Travel update – and a tough topic
THIS JUST IN: Due to potential travel issues, Residence Life and Housing has changed its spring semester move-in date: students can arrive tomorrow if they wish. Students were sent an email this afternoon. Details here.
Now to today’s other business…every year at this time I struggle with the Daily Deac, because the big event on campus right now is sorority recruitment, and our Deac families tend to have strong feelings about the topic. Some of our families tell me they think Greek life is great and they are glad to read about the recruitment process or how to help support their students (particularly if they end up disappointed in their outcomes). Other families tell me they are not fans of Greek life and think I am giving too much airtime to an activity that they do not support or endorse.
Please know I am Switzerland on the subject of Greek life. I am neither pro-Greek nor anti-Greek. Instead, I am pro-what-is-right-for-your-student (and only she will know what that is).
My sense from all my years – as a student myself as well as an administrator – is that if a girl really wants to be in a sorority and gets in, she’s happy. If she has no interest in sorority life and doesn’t participate in recruitment, she is happy too. The difficulty comes when one does not get invited back to the top sorority(ies) one wanted, or is not successfully matched with any group (for a refresher on the overall recruitment process, here you go.)
For those families with daughters going through recruitment, the Office of Fraternity and Sorority Life will send out periodic updates about the activities of recruitment. Their office is a wonderful place to turn for support. The Office of Family Engagement also has some things to consider in the event your daughter experiences a disappointment, in the vein of the Stop-Drop-and-Roll method.
I also wanted to tell the story of a Wake Forest alumna about her recruitment experience (she gave me permission to share it). She wrote:
I went through recruitment my freshman year and single intention preferenced one sorority [single intention preferencing is when one lists only one of her two available options on her Bid Day preference card]. Made it through the third round, but did not get a bid. I can to this day remember when my recruitment counselor came into my room and told me. I thought the world had crashed around me. It was so so tough.
BUT the sun came out, I still had a good semester and in the next year I rushed again, this time maximizing all my available options. AND I got my first choice :). I went on to be very involved and connected to so many other girls I otherwise wouldn’t have known. I had a leadership role my senior year and to this day I am in lifelong friendships with sisters…and other Deacons too…. both independent and Greek. I have lots of photos, old and new, of those friendships.
All that to say is that for the right girl who could use the story of an alumna who’s been there, I wanted to share my story and show her the sun comes out even brighter!
PS: It ended up being the girls who got in as freshman who rallied around me and cheered the loudest when I got my bid as a sophomore 🙂