The concept of “rush” and even Greek life can be confusing especially to those who have never gone through the process of joining a fraternity or sorority. At the University of Denver, there are a total of 20 fraternities and sororities that fall under the Interfraternity Council (IFC), Multicultural Greek Council (MGC) and the Panhellenic Association (PHA). The seven IFC fraternities and seven PHA sororities conducted a rush experience over the past two weekends.
Sorority Rush
The University of Alabama went viral on Tik Tok due to the entertaining “Rush Tok.” The reason this trend broke the Tik Tok algorithm was due to the fact that many people had no idea how much went into sorority rush. The videos consisted of Potential New Members (PNMs) posting their outfits of the day and going through the day-to-day life of a girl rushing. It also showed the other side of the initiated members throwing terms around like “Rho Gammas,” “bumping” and performing their sororities’ songs.
“Preparing for recruitment involves a lot of behind the scenes work that even I underestimated this year, but being able to see and work with everyone in person again has been amazing! I know girls in Tri Delta and across the Panhellenic community have been putting so much time and effort into making recruitment memorable this year, so I cannot wait to see the amazing and unique personalities that each chapter will gain,” the director of member selection and a member of Tri Delta, Emma Aggeler said.
This extremity of a week-long process and nearly “mandatory” for having a social life is not the case for DU. This year, rush took place on Oct. 1 and concluded with bid day on Oct. 4. Bid day is an event where students open their bid card to see what sorority they have joined. This is done through a mutual selection process and there are Rho Gammas that assist the PNMs in the process.
A Rho Gamma is an initiated member who leads around the PNMs to each house to complete a “party.” These parties range from 30 minutes to one hour depending on the day, and this is where a group gets the chance to go around and meet each sorority house. On the first day, every group of PNMs meets each sorority house, and each day the new members narrow their choices down.
“As a senior, I am excited to lead a group of women through recruitment. My Rho Gamma group was a great resource for me as a freshman so I am excited to do the same for others!” Colleen Watson, a Rho Gamma and member of Gamma Phi Beta, said.
While rush is open to all students, freshmen take up the majority of the numbers. This year roughly 200 DU students registered for sorority rush. In comparison to pre-COVID years, this number is low. This can be due to a variety of factors like rush being held later in the quarter, PNMs nervous to enter houses due to the pandemic or students disagreeing with the purpose of a sorority.
Fraternity Rush
On the other hand, fraternity rush had a spectacular turn out with over 200 people signing-up to rush. The IFC kick-off began on Sept. 23 and the last day of rush events was on Sept. 28. New members received their bids electronically last Wednesday.
It is IFC’s responsibility to ensure people are signing up for rush, promoting Greek life and that every team member is fulfilling their commitments and holding organizations accountable. Fraternities are approving their events through Crimson Connect to comply with contract tracing and encouraging everyone to say on top of testing schedules.
The pandemic has created a division between human connections and being able to have in-person social events. This year there is a new Fraternity and Sorority Life (FSL) director, Christopher Miofsky. Miofksy has done a great job at diminishing this division and re-establishing Greek life on campus.
“In abnormal times, having in-person rush really brought back some sense of normalcy which was valuable for the new members,” Brandon Ferguson, the Vice President of Internal Communications of Beta Theta Pi, said.
Fraternity rush is spread out over the course of five days. This gives the new members ample opportunity to attend multiple events being hosted by all of the fraternities. A few of these events included—go-karting by Beta Theta Pi, fruit smash by Delta Chi, paintball and bowling by Zeta Beta Tau, golfing by Pi Kappa Phi, Sunday night football by Lambda Chi Alpha and more.
“It was really great seeing people come out to rush this quarter. We saw a lot of great guys come out. A lot of the people have been craving socializing because of COVID so it was great to see Rush happen in a fun and safe way,” the Beta Theta Pi president, Robel Desta said. “We got 28 people and I am super happy to expand our chapter. COVID has been a trying time for everyone and to see the light at the end of the tunnel is very relieving!”
Greek life is slowly returning to normal with the ability to have in-person recruitment events. There are many opportunities to join a sorority or fraternity through a process called Continuous Open Bidding (COB). This process is different for each organization depending on the amount of people that join each sorority or fraternity. There will be more information on the COB process on each organization’s social media accounts.
