[aephi alum]

Having skimmed through this thread ...

I think it would have been interesting to go through an SEC or otherwise heavily competitive rush - knowing what I know now. Knowing what I knew as a 17-year-old freshman, with an anti-greek father and a mother who went to school overseas and knew zero about greek life, I probably would have fallen flat on my face. Knowing what I know now, I'd have lined up recs, chosen appropriate outfits, makeup, and jewelry, put Vaseline on my teeth, and gone in all guns blazing.

As for the religion issue ... It was dicey when I was a collegian. Recruitment was held during the last weekend in August. My chapter had a rule in our bylaws that no mandatory events were to be held during the holy days of any religion of any member, and this included Shabbat. Guess when recruitment started? Friday night. :-/ Our workaround was that, since Panhel had dictated the dates and times of FR, anyone with a religious issue could be excused. Anyone who was Shomer Shabbos was excused from Friday night and Saturday daytime parties. During my sophomore year, I was still a practicing Catholic, and I had to excuse myself from one party during the weekend because I had to attend Mass. People did what they had to do to meet their religious obligations.

The High Holy Days were never an issue recruitment-wise, but there was a nice little incident one year where the head of Greek Life (who was himself Jewish) decided to schedule an all-GLO president's meeting ON YOM KIPPUR. When the presidents of my chapter and of AEPi called him out on it, he refused to reschedule, claiming he "didn't notice" it was Yom Kippur because he had a sticky note on his calendar over the date. The presidents of AEPhi and AEPi boycotted the meeting, and IIRC, several other GLOs with Jewish presidents sent their VPs in their stead.

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