Elissa Collopy
eac001@marietta.edu
Recruitment numbers for sororities at Marietta College significantly dropped this fall due to a new rule change in the National Panhellenic Council.
“This is going to impact our chapter as well as the Greek community as a whole, and it’s going to impact so much more than I think the administration realizes,” Kelly Cecora, Alpha Xi Delta membership vice president said.
There is one governing body that oversees national Panhellenic sororities, which is the NPC. Cecora said all sororities on campus report as a smaller chapter to both their nationals and the NPC.
According to Cecora, last spring all chapters received an email from the Panhellenic council president on campus saying that in compliance with NPC rules, they were requiring all chapters to calculate the total of recruitment numbers in a new way. The “total” refers to how many women each chapter can have and at what number it is capped.
The new rule said sororities would just do an automatic reset of total—essentially, 72 hours after fall recruitment, total would be calculated by the average chapter size of all the chapters on campus.
“There are some smaller campuses that have what would be called outliers; in other words, a chapter that would significantly potentially lower the total of one because they are lower,” Cecora said. “On this campus, there’s Theta Phi Alpha, which is a newly colonized chapter on campus.”
During this year’s formal fall recruitment, members received an email from Panhellenic president Charlee Ottersberg who had been in contact with the NPC.
“They said that a chapter has to be 30 members below average in order for them to be excluded as an outlier,” Cecora said.
Cecora said this is where the conflict could be originating. Looking at the numbers now, Sigma Kappa has 48 members, Alpha Xi Delta has 43 members, Chi Omega has 35 and Theta Phi Alpha, after formal recruitment, is sitting at 18.
“The hope should be that Theta Phi does not remain so much smaller than the other chapters—it should be that they grow,” Laura Jacob, coordinator of campus involvement and community said in an email to the Greek community.
After the average was calculated, it was decided that the cap would be at 35 women for each sorority.
“Our chapters are just nervous,” Cecora said. “We’re just kind of worried about what this will leave us with after our seniors graduate. The reason that the staff here at MC and NPC are saying that it’s all right is that we did all as a Greek community vote for Theta Phi Alpha to colonize, so we knew this potentially might happen.”
The total is now set so low that the top three chapters on campus according to size do not have the room to take on any new members, which forces Theta Phi Alpha to be able to take on more members and grow that way by the next time recruitment rolls around, all sororities start off on an even playing field.
Jacob said in the email that it is the expectation of Theta Phi’s national headquarters that they be at or close to our campus total in order to be recognized as a chapter.
“With recruitment numbers as scarce as they are, it is a huge advantage to Chi Omega, Alpha Xi Delta and Sigma Kappa to be at or above total, and a huge advantage to Theta Phi to have the most realistic total possible with maximum pool to recruit from so they can display a good effort to their nationals,” Jacob said.
However, this drop in numbers has poorly affected fall recruitment this year.
“We originally had about 61 women signed up to go through recruitment, and only 29 of those 62 were placed in Greek houses,” Cecora said. “We did have a really large dropout rate, and it is the largest I’ve seen in my four years here.”
Vice President of Recruitment Development for the Panhellenic Council Lauren Bush said the main problem the numbers for recruitment was so low was because MC has a low number of first-year women.
“Each chapter should have known coming in to recruitment that the numbers were going to be low,” Bush said. “It wasn’t because of the chapters’ inability to recruit, we just had a limited number of women and it was hard to work with.”
The overall retention was 49.1 percent, according to an email from Jacob sent to the Greek community.
Another concern about the drop in recruitment numbers is the increase in dues.
“A lot of the girls are worried this drop in numbers is going to hurt the Greek community, especially for us financially, as our dues will go up,” Cecora said. “A number of our costs are fixed, so each member will end up paying more.”
Cecora also notes that members of the Greek community have to be ready for some significant changes.
“These are the rules and this is what’s happening and unfortunately this is NPC rule and we fall under them, so there is nothing we can do,” Cecora said.
Jacob said the support of Theta Phi Alpha is necessary. She described the situation as “uncomfortable in the short-term, incredibly beneficial in the long-term.”
“Plus, we continue to demonstrate to NPC that we are committed to Theta Phi’s growth and longevity on our campus,” she said.
Cecora agrees.
“This is a time when Theta Phi Alpha is growing and we need to support them,” Cecora said.
This change is a policy instituted by NPC and it is MC’s obligation to comply.
“We are doing this because NPC representatives who have a historical perspective on our Panhellenic community and a bird’s eye view on our campus and campuses similar to MC have told us this is best,” Jacob said. “As you can see, I have come to understand the benefits of this change and the general positive implications of the NPC resolution.”
