The informational meeting covered how to register for recruitment and how the recruitment process works, including several changes this semester.
Registration for Panhellenic recruitment opened Oct. 1. Panhellenic Association Vice President of Recruitment Renae Peden reviewed the registration process, which can also be found on the IU Panhellenic Council website.
Potential new members will pay a nonrefundable fee. One dollar from every registration fee will be donated to Panhellenic’s new council-wide philanthropy, Circle of Sisterhood.
For recruits who are unable to afford this fee, PHA offers a recruitment scholarship. The scholarship waives the initial participation fee but does not carry over for future chapter dues and expenses, according to the PHA website.
Potential new members must be full-time students, meaning they must take 12 credit hours minimum. They must also achieve a cumulative GPA requirement of 2.80 for the 2014 fall semester.
The meeting also explained the timeline and recruitment process. Peden explained the recruitment timeline that begins Jan. 7.
Potential new members will return to Bloomington early from winter break and attend a PNM orientation that night.
At orientation, PNMs will meet their Rho Gammas. Rho Gammas are recruitment counselors who have disassociated from their sorority in order to stay unbiased while guiding PNMs through the recruitment process.
The PNMs will then continue on to the open round the next day. This will be their first opportunity to get acquainted with all of the chapters and watch skits explaining each chapter. After two days of meet and greets, the PNMs will be asked to rank their top 16 chapters.
From there, the PNMs will go through the first invite round, which will focus on each chapter’s philanthropy and service. Afterward, PNMs have the opportunity to be invited back to up to 16 chapters.
Peden stressed to the attendees of Greek Opportunities for Women that 16 is the maximum number of chapter invites and not necessarily the norm. The same is true for the second invite round when the PNMs will be invited back to a maximum of nine chapters.
At IU, the Panhellenic recruitment process is based off of mutual selection. However, because of a growing interest, recruitment is highly competitive.
Last year, 1,905 women registered for recruitment. This was a 170-person increase from the 2013 recruitment process, according to the PHA website. The same increase is expected this semester, Peden said.
Last year’s preference round included 1,319 women where they ranked their top three choices. Of those, 317 women did not receive a bid match, according to the PHA website.
The preference round will be when PNMs still going through the recruitment process will visit up to three chapters from their second invite round.
At the end of preference round, PNMs will fill out a Membership Recruitment Acceptance Binding Agreement card of their top three choices.
If there is a match between the PNM and the chapter, then she receives a bid from that chapter. If the PNM ends up denying this invitation, then she may not be eligible for membership at any IU chapter for one full calendar year, according to the PHA website.
