Panhellenic council plans for recruitment in pandemic

Wofford’s decision to hold sorority recruitment in the spring semester rather than the fall may prove helpful this year as the Panhellenic Council plans for a COVID-19-friendly process. The change to the academic calendar has moved recruitment to the week of Jan. 21.

Maggie Payne ‘21, the vice president of recruitment, explained that there are three plans in place for recruitment. Plan A is fully virtual, plan B is hybrid and plan C is fully in person, albeit with social distancing regulations.

Plan A, Payne said, “will use Zoom and breakout rooms to get virtual facetime between the sorority women and the possible new members (PNMs). In this way it will feel like a normal recruitment round.”

While a virtual recruitment may not be everyone’s first choice, Payne maintained that Plan A will offer an advantage over the traditional in-person process: a return to a values-based recruitment. Payne explained, “I don’t want the recruitment process to ever be based on the name of a sorority or what it may bring to you; I want the recruitment process to heavily be about the values that a sorority has in matching with the values of an individual.”

A virtual recruitment with hundreds of students is no small feat. Payne was excited to share that for the first time ever there will be a ‘recruitment dress rehearsal’ the week before, to give sororities the opportunity to practice the virtual meetings. Technological difficulties want to be mitigated for seamless recruitment.

Panhellenic planners also have to plan where the PNMs will be physically. Payne said that she “would like to reserve almost 100+ classrooms on campus to be able to spread people out, give them that social distance but also the privacy that they would need in order to feel comfortable conducting these kinds for conversations”

As of now, Plan A may be the most likely considering the state of the pandemic on campus. If the situation improves, however, then the college may choose Plan C.

Payne explained the in-person plans are “overly cautious because this is a pandemic that has to be taken seri- ously and while I would love to have recruitment during this time… I think we have to be very patient in this time… understand it may not be the experience we hoped for but we can find a way to make the most out of it”

The last day of recruitment week, bid day, follows the same trajectory with three options in place. In a fully virtual bid day, the bids will be “sent out in an email with a video attached form the sororities welcoming you. You have 24 hours to reach out to your Gamma Chi to accept or decline the bid.”

Payne argued that this system will actually alleviate stress for PNMs. Rather than having to make an immediate yes or no decision on bid day, PNMs can “really think through whether you want to accept or decline.”

Plan B for bid day involves a drive through tailgate. Sororities would line the sides of a parking lot and new members would move through, collecting their bid day gear.

Plan C for bid day would be in-person in Gibbs Stadium with strict social distancing. There would only be two Gamma Chi groups at a time, and the famed ‘running home’ would be running “to two members of a sorority as opposed to the entire sorority.”

Although there are six different plans in place, Payne warned “we may not know which version is happening until two weeks before.”

No matter which plan the college decides on, Payne felt confident that the recruitment process will prove safe, high energy and will be a great introduction to all that Greek life at Wofford has to offer.