By Magdalena Chavez
Elm Staff Writer
Greek life is a central part of many college campuses, and Washington College is no exception. WC has three sororities on campus: Alpha Chi Omega, Zeta Tau Alpha, and Alpha Omicron Pi.
There are two paths you can take to join a sorority on campus. The first is through formal recruitment, which is open to all students not currently in one of the three sororities.
Formal recruitment is a process through which you meet and talk to members from each of the sororities, and each sorority gets a chance to tell potential new members about their organization.
Formal recruitment will take place this fall, and registration is currently open. You can find the link to register for recruitment on the College’s Panhellenic Instagram page, @panhelwac.
According to their Instagram page, “WAC Panhel Council’s purpose is to promote unity and cooperation among all Greeks, as well as overseeing recruitment events and bids.”
The Panhellenic Council is an organization that includes members from each of the campus’s sororities and fraternities and it deals with events that concern all Greek life, such as recruitment.
The other way that you can join a campus sorority is through continuous open bidding, or the COB process.
COB can be open all year round depending on a sorority chapter’s current numbers, and it is open to all students except for first semester freshmen and those currently in a sorority.
Current sorority members nominate their friends, classmates, or anyone else they think would be a good fit with the sorority. Interested students can also reach out to a current sorority member and ask if the sorority is looking for potential new members.
All COB and formal recruitment events this semester are being held virtually, typically over Zoom and similar platforms.
Potential new members socialize and get to know others in the sorority through these events.
Junior Melissa DeFrancesco, the Vice President of recruitment for Alpha Chi Omega, said, “As a chapter, we try to identify girls we think would be a good fit.”
By talking to current members, interested students can assess if they can see themselves in a particular sorority.
At the end of the COB and recruitment processes, potential new members can receive a formal bid from a sorority.
According to DeFrancesco, potential new members can “accept or reject based on their experience” with that sorority and its members.
If a bid is extended and accepted, then the new members begin to learn about their sorority leading up to their formal induction into the organization.
Both forms of recruitment are open, and more information can be found on @panhelwac, each of the individual chapter’s Instagram pages, or by talking to the members themselves.