Fall formal rush sent over 500 Iowa State students to new chapters, and Iowa State’s greek community welcomed them with open arms: most of them, literally.
Thursday’s bid day concluded formal recruitment for Iowa State’s Interfraternity Council (IFC) and Collegiate Panhellenic Council’s (CPC) member chapters.
The communities gathered beneath the Campanile to welcome the new members, with fraternities in the morning and sororities in the afternoon.
IFC welcomed the new bids NFL-style, announcing each bid’s name imitating the NFL Draft.
CPC bids ran to find representatives from their new chapter after opening an envelope with their bid inside. The chapter’s newest members learned their chapter’s chant before running through the Campanile to join other members of their chapter in shouting the chant alongside their new sisters.
Carolyn Klein, junior in psychology and member of Alpha Delta Pi, served as a recruitment counselor guiding a group of potential new members, unaffiliated from her own chapter. Klein said the process is emotional, which was a driving factor for her to become a recruitment counselor.
“I went through the process and it was horrifying at times, but it was so fun,” Klein said moments before 430 students rushed to their new sisters. “And I found the girls so I have never had to pretend to be someone else. I can always be myself from the people I found through my sorority and I knew I wanted to help a bunch of incoming freshmen find that same thing.”
According to the Office for Sorority and Fraternity Engagement, the CPC community gained more than 430 members Thursday spread across Iowa State’s 17 chapters.
Klein said it can be scary being recruited by 17 houses, and ultimately calling one home.
“They’ve gone through an entire week of meeting new girls,” Klein said. “Not going back to chapters, going back to chapters, trying to get people a second chance, and this is the day where they go from meeting 17 chapters to just one that they get to go home to and stick with. So it can be really scary to make the right choice, or hopefully the right choice finds you.”
Spirits were high on bid day, Jeremy Koger, senior in aerospace engineering, Interfraternity Council president and member of Sigma Alpha Epsilon said.
“This is our way of showing the community we’re hyped to have these guys,” Koger said. “We’re ready to have them join our community, join the fraternities here. We just want it to be a good celebratory day, spirits are high, morale is high.”
Recruitment is a long process, showcasing the chapters at ISU, Koger said.
“For these guys it’s been a really long week,” Koger said. “They’ve spent just about every day going around meeting all 30 fraternities here in the Interfraternity Council here at Iowa State. Guys get to go home, they finally get to meet their chapter brothers and it’s a really exciting day for them.”
Chris Banwart, senior in mechanical engineering and IFC vice president of recruitment and member of Theta Chi guided potential new members through the recruitment process, which he said can be intimidating.
“My job was to make sure that they find the right fraternity for them,” Banwart said, beneath the Campanile on bid day. “Here at Iowa State we have 30 different fraternities, which is awesome. It can be kind of intimidating, that’s why a lot of guys go through fall formal recruitment, just to find out of all those 30 if there’s one that’s right for them.”
Iowa State’s interfraternity community gained more than 110 members on bid day, according to the Office of Sorority and Fraternity Engagement.
Kappa Kappa Gamma has moved into a new house in the same location the chapter has stood for years, and Pi Kappa Alpha moved back into its house this fall after multiple suspensions over recent years.
Phi Kappa Sigma, a young fraternity at ISU, started its Iowa State chapter in fall 2022 and participated in recruitment this year.
