The greek community is hard at work preparing for another year of new recruits.

Fraternities are now wrapping up their recruitment season, which started after “Greek Week” in early April and has run through the summer.

Sororities, on the other hand, are gearing up for their recruitment week the week before classes start.

Dustin Salmons, sophomore in elementary education, is one of the recruitment chairmen at FarmHouse fraternity. He said his fraternity recruited 23 new members for the fall semester.

“It’s more than just whether we break even [by recruiting enough members to replace outgoing seniors] or not. We’re always looking for quality guys that fit our motto and fit what we’re all about,” Salmons said.

He said that when FarmHouse recruits someone, current members invite the recruit over for a house tour, take him out to eat and try to get to know him. On two Saturdays this summer, all of the potential recruits were invited to go canoeing on the Skunk River or to a barbecue. After these recruitment functions, the chapter members get together and decide which people they will send bids to.

“We just try to see what they’re like and kind of get to know them a little more,” Salmons said. “Basically, we’re looking for the all-around guy that can kind of accomplish whatever he’s involved in.”

The chapter members vote on each potential recruit, and if at least 90 percent of the members vote “yes,” that person gets an invite to join the fraternity.

“FarmHouse kind of stands out because it’s a whole chapter decision on whether a guy gets a bid or not,” Salmons said. “A lot of fraternities put a lot of trust in their recruitment chairs, and the recruitment chairs will just give out bids to people that they like throughout the summer.”

He said when a new member arrives at the fraternity, he is assigned a “big bro,” a FarmHouse liaison who makes sure he gets all of the books he needs, gets to class on time and learns everything he needs to know about life at Iowa State.

Sororities cram the recruitment process into the week before classes start, with what is called formal recruitment.

Samantha Lewis, senior in elementary education, is a member of Gamma Phi Beta sorority and said members are working to prepare for recruitment week.

“We’re kind of just cleaning things up and making sure things look good,” Lewis said.

She said chapter members come back one week before rush for Spirit Week, which gives them the chance to spend time together and prepare for recruitment.

When girls arrive for formal recruitment, they are put into groups that go on tours of all of the sorority houses. They then narrow down their selection to just the houses they are most interested in.

Throughout the week, they go on several visits to the various houses and talk to a lot of people until, at the end of the week, they receive bids from the chapters that choose them.

Lewis said Spirit Week and recruitment week are both dry weeks, which means no alcohol can be consumed at any of the sororities during this time.

“They don’t want to give a bad impression of what greek life looks like,” Lewis said.