BY ASHLEY CHELL
SC Staff Writer
As rush week draws to a close, some students will receive an invitation to join one of ESU’s seven fraternities or six sororities this week.
Rush week takes place during the first two weeks of each semester with the bid period lasting for about a week and a half.
It is a time when campus fraternities and sororities open their doors for students to see what they’re all about, and to allow new members to join their organizations.
It involves anything from informational sessions with power point presentations to wing nights and bowling.
At the end of rush, individual chapters get together to talk about who came out to participate and the pros and cons of how everything went.
Then some students are given invitations to join, and five to six weeks later students are initiated into their respective fraternity or sorority.
In order to be eligible to join a fraternity or sorority, a student must have at least a 2.2 GPA, must be taking twelve credits, and must be a second semester freshman.
The GPA minimum will increase to a 2.5 starting next semester.
5 percent of ESU’s undergraduate student population is in a fraternity or sorority.
The average size of each organization is about 27 people, and last semester, forty undergraduate students were initiated into either a fraternity or sorority.
“Here we have a really good sense of whole, in that no one really competes against each other—everyone really works well together,” said Brandon Younkin, ESU’s Interfraternity Council President.
Organizations range from local ones, like the Lambda Iota sorority—which is unique to ESU—to the Theta Chi fraternity, which has over 140 chapters.
Later in the semester, the fraternities and sororities on campus will host Greek Week from April 12-19—during which they all compete against each other in sporting events and different games.
They also bring in guest speakers to talk about hazing prevention and risk management.
At the end, they present awards to different chapters for achievements such as high GPAs or community service participation.
Email Ashley at:
achell1@live.esu.edu
