Story by COURTNEY MUNS , for The Muleskinner—
January has been a busy month for Fraternity and Sorority Life on campus, as they have been preparing for and putting on their annual spring recruitment.
Spring recruitment occurs every year for both fraternities and sororities, and tends to be a much more laid back process than fall recruitment.
This year was different, however, as a more structured process was enforced in hopes for a more smooth and successful outcome for the women and men going through recruitment, as well as the chapters.
Panhellenic President Sydney Swinicki was in charge of planning some of the recruitment events this year.
“This is the first year in a while that we’ve done a more structured spring recruitment with scheduled times and more restrictions than in the past,” Swinicki said. “We wanted to stress the women going through recruitment to visit all of the chapters as opposed to only the ones they thought they were interested in,”
Along with the structured process this year, the recruitment chairs of each chapter were shocked to see such large numbers at each of their events.
Panhellenic’s Residence Hall Director Aubrey Frazier said 50 women signed up to go through recruitment, 34 women actually went through the process, and 29 women accepted bids from a sorority.
“With the structured recruitment, chapters were surprised to see such big numbers because all of the women going through recruitment had to visit each house to give them all a chance as opposed to going strictly to the houses they initially thought they’d want to join,” Frazier said.
Two information nights were held the week prior to recruitment for all the sororities to have an opportunity to display their values and what sets them apart. Recruitment was Jan. 22-24 and each chapter hosted an event each night to meet new women.  Various activities, including philanthropy crats, helped women decide which chapter to join.  The week ended with Bid Day Jan. 25.
Intrafraternity Council President Ryan Staggemeier said recruitment for the men has become more structured this year as well, with more set dates for events. Recruitment events for the men include information nights, tours of the complex, and brotherhood barbecues.
“Numbers of the men who went through recruitment this year were good, with a total of 115 for the fall and 35 this spring,” Staggemeier said.
As far as changes for fall recruitment, Frazier said she would like to set a realistic goal of 300 women to sign up this fall and 260 to go through recruitment.
“Last fall, our goal was to have 250 women sign up, and we met that goal, so having a goal of 300 women sign up seems realistic to us,” Frazier said. “If our numbers continue to grow, we will definitely need to look into bringing on a new sorority chapter to distribute numbers evenly.”
Frazier said her favorite part about recruitment is seeing more men and women learn about the values of all organizations on campus, and getting a better outlook on them as opposed to what they might hear.