This winter’s Panhellenic recruitment, the second to implement more intense Rho Chi training and alterations to the call back system, ended Wednesday with 92 women receiving bids, Panhellenic vice president for public relations Jessica Ke ’15 said. One hundred and seven women registered for rush, meaning that 86 percent of those who registered received bids.
At Alpha Xi Delta sorority, 12 bids were accepted; Delta Delta Delta sorority, 14; Kappa Delta Epsilon, 14; Kappa Kappa Gamma, 13; and Sigma Delta, 12.
Alpha Phi president Courtney Wong ’15 said that she could not provide exact figures by press time.
The president of Kappa Delta sorority did not respond to repeated requests for comment.
Epsilon Kappa Theta held “shake-out” recruitment events outside the formal Panhell recruitment.
A major change to this year’s winter rush was in the adjudication process for rush violations, Ke said. For the first time, rush violations — including intentional rudeness and skipping parties at houses — were handled by a committee of sorority presidents rather than by the Panhell executives.
There were very few violations, Ke said, which she partially attributed to the participation of sorority presidents in the process.
“It’s really scary to go before a board of presidents, and I think that’s a disincentive to be rude,” Panhell president Rachel Funk ’15 said.
Ke said that other changes implemented during fall rush ran more smoothly in the winter, the second recruitment season for which they were in effect.
The more intensive Rho Chi training implemented in the fall was a solid improvement from previous recruitments, Ke said.
The 17 Rho Chis who participated in winter recruitment were an integral part of what Panhell sees as a successful recruitment season, Panhell co-vice president for recruitment Kathleen Wahl ’15 said.
“They are the absolute foundation,” Ke said. “They are the reason why recruitment runs so well.”
During fall rush, Panhell implemented a new policy that aimed for each potential new member to be called back to the second-round parties of at least four sororities.
Panhell executives backed down slightly from that policy for this winter’s recruitment.
“We work really hard to make sure that every woman does in fact get callbacks,” Ke said. “We try to maximize the PNMs’ options whenever possible. That being said, we cannot mandate that houses call back certain girls, so while it’s not mandatory, we do work hard so that every PNM has the maximum possible options.”
For the winter, Panhell opted to adjust its system so that houses would have to call back a higher proportion of PNMs, Ke said. The figures were based upon the number of women each sorority attracted to their house in recent years, which is then used within a computer algorithm that assigns a quota — the number of women rushing divided by the number of sororities — to each house, she said.
Rush chairs and sorority presidents were generally more willing to call back women who were not on their original lists than they were in the fall, Funk said.
The process in the fall was negatively impacted due to regulatory loopholes, Funk said.
“Houses were able to find what they considered loopholes, and we didn’t really consider [them] loopholes — just them not following the rules,” she said.
Both Panhell leadership and individual sororities did all they could to implement the changes in the fall, KDE president Emily Uniman ’15 said.
“I think part of the problem that didn’t work out in the fall were the policies in place,” she said. “I think every president and every rush chair did their best to kind of hold up to that deal that Panhell tried to do. I know Panhell worked extremely hard to match girls to at least four houses.”
Despite the work of Panhell executives, not all students were satisfied with callbacks.
Danielle Melvin ’17, who said she was pleased with rush, said that some acquaintances had not been called back anywhere for preference night.
“I was under the impression that everyone would be given the opportunity to join a house if they went through this long, time-consuming process,” she said. “I don’t know what happened there, maybe there was an overload of women rushing this year, but that was what I was disappointed with.”
This winter’s recruitment season offered sorority leadership a second opportunity to follow the recommendations proposed by Panhell.
“Hopefully winter recruitment manifested those changes that we were looking to implement,” Courtney Wong ’15, president of Alpha Phi, said. “I think we’ve made strides toward more inclusiveness, more diversity and more transparency, but I think there could always be improvement in those areas.”
The changes implemented in the fall were a step in the right direction, KDE president Emily Uniman ’15 said.
“I think Panhell has done a great job,” she said. “I think since this recruitment season is done, we can now go back and reflect on our changes and go from there.”
Clara Wang ’17, who accepted a bid at AZD, said that the changes implemented in the fall were beneficial. While the process was “not as bad” as she expected it to be, she said that it could still be improved.
“Going through rush was still kind of an emotionally draining process, because no matter what you’re not going to get called back somewhere,” she said. “It means you talked to people and they didn’t think you were a good fit.”
Wang also went to the EKT “shake-out” event, and said she preferred it to the larger Panhell rush process.
“It was a lot more relaxed, and I felt it was more comfortable,” she said.
Panhell executives said that they hope future leaders will continue to reform the recruitment process, although their own terms are up at the end of winter term.
“I think there’s more conversation going on in the Panhellenic community recently, and that’s something that our executive board has pushed a lot,” Panhell co-programming chair Molly Chodakewitz ’15 said. “There’s more dialogue around inclusivity and making recruitment as transparent as possible. I think that’s something that the whole Panhellenic community, from my standpoint, has really gotten on board with.”
Funk said that she thought winter rush was better than fall rush, but hoped that future Panhell executives would continue to implement changes.
“We know that this process isn’t perfect, but it’s really easy to criticize when you see only certain outcomes, and it’s really easy to compliment when you see only certain other outcomes, but it’s important to look at all outcomes,” Funksaid.
Panhell will hold internal elections at the end of this term for its new executive board.
In addition to other changes, Panhell has also drastically reduced the budget for recruitment, eliminating both food and decorations from houses, Funk said.
Panhell hopes to use the funds saved to increase scholarships and promote inclusivity, Wahl said. She added that scholarship funding has quadrupled over the past year.
“I think we’ve made significant strides toward making recruitment more inclusive,” Ke said.
Panhell hopes to continue to make recruitment more inclusive and to “level the playing field” for both PNMs and houses, Ke said.
“I think we’re making great strides, and I think we made significant strides in the past year,” Funk said.
Before their terms expire in March, the Panhell executives will review the changes they have made and consider their impacts.
“Everything we do we can improve upon,” Ke said. “After this, we’ll be sitting down figuring out what worked, what didn’t, how we can make this better and what we can pass on to the next executive board.”
This article has been revised to reflect the following correctionCorrection appended: Jan. 22, 2015
The original version of this story misattributed the quote“We know that this process isn’t perfect, but it’s really easy to criticize when you see only certain outcomes, and it’s really easy to compliment when you see only certain other outcomes, but it’s important to look at all outcomes,” to Ke. It was Funk who said the quote.
