Multiple factors potentially contributed to the decrease of students participating in formal Panhellenic and Interfraternity Council recruitment.
Outgoing Panhellenic President, Grace Anshutz, said that moving Panhellenic recruitment up was a big change, as was doing First Round in one day instead of two.
The number of men who participated in IFC recruitment was less than previous years and Nick Stepaniak, who ran IFC recruitment and will become the Panhellenic advisor starting Monday, said that this was due to less men meeting the 2.5 GPA requirement. Stepaniak also said the smaller first-year class played a role in the decrease in number of men who participated.
In total there are 259 men in the first-year class, but only 214 of those were eligible, and only 150 chose to go through recruitment. Therefore, 45 men were unable to reach the 2.5 GPA requirement. Stepaniak said that DePauw is looking into this, but that it is out of the hands of CLCD.
As for Panhellenic Recruitment, the official numbers have not been calculated yet. However, Myrna Hernandez, dean of students, said she expects the number of women who affiliated to be less than past years. “We’ll have to wait for the final numbers to settle, but my quick assessment from being around this weekend was that we had more women withdraw voluntarily than we had in years past,” Hernandez said.
In addition to lower numbers, there is a possibility that students participating with a GPA of 2.0 to 2.5 will be dissatisfied with the outcome of their experience due to individual chapters’ requirements. Although Panhellenic does not have a GPA requirement, CLCD advises potential grade risk students that their experience might not be ideal.
With reference to the amount of women that withdrew voluntarily, Spaniak said, “There are a lot of different reasons, so perception versus reality, some women don’t get the top house that they want and others just go through the process and decide that this isn’t for them.”
Nonetheless, most chapters on campus were close to reaching the limit set by IFC and Panhellenic which was 25 and 26 new members respectively, while other chapters were very close and some even surpassed the limit.
Spaniak said that CLCD is working to improve the information students receive about Greek Life, and especially improve the awareness of international students. “We want to really explain to our international students what it means to be in a sorority or a fraternity because it is a very American thing to do,” Spaniak said.
In the past, international student ambassadors have explained Greek Life to international students, but next year CLCD is going to have people from their councils meet with international students during their first few weeks on campus. However, in general, CLCD continues to work on ways to improve how they inform students about Greek Life and diversifying classes.
“I would have liked if someone explained the process because we never really were explained how cutting worked,” said first-year Ashley Mager. “They never talked about how we were going to be narrowed down.”
