As part of my NASPA “road to higher education” blog, I am to record my experiences shadowing different people in different departments of Student Affairs. This portion is with the Assistant Director of Fraternity and Sorority Life.
As an undergraduate, I’ve only heard of Pan Hellenic Recruitment as a process that was more stricter than the Interfraternity Council’s Recruitment process. As a Freshman, I would be sitting in the Johnson Center and seeing large amounts of girls walk up and down the stairs in either similar clothing patterns or something business casual/formal.
I was very unfamiliar with this Recruitment process even as I grew in my Fraternity. Not having much contact with other Sororities aside from shared activities and All-Greek school events, I was pretty much clueless as to how a young woman joined a sorority at Mason. At one point, it was just a matter of seeing girls lining up outside of Dewberry Hall and entering a room of loud clapping and chanting. Very intimidating if I were in their position.
So as I’ve mentioned before, I am shadowing at this event for Pan Hellenic Recuitment in order to get a sense of the decisions and counseling that must be done in this process.
Thursday – Orientation
The Orientation was a great time. Seeing these Greek women come together to start off the Recruiting experience was very satisfying. When all the non-affiliated women began walking into Dewberry Hall, it was very interesting to see who knew which table to walk to first, and who knew to check in or register and then head to their seat.
The process was very much a way for the women to be thrown into the mix of Pan Hellenic Recruitment, as it was very overwhelming to just sit in the back as opposed to sitting with numerous girls who were probably as nervous as I was.
Once the rules and other policies were stated, seeing the girls form into their groups was interesting, as it felt like Freshman Orientation all over again.
Friday
Today is the day that I’ve been told about. I arrive at “Headquarters”, where there are members of the Executive Board are putting together everything and going through the logistics of the weekend’s events.
From what I notice is that the Potential New Members (PNMs) come into the Headquarters area with confused looks, not knowing where to go. But having all the Rho Gammas (Sorority women who disaffiliate with their chapter to in order to provide an unbiased learning experience for PNMs) enter Headquarters to work on their Group Signs and find out their schedules on where to go. The entire time here in Headquarters is in a frenzy, as several situations happen:
- PNMs enter Headquarters to withdraw.
- Headquarters and Rho Gammas are calling PNMs to find out where they are.
- Rho Gammas are counseling those who have withdrawn, or are wishing to withdraw.
Throughout the day, people say things like “I’m a little overwhelmed”, or people are just aggravated.
There is a point in the day when there is a slight, but avoided, confrontation between a few Rho Gammas and the Executive Board. An aggravated Rho Gamma says that she feels like she’s being talked down to, though on the other hand, as she is sitting in the back the Executive Board member is flooded with forms to manually input and had to ask the Rho Gamma to sit down.
Today would even get worse, as stress and mis-communication is rising. In the little downtime there is, talking and snacking helps people rest. One incident, where everyone had to run out of the room, a confrontation between an Alumni Advisor and Executive Member created a very tense atmosphere. Those in Headquarters are given limited information, and as such, when you’re left alone with a very fierce and unrelenting Alumni Advisor, you’d be very intimidated. At this point, having Faculty to mediate would have been very beneficial towards the member in Headquarters. For me, I would have talked to the Alumni Advisor and explained the situation, though it was not my place to talk and affect the relationship between the department and these different organizations. It was a conflict within myself, because I was allowed to participate as an Observer, and not as Staff. This conflict had remained throughout the entire day, because sitting back and observing is not what I like to do. Yet the day moved on.
Conclusion: Pan Hellenic Recruitment is an intense experience, as I am learning about how difficult it is for someone such as Faculty who must be expected to know all information and be 10 steps ahead of everyone else.
Saturday
Today is not as bad as Friday, but there is still lots of rushing around. PNMs are still withdrawing, citing exhaustion and anxiety as reasons for their withdrawal.
There is more downtime this day, made apparent by reports from people saying that specific groups of Rho Gammas are sitting around doing nothing. My assumption was that this wasn’t a behavior that anyone on Staff wanted others to develop, so as I took my trip to see this group, I noticed that they were given games and things to pass the time with.
Boredom is an issue that needs to be definitely dealt with, because there is more downtime today, and less complications as there were the previous day.
Situation: A PNM is found to be affiliated with another chapter at another university. This information was found out via an internet search. As the Staff is given this information, they have to investigate more into the matter, but also must deal with the issue of whether this is grounds for dispelling the PNM from Recruitment. Given that this information was done at Recruitment, and that there isn’t enough information to determine if the PNM was actually initiated, the delay in determining whether this PNM could go through with Recruitment was hard.
Selection [Innovation Hall]: Decisions to rank their Top 2 Chapters was hard, because there were PNMs that sat at their stations struggling to rank their groups. Watching Lauren Long and others talk to PNMs to help them choose their 2 out of 4 preferences was hard, based on the fact that these were decisions that would determine either the rest of their life, or make their time at Mason very hard.
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