Students passing through the basement of the Campus Center on Monday and Tuesday last week likely noticed the Greek bid boxes.
The interest in Greek life on the Gustavus campus has grown in past years. Last year the number of bids was under 200, and this year 218 Gusties decided to give the Greek Life a try. However, as the number of bids grow, the chances of getting in decline ever so slightly.
Out of 218 students, 180 have recently been accepted into the Greek community. Alexis Cowley serves as co-pledge chair of the Inter-Greek Senate.
“We had a lot of people bid this year and it’s hard for chapters to take such a large influx of people,” Cowley said.
Cowley added that sophomores who decided not to place a bid this year still have the opportunity in the future, as junior and senior students are also eligible.
Co-President of the Inter-Greek Senate Kayla Hutsell also encouraged students to explore the range of organizations offered through Gustavus Greek life.
“We try really hard to stress not bidding just one chapter because if you want to go Greek, try to go Greek, but a lot of people find they only fit in with one chapter so they’ll only put one in… and some people kind of get lost in it,” Hutsell said.
Everyone can bid up to three sororities or fraternities, and doing so greatly increases the chances of getting into the Greek Community.
If people are interested in going Greek but do not find a sorority or fraternity that strikes their fancy, there is always the option of resurrecting one from the archives like Co-President of Kappa Sigma Chi Richard Green did this past year.
“I was going through the bidding process last year and it was really kind of like a hard time for me because I wasn’t sure if I fit in to the group of guys or anything, and my friend was kind of proposing ideas like ‘oh how cool would it be just to start your own fraternity.’ And when I heard that, I was like ‘sure why wouldn’t we’ so we went up to the archives, looked through a couple files and saw Kappa Sigma Chi and there you go, that’s kind of how it all started,” Green said.
Kappa Sigma Chi was established at Gustavus in 1914, but was disbanded in 2004 simply because the paper work was not taken care of. Currently, their mission is anti-bullying. The fraternity has 19 members, after accepting seven new members this past weekend.
Green, like his fellow Greek leaders, takes a lot of pride in his organization.
“Our group of guys is just very close knit and friendly… you could walk up to any one of them…you’ll see the excitement and enthusiasm on their face how much they care for the fraternity and I think that really says a lot about the group of guys we have and the group of guys we want,” Green said.
Get ready for even more Greek pride as all the new pledges are introduced into the Greek life.
“These next two weeks are really sacred to the Greek community and people will be showing Greek pride and we’re really excited as the Inter-Greek senate to see what this year’s pledge does for our Greek unity as a whole,” Hutsell said.
-Rachael Manser