Potential New Members Snap Bidding. New Member Period. All of these terms are part of the new Greek bidding process.

Traditionally, the national sorority chapters have followed different rules than SAE and the local chapters. However, new protocols have been put in place this year  in an attempt to unify the national and local chapters.

National chapters like Alpha Sigma Tau and Sigma Sigma Sigma follow the rules for Recruitment set by their organization and the rules put in place by Panhellenic.

“Panhellenic is a nationally recognized organization. It is the governing body that keeps us with our morals and our rules. Making sure that recruitment and our members are putting Greek life in a good light and that we’re doing everything we can to make sure our chapters have good leadership and members that really enjoy their time. It’s a great way to keep sororities connected,” Senior Andrea Oleson said.

“Panhellenic chapters have a more formal recruitment and that happens the week of September 19th. They have more formal events,” Assistant Director of Campus Activities Julianne Watterson said.

Local sororities and fraternities do not have to abide by national standards, which allows them more freedom in the recruitment process.

“The Greek carnival will kick-off the week that will give chapters an opportunity to get to know the people interested in fraternity and sorority life and remember that person when they’re in the process of choosing new members,” Watterson said.

Recruitment events are spread throughout the spring and fall so first-years and upperclassmen interested in joining the Greek community can get to know each chapter individually.

National sororities and local chapters both hold recruitment events, with Alpha Sigma Tau and Sigma Sigma Sigma differing in their bidding process.

Traditionally, the national sororities extend bids to Potential New Members before students can fill out their bids for local chapters. Students can then accept the bids from the National chapters or wait to see if a local chapter picked them.

Snap-bidding will be introduced this year for all chapters after new members have been picked.

Whomever submitted a bid but wasn’t picked by any chapter is eligible to go to an event on Friday, September 30th to talk with all chapters. Chapters then have the option of extending a snap-bid to said person and include them in the pledging period starting the next week.

“During the chapters bidding process, they will have an opportunity once they get their list and know who they’re bring into their chapter, they’ll have a chance to extend bids, or snap-bids to people who are wanting to try again. So Potential New Members that didn’t get into a chapter they were hoping to could receive a snap-bid,” Watterson said.

This idea was proposed last year by Scott Broady, the former Assistant Director of Campus Activities. Snap-bidding is popular among larger universities as a way to give students another chance at joining Greek life.

Snap-bidding will work on a trial basis this year, with the results determining its future use. Although every chapter is welcome to participate in snap-bidding, not every chapter has confirmed participation in it at this time.

Other participatory decisions on the fraternity level include Sigma Alpha Epsilon’s recruitment process. As the only national fraternity on campus, they have opted to go through the local process alongside the other fraternities.

Throughout recruitment, each chapter must follow the study hours set for new members and participate in the all Greek kick-off event. Furthermore, each chapter must submit a proposed activities calendar to be approved by Inter Greek Senate.

After recruitment, members are officially welcomed into their organization.

Currently, Inter Greek Senate oversees this new member period of chapters. This includes Alpha Sigma Tau and Sigma Sigma Sigma,despite their longer process.

“We essentially go through and help chapters sort out their bids and help match who with what,” Inter Greek Senate Co-President Sean O’Connell said.

For those interested in Greek life, there will be a bid box located at the Campus Activities Office desk for students to cast their bids on Sunday, September 25th and Monday, September 26th.

Following that, each chapter will then have three days to decide who they will be offering bids to before the snap-bidding process.

Students who were not initially accepted by a chapter will have the option of attending the snap-bid event and talking to the chapters they’re interested in. Those chapters will then have another option to extend a bid to the individual if they feel they would make a good member of their chapter.

This article was written by Caroline Probst, member of the local Tau Mu Tau Sorority.