Improving sorority relations for mixers
 

Hi everyone. I’m a member of a fraternity on my campus that is neither here nor there so to speak. We’re not a socially awkward/dorky engineering frat or anything but we’re also not a fraternity that is really fratty. We’re kind of regarded as “nice guys” and a good number of guys are in relationships although still a lot of guys are single. I’d say we are all kind of cool in a unique way since we are not all homogeneous (i.e. we're not all preppy for example). Regardless, if you talk to people and say “I’m in [insert my fraternity name here]” girls will say “oh I know so and so, I love them” or “oh cool I love [insert my fraternity name here] guys.”

That’s just a small background of us, and I’m trying to see how we can improve our sorority relations. Again, individually sorority girls like us but as an entity they don’t really interact with us (no philanthropy or mixers). I’m wondering how we can go about increasing those relations to have mixers or other interactions.

In the past our social chairs have asked the sorority social chairs to plan mixers (through email) and the social chairs either didn’t respond or said they’re too busy etc. Is there a better way of going about this? Is calling or sending a letter a better way? I think it’s just hard to say “will you join us on such and such date” since we don’t even know if they want to mix or if they are even free that date.

I hear of sororities mixing with frats that are no better than us (as in not necessarily cooler or more attractive) and it just upsets me that we for some reason have this barrier even though people still like us. If it is the fact that we are not as fratty as some other frats, I was still under the impression that people don't only go to mixers to meet people for sex or relationships… I thought people like to go to just meet people and have a fun time… Any advice to fix this would be appreciated (if you have questions let me know). Thanks!

wow.

I'll just answer the question with a few questions.

of the girls that say they like you, are any of them social chairs? Do any of your brothers actually know any of the social chairs? Do you have a chapter sweetheart? Is she greek, can she help with a mixer with her group.

oh, and finally- are you as judgemental about the sororities as you are about the other fraternities? are you only reaching out to a select few sororities or are you trying to work with all of them on your campus?

First rule of contact: phone calls are ALWAYS better than sending an email. In my opinion, an email is one of the easiest things to ignore if you're not at the top of someone's priority list (which it sounds like your fraternity is not with sorority social chairs).

First thing is electing a social chair (or two) who has several traits, all of which are very important: 1) Socially outgoing enough to not have any hang-ups or hesitance in contacting sorority social chairs by phone and set up in-person meetings; 2) Incredibly reliable; 3) Persistent. Also, NEVER let the lack of past relations dictate your expected interactions with these social chairs - don't defeat yourself before you even get an answer.

So:
Step 1) Have your social chair CALL UP EVERY sorority social chair and invite her to coffee or lunch. Arrange an in-person meeting. For social chairs who are being flaky about committing to a time or date (remember, lots of college students are flaky, so just accept it), be a little persistent and offer to bring her Starbucks at her house for a quick 15 minute meeting.

Step 2) At these meetings, discuss mixer options that include a variety of choices with different price points and time commitments (dinner, bowling, partnering for homecoming, study marathon, beach clean up, etc.) Money and time are always factors in planning social events into the schedule, so think about ways that you can partner with them on events they are required to do, or are already planning.

Step 3) For the women who have not returned your phone calls: go to their chapter house (or whatever), and say that you wanted to stop by quickly to introduce yourself if the social chair is available. Don't overstay your welcome, just stop by to introduce yourself and see if you can plan a meeting soon. Leave your information if she's not available.

Step 4) Attend every sorority's philanthropy event with LOTS of brothers. Be a presence. Show your support. Meet and mingle like there's no tomorrow.

Step 5) Think about hosting open events - Grab-a-dates where the brothers invite all of their friends, BBQs, etc.

Good luck!

Sorry, I guess my post was a little judgemental. But a lot of the frats on campus have reputations for being fratty and they thrive on it so I didn't think it was necessarily a bad thing to say that. I'm not sure what the social chairs have done but I would try to keep an open mind about all of the sororities, especially because I have friends in pretty much all of them.

I don't think any brothers know social chairs which is the tough part.

You have some great ideas here! I like the coffee/lunch date idea. I look forward to trying these ideas. I'll message you if I have more questions about what you wrote. Thanks for your help!

If anyone has any additional ideas, let me know too!

Serenades. Sorority women love serenades. You don't have to be perfect or even very good for that matter; simply be sincere and entertaining. It will get you noticed in the right way.

Is your fraternity small compared to the sororities (and the other fraternities they mix with)? It is hard for a 150-woman sorority to mix with a 50-man fraternity, for example. We used to address this by having dinner mixers with smaller fraternities, so it was only the in-house women, and it balanced out better.

Also, if you are trying to get on their schedule for the first time, you may just have to foot the whole bill. That won't be a big deal if you can have a BBQ at your house or something.

Also, how soon are you contacting the sororities?

If you're trying to plan a mixer in December but you waited until November to plan it, they won't have any open dates. Sit down with your VP of Programming or whoever oversees the chapter's calendar and nail down dates that you want mixers. It also helps to figure out what dates the sororities have blacked out every year (ex. formals, rituals, whatever).

That's the biggest problem I ran into when I was Social Chair. Plan early and be persistent are the best pieces of advice I can offer.

Great ideas LAblondeGPhi.

Just to piggyback on Step 3. As LAblondeGPhi noted, do not overstay your welcome. However, if the social chair is available to talk/meet during your stop by introduction, be prepared to meet with her right then and there. You don't want to wait to set something up down the line only to find her busy.

Some Greek Life offices keep a list of the Social Chairs and their contact information for each GLO. Some schools provide that info on their campus Greek Life page/website. If not on-line, contact the Greek Life office directly and ask them for a list. Be sure to let them know who you are and why you want that information. "I'm the social chair of ABC and we would like to invite the sororities to our XYZ fundraiser."

First of all, thanks for all of the great responses!

We've actually done this! Both singing and dancing, and indeed the girls liked it (even the sororities that will probably never mix with us no matter how hard we try haha).

Most fraternities at my school are in the 50-70 person range (including us), and sororities are 150-200, and the frats and sororities that mix seem to manage. Also, I assumed we would have to pay for everything since the sororities can find other frats who they like more anyway who also probably pay for everything lol.

I remember in the fall, the social chair contacted sororities in the end of August before school started. Not really sure about this semester though, but he definitely didn't wait until the last minute or anything. I do think the problem was probably not reaching out enough though (such as calling) so I think that is definitely something we should try.

Thanks for the advice. Although none of the brothers know social chairs directly, I'm sure I could get their info from the friends who I do know.



I guess more generally, at my school it seems like most frats mix with sororities mainly in terms of themed parties. Is it too much to ask for the first time to have a mixer party?

And to girls in sororities, have you ever had frats on your campus who you just didn't want to mix with? Maybe they do indeed have cool people but also some awkward/shy guys that made you say "ehh we could do without them, we have these cooler frats to mix with anyway"? That's how I feel the situation is with us :/

At Illinois, the fraternities outnumber the sororities by a lot, so the sororities do a lot of the choosing, but my sorority was on the lower end when it came to popularity with fraternities. Therefore, I felt like we always had the internal debate: Do we want the more popular fraternity, or do we want the fraternity who is really excited to have a mixer with us? When I was younger, I thought it was all about getting mixers with the hottest/most popular guys, and then as I got over it, sophomore and junior year, I was much more interested in mixing with guys who were excited and would throw a good event.

I'm not sure how that is helpful to you, but are you getting to know the women in other situations? For example, you should definitely be participating in their philanthropy events and things like that. Can you invite some girls over for something like a mixer without calling it that? Ask them to stop by for study snacks during midterms or something. Invite them to a barbeque. Sometimes, sororities think in terms of a set number of social events, so they don't want to bump another fraternity for you, but if you did something additional, they'd go along with it.

Finally, have you considered the non-NPC groups on your campus? They may want to party with you, too.

Totally agree.

I know it's not standard, but I think it's a great idea to expand outside the Greek community: think about women's club teams or service organizations (UCLA has Bruin Belles, USC has the Helenes, etc.) I've known of sororities mixing with the business school (yes, the graduate school of business), and rugby club teams.

For teams, I think hosting a day-before BBQ or spaghetti dinner is an opportunity not just to socialize, but to support the team. My high school cross country team used to skip practice the day before a meet in favor of spaghetti carb-loading.

The situation at your school is exactly the situation of mine. We have so many more frats that the sororities are not really losing out by not mixing with us (well, besides getting to know us ;) haha). Also, a lot of the people at my school focus a lot on status, so they have the same conflicts you do. One of the sororities that said that they were "too busy" was a sorority that was only added to our school fairly recently and it seems like even though we are more "on their level," they want to mix with the "cooler" frats, since that will also help their reputation... I feel like even upperclassmen still care about the status here, unfortunately. Part of me thinks these ideas about reaching out could help, the other part of me realistically thinks nothing is going to change :/.

We could try a dinner or something though. And yeah non-NPC could be a good option too, although sometimes I just think its sad that we're ignored by the NPC ones.


Good ideas! And they'd probably care less about the status stuff, though again, at my school you never know...

Oh one other thing I should mention is that our house is a lot smaller than the other frats' houses which also lessens someone's desire to go to our house for stuff I feel.

You mean the physical house?

It also depends on your campus culture. When I was in school, every sorority would put an ad in the Daily Illini that said something like "We look forward to our exchanges with the following fraternities", and so it was just as much about bragging when a good house gave you a mixer as it was actually having fun with the guys.

It seems intuitive that you would want to start with the house that is most on your level, but that actually may not be the case. It may be that a mid-level sorority can deflect possible gossip about mixing with your fraternity better than a sorority that is already struggling to recruit.

That said, if you are persistent enough with any group, they should at least give it a whirl with you guys.