A Very Untraditional Recruitment/Expansion Story

[klk112]

I love reading everyone's recruitment stories, because I was never on the PNM side of FMR (during parties, at least), and it's interesting to hear what everyone thinks about the different houses while they're going through the process. I want to share my own story because it is nothing like most people's stories--joining a 12-year-old local through informal recruitment and then going through the expansion process. My signature gives away the ending, but sometimes the journey is the reward.

I was not a very social freshman--I was nervous about the changes taking place in my life, and my boyfriend didn't leave for college until a week after I did. Because I went to school in the same city that I grew up in, I saw him pretty much every day through orientation week. I also didn't have a lot in common with my floormates, who were all English/history/philosophy majors. I was a computer science major and had always been a geek through high school. I hung out mostly with guys and played video games. On the last day of orientation week, I went to the Greek BBQ for lunch because it was on my schedule and it was an opportunity for free food. I just went by myself because my roommate was off with her friends and I didn't know anyone else on my floor well enough to ask them to go with me.

Of course, a freshman girl by herself is a prime target for the Rho Sigmas to go after. A girl came up to me wearing a Rho Sig letter t-shirt, and she talked to me about FMR. I had no knowledge of sororities--my parents and older siblings had not attended college, and my cousins who had were all at least 10 years older than me.

I can't recall if I actually intended to go through the FMR process or if I was just being nice to the girl, but I did start to take notice of the Greek letters that people wore. I noted that the president of the College Republicans wore shirts with black and gold K A Thetas, and that a junior named Amy in marching band had shirts with forest green and dark red Z Trident Sigmas. I thought that those two houses would be my top choices, because I recognized the letters. There were still three other sororities on campus that I didn't know anything about, though. Because I didn't have many female friends on campus, I didn't know a lot of the rumors and reputations of any of the sororities.

FMR was pretty late in the semester that year for some reason (around the sixth week of the semester instead of the third), so by the time it actually came around, it was the last thing on my mind. I received an email from the Panhel Recruitment Chair, reminding us all about FMR coming up and the info sessions. I decided that I wasn't going to go through with it after all, because I had made a lot of friends (mostly male, as expected) in my computer science classes, and I was involved in Women of the School of Computer Science and the marching band, as well as continuing to bowl on the weekends in tournaments and leagues with my brother who was a junior in high school.

I didn't regret my decision to not go through FMR, and didn't really think about sororities after that. However, when I first went back to school for the spring semester, I was talking to one of my really good friends from high school who had joined ADPi at her school just that week. She had gone back a few days early for FMR and told me how excited she was to join. I was happy for her, but it did not motivate me to seek out sorority membership on my own.

The week after that, Amy approached me after band practice with a piece of paper and said, "I was Zeta's recruitment chair last semester, and I saw that you signed up for FMR but didn't actually go through. If you're still interested in joining a sorority, we're having events this week." She handed me the paper and I looked at the events on the paper... pizza making, night on the town, a few other events, and a brunch on Saturday morning that was by invitation only. I didn't have a strong feeling right then, but thought that it was really nice of her to personally invite me. I thanked her and went back to my dorm room.

More to come soon...

[violetpretty]

OOh I am excited to read this one! One of my friends from high school is in this chapter!

[twinkle555]

more more!

[alum]

Wow, a CMU sorority story! I have met a couple of your AXO Tartan alums in DC.

When I was there in the days of the dinosaur, all 5 NPC groups lived above Margaret Morrison. It was very egalitarian as we all had the same square footage/floorplan with which compete. Now 2 Panhel GLOs have moved over to the fraternity quad. It seems as if this would skew the playing field.

[klk112]

Later that night, I decided that it would be worth it to check it out. I mean, she personally invited me. That must mean they want me, right? That made sense to me with my lack of knowledge about sororities. I emailed Amy and asked her where the house was and told her that I'd see her on Wednesday night.

All of the parties were casual and laid back. We had snacks and watched some episodes of Sex and the City (which I had never seen before) and talked to Christin, one of the girls I just met, almost the entire night. I met her best friend and her best friend's little and loved both of them just as much. We talked about the most random things (Nutella being one of them), but I had such a good time and couldn't wait to go back the next day.

When I went back the next day around dinner time, it was pizza day. Amy opened the door for me and said that she was excited that I came back. We made a pizza together and while it cooked, I talked to some of the other girls who were eating around the dining room tables. They were all very genuine and fun to be around, and they were not clique-y at all. I knew that I wouldn't be able to make it to the event the next night because I would be chaperoning a youth group overnight trip for my church, and I made sure to tell Christin and Amy that so they wouldn't think that I had lost interest.

I left on Friday afternoon for the trip and left my roommate with my cell phone number and specific instructions to answer the telephone if it rang and give the caller that number. I did not let my cell phone leave my side all evening, hoping that at any moment, I would be receiving a call about brunch the next morning. Around midnight, Christin's best friend, Julie, called me and told me all the details of the brunch. I was more excited than I thought I ever would be about possibly joining a sorority!

During the lock-in, I only had the chance to sleep for two hours. We left at 6 AM, and I went to sleep some more as soon as I got back to my room. Brunch was at 11. I had no idea what to expect, but I was told to dress up a little bit. I borrowed dress shoes from my neighbor and walked over to the house. After a brunch of waffles and fruit, I was lead upstairs to one of the bedrooms where Christin and Julie were waiting. They explained that they were giving me a bid card, an invitation to join. All I could do was smile and I thanked them profusely. I was lead upstairs to the third floor where the other PNM's were waiting. We sat there while the New Member Educator showed us some pictures for several minutes before she lead us downstairs.

The sisters were all singing a song as we walked downstairs... "Mmm my sisters, mmm my sisters, couldn't get along without you now. Got along without you before I met you, but I sure couldn't do it now." I remember being slightly scared and very curious as the pref ceremony went on. I had no idea what was happening. I couldn't remember much of what happened, but I remember agreeing with what was said during pref and the feeling of belonging and sisterhood that I felt. I also remembered Christin coming up to me and telling me how much she enjoyed meeting me and that she felt that I embodied everything in the creed. Wow. I had already started crying the moment that she walked up to me and smiled. After pref, Julie walked me back to my dorm. I was pretty much sold at this point. Bid night was that same night, and I had to RSVP to the recruitment chair.

However, I was talking to my boyfriend after I got back to my room, and I told him that I had been going to sorority events all week. He flipped out and kept asking me why I would want to be associated with catty, petty bitches. I insisted to him that the girls were nothing like that, but he wouldn't listen. I began to doubt my desire to join any sorority at all.

Stay tuned...

[klk112]

Originally Posted by alum

When I was there in the days of the dinosaur, all 5 NPC groups lived above Margaret Morrison. It was very egalitarian as we all had the same square footage/floorplan with which compete. Now 2 Panhel GLOs have moved over to the fraternity quad. It seems as if this would skew the playing field.

Theta moved to the fraternity quad my sophomore year, and this is DG's first year on the quad (my senior year). I haven't heard anything through the PNM grapevine about this affecting their decisions (but Theta and DG tend to be the two houses with the highest return rates, regardless of physical space).

There have been plans in the works for a while now to tear down the old Roselawn Houses and Margaret Morrison Apartments in order to build a sorority quad with five 32-bed houses. However, they are waiting for one piece of land/house along the main road to go up for sale so they can snatch it up and start the building.

[alum]

Originally Posted by klk112

Theta moved to the fraternity quad my sophomore year, and this is DG's first year on the quad (my senior year). I haven't heard anything through the PNM grapevine about this affecting their decisions (but Theta and DG tend to be the two houses with the highest return rates, regardless of physical space).

There have been plans in the works for a while now to tear down the old Roselawn Houses and Margaret Morrison Apartments in order to build a sorority quad with five 32-bed houses. However, they are waiting for one piece of land/house along the main road to go up for sale so they can snatch it up and start the building.

That is really interesting info. When I was there, one of these two groups was very strong, one was definitely not. It's nice to see that things can turn around for a chapter.

[Deepher4Life]

cant wait to read what happens!

[SMUalphachi]

I love this story so far... and I love the ending!

[LucyKKG]

Yay! Another expansion story! Isn't it great? :-)

Can't wait to hear more.

[klk112]

I finished my conversation with my boyfriend, and thought about all of the things that had happened to me in the past few days. I loved these girls that I had met and even though I didn't really have a grasp on what sisterhood and being in a sorority was all about quite yet, they seemed to know what they were doing. I felt honored to be asked to join, and I didn't realize until I went to recruitment events that I had been missing something in my college experience--female friends and friends who weren't computer science majors like me. Something touched me at pref that morning, and I couldn't forget that feeling just because my boyfriend didn't like the stereotype of sororities. I opened a blank email and typed to the recruitment chair, "I want to accept my bid. I will see you all tonight. "

Bid night was such an amazing experience and so much fun. The sisters were waiting in their t-shirts in the cold and snow and cheered so loudly when all of us came up the steps. Christin ran to me and gave me a huge hug. They had cake and snacks for us and took tons of pictures.

My semester as a new member was equally amazing. A few weeks later, Christin would become my big sister. I got to experience the intensity of both Greek Sing and Booth as a sorority member. My new member classmates and I worked together through service projects and planning a party for all of the sisters at the end of the semester.

Initiation was also an interesting experience for me, because I, for some odd reason, didn't realize that there were secrets and other things that I didn't know about, like passwords and handshakes. The only thing I remember about my own initiation was thinking that the first sister I saw looked really pretty.

After returning for the summer, I was taught about FMR from the sister side, things that I should talk about with PNM's who came through the house, and what not to talk about with them. I was also told that FMR did not come easily for the house in the past, because being a local on a campus like Carnegie Mellon was difficult. Many girls who went through FMR wanted the name recognition of a national organization.

At that time, most of the people who went through FMR were sophomores, so I recognized some people from classes and my floor last year. It was easy enough to talk to them. However, most people didn't see the magic that I saw the semester before, and when it came to the last day, we had 2 girls out of almost 100 at our pref party. We prepared to go to the Panhel bid night reveal anyway, but our president pretty much told us to expect the worst without saying it straight out.

How many new members would we get? What was the chapter going to do? Find out in the next installment...

[klk112]

Originally Posted by LucyKKG

Yay! Another expansion story! Isn't it great? :-)

Can't wait to hear more.

Some days, I wished that I had just gone through FMR and had a "normal" sorority experience, but I know I wouldn't be as happy anywhere else. I looooove expansion! I think it gives you a greater sense of national pride than most people would otherwise have. For example, I'm moving to Dallas from Pittsburgh after I graduate in May, and before I even made my decision I contacted the alumnae chapter down there to ask them about the area!

[LucyKKG]

Originally Posted by klk112

I looooove expansion! I think it gives you a greater sense of national pride than most people would otherwise have.

Yeah, I wouldn't have done it any other way! I also think we get a better sense of the bigger picture on a national scale. We learn how to do rituals and sing songs the right way. Oh, and did you girls get to meet national officers? I'm sure you did. I've met the international president of Kappa several times.

[klk112]

Originally Posted by LucyKKG

Yeah, I wouldn't have done it any other way! I also think we get a better sense of the bigger picture on a national scale. We learn how to do rituals and sing songs the right way. Oh, and did you girls get to meet national officers? I'm sure you did. I've met the international president of Kappa several times.

I was able to attend our national convention just three months after I initiated, which was sooo amazing! We got to be the new girls and everyone was so excited that we sent more than just the president. I'm planning on going this summer to our next one. Our national president knows who we are and she pinned us all at our initiation and installation. Not everyone can say that! She's visited us several times, and she always tells us a story about her pledging or her initiation. It's so awesome to have these kinds of opportunities.

I remember practicing initiation for the first time and our chapter advisor kept pronouncing things wrong and doing things wrong, and we corrected her. She's from the Delta chapter, which is about 116 years old now, and so they probably just do things by oral tradition rather than reading from the ritual book like us.

[klk112]

And the story continues...

The worst did happen. We went to Bid Night and watched as the PNM's unzipped their sweatshirts to reveal their bid night t-shirts underneath and ran to all of the other houses. We went home empty-handed, upset, and sad.

The next night at meeting, our president came to chapter with a proposal that we petition the Panhellenic Council to open the campus for expansion. Many of the older sisters said that the possibility for adoption had been mentioned before, but was never pursued because the chapter recruited enough members informally and no one saw the need to be adopted by a national organization.

We voted to make this request of Panhel, and they agreed and opened the campus for expansion. We spent that fall semester doing tons of research and sending letters to the 22 NPC groups that weren't on campus. Some groups were very interested in colonizing at Carnegie Mellon. Other groups wondered why a local with 12 years of history would want to be adopted. With just a few weeks left in the fall semester, 11 NPC groups had met with our campus Greek advisor and confirmed that they would like to present to us. The chapter voted on a list of the top three that we wanted to present, based on our research and the materials that they gave to us. Panhel agreed with our list and invited them to present at the beginning of the spring semester. A fourth group, whose visit occurred after our ranking meeting, was also invited at the urging of our campus Greek advisor.

The four groups, code named with condiments were:
Mustard - This group was definitely the top group in our minds. From all of the research that we did, we found that they were big, well-known, and at many schools similar to Carnegie Mellon. We even had a few alums who are legacies. They absolutely blew us away on paper and we were sure that they would be a good match for us.

Ketchup - This group was also a favorite of many people in the chapter. They have a chapter at MIT, which is a big deal for us because Carnegie Mellon is very similar in many different ways--from academic culture to recruitment styles. They also have chapters at Ivy and New Ivy schools, and had a large alumnae network.

Mayonnaise - This group was a top choice for some people but not others. We thought that the presentation would give us a better feel for them. They also had a chapter at MIT and other technical schools, and had a pretty solid national presence.

Relish - This group was the fourth group that was added after our ranking. They had a strong national presence and our Greek advisor highly suggested that we invite them. What could it hurt? Plus, there were a lot of chapters nearby that could help us out if we chose them.

When we came back in the spring, Relish would be presenting first, followed by Mayo, Mustard, and finally Ketchup.

Stay tuned...