Making the Most of Fall Formal Recruitment

One of the head recruitment counselors, Caroline, has a few tips for women going through Fall Formal Recruitment.

"Fall Formal Recruitment is right around the corner! Even though the end goal of recruitment is exciting, I haven’t met a single woman who isn’t nervous and uneasy at the beginning of the process.  What you need to remember is that the women in the chapters are just as nervous and excited to meet you as you are to meet them.  Recruitment is the most important event of the year because you are the women who are the future of each chapter.  The chapter’s goal is to impress you and make you feel as comfortable as possible so that you want to come back and learn more.  While the women in the chapters are excited to talk with you, it is important that you ask questions that you have as well.  The conversations need to be as 2-sided as possible as opposed to one person constantly asking questions and the other always answering.

As I’m sure many of you know, there are stereotypes for each chapter on our campus.  One of the best things you can do before beginning recruitment is forget everything you have heard.  Regardless of the supposed validity of stories or rumors, there is no chapter with strictly one type of person.  Each chapter is diverse and unique in it’s own way, and you will learn this quickly as the week progresses.  With the amount of women in the chapters, it is impossible to not find someone you enjoy talking to and spending time with.  The chapter members are going to be as genuine as they can be so that you get a real feel for what they are about.  Since they are being genuine with you, your best bet is to be as authentic as you can be with them.  In doing this, you’re going to give yourself the best chance possible at ending up in a chapter that you will love all four years at KU. 

You will all be in a recruitment group with 20-30 other women, and two Recruitment Counselors.  Utilize these women during the process.  You will have at least 20 other women who are experiencing the exact same thing as you are.  Hang out with them and get to know them because the women in your group could end up being some of your best friends.  Your Recruitment Counselors are there for you 100 percent of the time.  That is their reason for being there.  Anytime you are feeling uneasy or unsure about something, talk to them about it.  They are there to offer you guidance and to help you wade through your emotions (which are sometimes high during this week) to figure out how you are really feeling and what you really want.  For the entirety of recruitment week, they will be more than happy to talk to you at any hour, day or night.

Finally, have fun!!  That is the key to a successful, enjoyable week.  You having fun will translate into conversations in the chapters as well as helping others around you keep their spirits high.  If you are enjoying your week, it will make the process so much better for you.  When you are going through some long days, because there will be a few long, tiring days, just remember how much you will benefit from sticking it out in the end.  It can be one of the best experiences of your life, but it is up to you to make it that way!"

April is Advisor Appreciation Month

Advisors are often the lifeblood of our organizations. They provide a constant to our ever changing executive and leadership boards. They offer advice and comfort to our over-worked and over-stressed leaders. They make sure the chapter stays a well-oiled machine and they double-check every detail. They are our friends, our support and our sisters. They do so much for us behind the scenes, that this month we need to put them center stage. Take the time to thank your advisors this month. They donate their time so that we can have an amazing collegiate experience. Thanks advisors!

National Panhellenic Conference has declared April as Advisor Appreciation month and they have provided a list of 30 ways to thank an advisor. We have picked our top ten and posted them here! These small gestures are easy ways to show you care. For more information on National Advisor Appreciation month visit http://www.npcwomen.org/.

Top Ten Ways to Thank Your Advisor

1.    Send a heartfelt e-mail with personal details about how an advisor has made an impact.
2.    Throw a small surprise luncheon in recognition of advisor service.
3.    Feature National Advisor Appreciation Month on your website.
4.    Write a profile on a special advisor, and submit it to your sorority magazine for possible publication.
5.    Offer to provide free childcare for advisors with children for a personal night off.
6.    Personally deliver a single flower to your advisor.
7.    Send an e-mail or thank you note to an advisor’s supervisor.
8.    At a chapter meeting write thank you notes and notes of appreciation to your  advisors.
9.    Sponsor a dinner for your chapter advisors and Panhellenic administrative staff.
10.   Purchase a small Panhellenic gift or sorority-themed gift for your advisors. 

How have your Advisors helped you or your chapter? What are you doing this month to show your appreciation?

Finding a Home Away From Home

It was my first week living on my own. I was born and raised in my hometown of Hutchinson, Kansas-population 30,000-and was suddenly thrust into the madness of a college town. As if the newfound homesick tears and nerves for school to start weren’t enough, I found myself pressured to join a sorority in the middle of Formal Recruitment week and I honestly didn’t know how the Greek system worked or why I wanted to be in one in the first place. Everything I knew about Greek life stemmed from movies like “Animal House” and “Sorority Row.” My family wasn’t Greek and I didn’t understand the point of it all.

Flash forward three weeks, when I was settled into my schedule, joined a few clubs and discovered the treasure that is Skype. I had everything lined up in my life scholastically, yet I couldn’t ignore the pang in my stomach as I watched a girl walk down Jayhawk Boulevard with Greek letters embroidered on her shirt. At the end of the day, I was still lonely and sad; worrying that I hadn’t picked the right school. Until one day I ran into a girl I knew from high school, Elle, proudly sporting the letters Alpha Gamma Delta. The whole Greek thing was sort of a sore subject for me, I had dropped out of Rush and everyone knew it, it seemed almost “scandalous.” Elle could tell that I wasn’t my usual perky self. I had slipped into a gloomy state of mind that wasn’t my usual effervescent radiance. She encouraged me to check out her sorority through something called Continuous Open Recruitment and she gave my name to the director of the program. I was leery, to say the least. I hadn’t had a good experience with formal recruitment’s intensity-everything had seemed superficial to me then. However, after almost a month on campus, I began to see why girls join sororities.

I loved Continuous Open Recruitment. I felt that I was wanted-that there were many, many qualities within me that were not only worthy of acceptance into a sorority, but celebrated and needed by that sorority. I found my home in Alpha Gamma Delta.

The funny thing is I did not “click” with AGD when I went through Formal. However, the second I went to a COR event it worked for me. The girls were so much more real. They had real majors, with real classes, and real problems and real friendship. I wanted to know these girls, I wanted to be their sister. In formal recruitment, everyone seemed like Barbies. COR is real life. I pledged and was then initiated into the sisterhood because of this program.

When time came for officer elections, I knew exactly what I wanted to run for. I had such a wonderful experience with COR that I wanted to grant that to other girls like me, as well. I ran for COR coordinator, and won co-chair with another sister, and the two of us have been a-rockin’ and a-rollin’. We started off the first week of school with a “3 Spoons for AGD” frozen yogurt meet-and-greet at which we had enough girls show up to nearly double my pledge class. I asked every friend I knew that wasn’t in a sorority; It was then that I heard from a girl that had dropped Formal Recruitment with me on the same day. I invited her to join in with COR and she told me that she wasn’t sure, now, if sorority life was actually for her, that she wasn’t even sure if she would be returning to KU next semester. However, she said it sounded fun and she’d give it a try because it was so low-key. Woah, De ja vu. It was then that I had an Oprah “Ah-ha! Moment.” I started looking at COR as a community service, rather than a necessity for my sorority. My goal shifted from supplying potential Alpha Gamma Delta sisters, to helping the girls that are currently suffering the same mindset I was just months before: Alone, doubting, and sad. This University is too big not to have someone to lean on, and in a sorority, you’re guaranteed a family of at least 80 girls.

I had my first “payment” for all my work with this program the other day. After the 3 Spoons event, I was tagged in a facebook status about what a “wonderful time” a girl had with the “beautiful ladies of AGD.” This came from a girl whom I would have never expected to say this. She used to be “anti-sororities”; she had moved from GSP to Hashinger Hall just a month prior to “escape” them, and here she is smiling because of an event that I had planned and the way my sisters had treated her as if she were a person of value. COR gets to give potentials a taste of the beauty that is a sorority.

Alpha Gamma Delta really changed my life. It took a sorrowful, homesick little girl and blossomed her into a shining, confident woman. I was at the right institution all along, I just needed a support system there by my side. I made myself one of those embroidered Greek Lettered t-shirts, more friends than I can count, and 4.0 last semester. I owe it all to the Panhellenic System and my beautiful, intelligent, supportive, fun, graceful women that I am so proud to call my sisters.

- Caitlin is a freshman Alpha Gamma Delta, majoring in Journalism

The Support of Sisterhood

Being in a sorority has been one of the greatest experiences of my life.  I have had the opportunity to meet my best friends within my chapter, as well as in other chapters.  These friends are there for me when I need them and we have a blast together!  I know it sounds cliche, but the friends you meet in a sorority are always there for you and a great support system! A sorority creates strong bonds that are not easily broken.

- Lauren is a senior Alpha Gamma Delta, majoring in Applied Behavioral Science