RU pushes Panhellenic Council formal recruitment to fall semester

For the first time in more than 20 years, Radford University's Panhellenic Council (PC) Formal Recruitment was pushed forward from the spring to the fall semester.

Last week, sororities participated in traditional recruitment events, which culminated Sept. 5, with Bid Day. About 110 female students joined seven sororities: Alpha Sigma Alpha, Alpha Sigma Tau, Delta Zeta, Phi Sigma Sigma, Sigma Kappa, Sigma Sigma Sigma and Zeta Tau Alpha.

Robert Marias, assistant director for Student Activities - Greek Life, said the change in the recruitment period was reintroduced to allow sororities more time to "focus on strengthening the bonds of sisterhood."

"The way that the National Panhellenic Conference recommends recruitment be done on college campuses is that it take place in the fall so that the chapters can establish a target number," Marias said. "And then they can spend the remainder of the year retaining that number."

Since the 1980s, Marias said, formal recruitment had been conducted in the spring, but informal recruitment involving just upperclassmen was initiated in the fall.

"We would basically have two recruitment periods, and students were doing a combination of different styles that were not conducive to growth," Marias said.

Marias estimates that as of the week of Sept. 8, the average RU PC sorority chapter size is about 87-89 members. Of the 100 or so sorority members who rushed this fall, about 20 percent were first semester freshmen.