Potential new members opened their bids at 6:45 p.m. Tuesday, joining the Greek community and (finally) ending recruitment. We talked to KK Doyle, who served as the Vice President of Public Relations for Recruitment and is the incoming President of the Panhellenic Association, about Recruitment 2015!
Name: Katherine (KK) Doyle
Hometown: Oak Brook, IL
Year: Junior
Major: Journalism, Integrated Marketing Communications and Spanish
Chapter: Kappa Alpha Theta
Recruitment is finally over! What was the most exciting part this year?
Part of my job included checking chapter houses before each day’s events to make sure everything was ready and appropriate for Potential New Members. Walking into each house, I could feel the energy and excitement in the air. Women darting about in various stages of getting ready, last minute decorating and practicing, each day they really gave their all to make a house feel like a home.
What was particularly challenging about being on the Executive Board?
I found it incredibly challenging to juggle everyone’s best interests during recruitment. It is our duty to make the Potential New Members have a fair and informed recruitment experience, it is our mission to empower chapters as they communicate their values and it is our hope to elicit respect for the process from our greater Northwestern community. Inevitably, it can be difficult to consistently hit the mark in all of those areas!
What will you be doing as the incoming President of the Panhellenic Association?
My responsibilities include representing the Panhellenic Association to other student groups, staff, and administrators; leading weekly Panhellenic Executive Board meetings and bi-weekly chapter president meetings and holding one-on-one meetings with each chapter president each quarter.
Why did you apply?
I grew incredibly close to the other members of the PHA Exec board this past year. I watched them brainstorm, debate, collaborate and at times reinvent the wheel. I began to think about the legacy we wanted to leave as a board, and I realized I wasn’t done yet. I wasn’t ready to walk away. It is my goal to carry on where each of them left off — to see their initiatives through with the help of fresh eyes and new ideas from our incoming board.
What were the challenges of disaffiliating from your chapter? Of trying to keep it a secret from PNMs?
Disaffiliation is much more than not wearing your t-shirts. Before recruitment, I struggled to avoid my chapter’s open philanthropy events, or even our sisterhood events that I knew would end up on Facebook. It felt isolating and trivial. But as recruitment came along and I began to meet the PNMs, I understood what it’s all about. It is the single greatest way to establish trust with these women. The only difficult part was describing my personal experiences without revealing my particular affiliation. Even then, you realize that if that is challenging, it’s because your experience has been so intertwined with the specific values and identity of your chapter, and that is a beautiful thing.
After successfully hiding your affiliation this year, is there anything different you’re going to do next year when the time comes to disaffiliate?
Next year, I hope to use disaffiliation as a motivation to learn as much as I can about each chapter.
What’s the most catchy chapter song?
Boom BOOM I wanna go ALPHA CHI!