Despite a shortened recruitment schedule due to weather, the Interfraternity Council saw a rise in new members, with 370 students accepting bids. Last year, 348 students joined fraternities, according to numbers provided by IFC last year.
Sorority recruitment wrapped up on Tuesday night, but the Panhellenic Association would not comment on this year’s recruitment process.
Will Ritter, vice president for recruitment for IFC, said he expects numbers to rise over the next few days and weeks, as three chapters continue to recruit and others wait on outstanding bids.
Sigma Nu participated in formal winter recruitment for the first time this year and had 25 pledges, which was more than Recruitment Chairman Daniel Weinberg was expecting.
“It’s hard to get your name into the fold,” the Weinberg sophomore said. “Some people write you off for not having a reputation. It was to our advantage to get people who didn’t care about us not having a reputation, and then they could just see us for who we are without a stereotype.”
Delta Tau Delta was also new to the formal recruitment process. This was Delt’s second time participating in winter recruitment since returning to campus in 2012. In an email to The Daily, Delt President Michael Graf said the fraternity gained 30 new members this year.
Devon D’Apuzzo, one of the new Delt members, said he liked that the fraternity was newer to campus.
“I thought it’d be really cool to kind of be a defining member of the house and have a say in the future, instead of being set in stone,” the McCormick freshman said.
Last year, Delt had 22 new members after completing recruitment.
Ritter believes one of the reasons IFC saw an increase in overall pledges was due to the Building Better Leaders campaign launched in the fall, following 2012’s “…and I am Greek” campaign.
“It was kind of this idea of we’ve shown what Greek students do in addition to being Greek, but what opportunities have they been offered because of being Greek,” said Ritter, a Weinberg senior. “Everybody has a different story about what Greek life means to them and what kind of opportunities it’s provided … We hope that was a little inspiring for people hoping to go through the recruitment process.”
Although the recruitment process stayed the same, Ritter said IFC participated in several new initiatives in the fall, such as co-hosting the new student tailgate and a Greek life question-and-answer session.
The turnout at the Q-and-A session was low, but Ritter said he hopes it will grow in the upcoming years.
“Our whole attitude about it was that it didn’t hurt us to show up, and if we got one person or we got 80, at least we were getting people’s questions answered,” Ritter said.
This year also marked the return of a fraternity recruitment kick-off event, which did not happen last year due to low turnout in the past when the event was held at Norris. The decision to move this year’s kick-off to the area outside of Lisa’s Cafe produced much higher numbers.
D’Apuzzo said his interest in joining a fraternity grew as he spent more time at Northwestern.
“The more I came to stuff, the more I realized it was just a bunch of guys sharing common interests, hanging out, having a good time, being together,” he said. “And that’s what I was looking for.”
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