Everyone at UMD looks forward to the beginning of the spring semester. For some people, the excitement of the new basketball season is what amps them up, but for a large amount of girls on campus, PHA’s Formal Recruitment is the major event for the beginning of the semester.
Every year, all 14 chapters on campus decorate their houses and prepare for the four rounds of recruitment ahead, while potential new members fret over what to wear and how to talk to the sisters of each house. However, this semester two chapters had way more to worry about as they face the challenge of recruiting out of fraternity houses.
Phi Sigma Sigma and Alpha Phi, due to current renovations being done to their own chapter houses, are recruiting out of Sigma Chi and Lambda Chi Alpha. This has proposed many challenges in order to make sure that they are not put at a disadvantage to the other chapters.
Although many people saw this as an awful circumstance, Shelby Bene, a sophomore psychology major and the president of Alpha Phi, explained just how efficient a transition it was from their usual recruitment location to Lambda Chi.
“I think it went really well,” Bene said. “Obviously it is never ideal for a sorority to have to conduct recruitment out of a fraternity house, however, with the much appreciated help of Lambda Chi Alpha’s entire fraternity, and the outstanding efforts of all the Alpha Phi girls, I can honestly say that recruitment ran extremely smoothly and successfully.”
Jenna Frankel, a sophomore studio art and business double major, is the Recruitment Chair for Phi Sig. Frankel believes that even with the small obstacles she came across, recruitment went very smoothly.
“Although it’s difficult recruiting out of a fraternity house, I believe that Phi Sigma Sigma did an excellent job,” Franzel said. “Even though we were at a disadvantage, we still had no problem recruiting amazing girls and I’m very happy with the end result.”
A member of Phi Sig, sophomore communications major Shirin Azmi, had some positive feelings about this process by the time it came to Bid Day. “It was hectic, but do-able,” Azmi said. “It was definitely interesting to go through recruitment this way for the first time as a sister.”