said.

The number of women that pledged increased from approximately 150 last semester, Gillette said. No violations of recruitment have been reported thus far.

Interfraternity Council Adviser Marty Jayne said the three largest pledge classes were Sigma Phi Epsilon with 23 pledges, Alpha Kappa Lambda with 15 pledges and Lambda Chi Alpha with 15 pledges.

Fraternities do not have a cap on the number of new members they accept.

Jayne said the number of men participating in rush was lower compared to last year, but more bids were signed this year. Last fall, 126 bids were signed, four fewer than this semester.

Jayne said the IFC is planning on conducting a survey to see what influences men's decisions about rush to uncover the reasons why more bids were signed this fall.

The IFC and rush chairs will discuss potential ways to encourage more men to rush next fall, but don't have any strategies yet.

One new rush activity this semester was a street clean-up project Sept. 11. The project included clearing Missouri Street, Potter Avenue, Michigan Street and Youngstown Trail, which are near drainage areas for Forest Lake. Jayne

said eight miles of road were cleaned by the 140 participants. No problems

with rush have been reported, but fraternities have a couple weeks from the time they become aware of a problem with another fraternity to report it to the IFC, Jayne said.

"The exec board members walk around to these events each night and kind of check on them," he said. "Things seemed to have been going pretty well in that respect."

Jayne said there are three basic rules to rush week.

"One is rush is dry," he said. "The second one is we prohibit what we call ‘dirty' rush, that is, you ought to convince people to join your fraternity by telling them how good yours is and not how bad somebody else's is, and the last one is don't give [rushees] a bid before Thursday."

Last fall, there were a few minor violations, Jayne said.

"Last year we had a couple of cases of drunk girls at events, and what we did was tell the fraternities, ‘We want you to come back to the IFC and give us a plan for how you're going to avoid that in the future,'" he said.

Jayne said men gave the IFC examples like checking outside drinks, monitoring how many times people left and came back into a party and getting all fraternity members, not just the men at the door, to feel responsible for detecting any unusual behavior for future rush seasons.

Gillette said he was pleased with this year's recruitment and the increased number of interested women this semester. He said 222 women participated in recruitment, up from approximately 185 last year.

Aside from the larger freshman class, Gillette said an overall increased interest in Greek life might be another factor in the size of the new member classes, he said.

Madeline Nash, faculty adviser for Alpha Gamma Delta, said the chapter now has 110 members.

"The women of Alpha Gamma Delta worked really hard," she said. "They kept their energy up, they had a fantastic time, they really enjoyed it and enjoyed spending time together. That's exactly what recruitment should be about - it should be about us to enjoy spending time together and then finding people who would like spending more time with us in the future."

Gillette said a woman was asked to leave a party that was invitation only, but that she didn't face any further consequences. This was the first time that has ever happened during recruitment, but it was just a minor flaw, he said.

"There was a girl who tried to go to more parties than she was invited to," he said.  "That was pretty quiet and nonchalant. [She was told] ‘You're through - this isn't the kind of people we're looking for.'"

Gillette said no violations occurred during recruitment.

"It was trouble-free for the most part, so that was really good," Gillette said.

Recruitment ends with the new members running down the hill at Red Barn Park to the sorority they accepted a bid from, he said. Gillette said the hill tradition has been in place since before he came to Truman 20 years ago.

He said there were more injuries this semester than before, and the Panhellenic council will discuss ways to prevent women from getting hurt. He said he wasn't sure of specific strategies, but the women on the hill should take more caution.

"There were more injuries than we need to have," Gillette said. "One injury is more than we need to have."

Sophomore Lauren Hearold, a member of Sigma Sigma Sigma, was at the hill last Sunday. She was wearing sandals with straps across the top of her feet and was excited to tackle one of her friends who was joining Sigma Sigma Sigma. A bunch of women ended up in a dog pile when tackling the new member, she said.

"I looked down and my foot was out of my sandal and my little toe was, like, hanging off the side," she said.

Hearold said she had deep soft tissue bruising and has to be on crutches for a week and is going to an orthopedic surgeon Monday to see if there is further damage.

Despite her injury, Hearold said the tradition is fun and should be kept.

"All the active members of the sorority, we just get together at the bottom, because we don't know who our new members are gonna' be yet," Hearold said. "We just get really excited for [new members] to run to us."