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Sorority Survivor

Panhellenic Conference will expand, but only one sorority will be chosen.

Florida State University's Panhellenic Conference began the process of expanding its ranks Tuesday, receiving proposals from eight groups that want to be the next memeber of FSU's Greek system and debating the measures that will be used to pick the group.
The conference, made up of the 14 sororities already on campus, will choose from Alpha Epsilon Phi, Alpha Omicron Pi, Alpha Phi, Alpha Xi Delta, Delta Phi Epsilon, Sigma Delta Tau, Sigma Kappa, and Sigma Sigma Sigma.
"We want a house that will mesh well with our community," Panhellenic Extension Chairperson Wendy Hall said.
During the discussion, characteristics such as recruitment, national and regional support, philanthropy, leadership and housing were cited as important criteria. The group also agreed that the new sorority would also have to be competitive.
Members of the Gamma Lambda Jewish Sisterhood, Hillel and Alpha Epsilon Pi, a historically Jewish Fraternity, were present to persuade Panhellenic members to vote in a historically Jewish sorority.
Gamma Lambda, which currently has approximately 50 members, has been at FSU for four years but still doesn't have national support, so they did not apply for Panhellenic membership, Gamma Lambda President Hillary Offenberg said.
But three of the sororities that are applying - Delta Phi Epsilon, Sigma Delta Tau and Alpha Epsilon Phi - are historically Jewish sororities. The latter two were both previously on campus at FSU.
Offenberg was optimistic that a Jewish sisterhood would get the nod.
"I think there's a strong possibility, because there's such a huge need for it on campus," she said.
Other memebers of the Jewish community also spoke on why a Jewish sorority should be brought to campus.
"One thing that Florida State prides itself on is unity through diversity," Alpha Epsilon Pi member Ryan Saul said. "We unite under one thing: that we are all different. And by bringing in something that is different we can only strengthen our University."
According to Hall, the FSU sororities will look through the informational packets that were submitted by the eight sororities wishing to be selected. There will be another open forum Thursday of this week to further discuss any details, followed by the submission of each sorority's top three picks.
When Panhellenic meets next week, it will announce the top three choices overall and extend an invitation to those choices to come to FSU and give a presentation on why they shoud be selected. The presentations will occur some time in April, Hall said. After that, the winning sorority will be chosen.
The process is new to Panhellenic. The conference had never been charged with this task before, so Panhellenic representatives spoke with other universities who have gone through the process of expanding and took away ideas to work with, resulting in the current method.