With all the hustle and bustle of a new school year, everyone is gearing up for the fall term. University of Oregon Fraternity & Sorority Life has been planning fall recruitment events for months.
According to Morgan Plew, member of Pi Beta Phi and Panhellenic Council president, FSL can be a great place for students not already involved at UO to connect to the campus.
“As a whole, it is great to have such a supportive group to hold you accountable for grades and do community service,” Plew said. “It’s a great way to jump in and get involved.”
Plew believes that first-year students get something truly special from simply just participating in recruitment events.
“Specifically, for new people to the university, recruitment is a great way to meet a large network of people in your residence hall or classes, and it’s a great way to start off the year,” Plew said. “Even if you don’t end up deciding to join a chapter, you’ll have familiar faces around campus.”
Justin Shukas, FSL Director, has been overseeing the planning, but understands that it is important to let the community take the reins.
“Stressful isn’t the right word (for recruitment), but you want it to run smoothly, so for me, the exciting part is getting through the things that come up,” Shukas said. “It’s a lot of moving pieces and it’s like a well-oiled machine – It runs smoothly when you get all those pieces working together.”
Many things in the FSL community will be changing in both the upcoming year and in the long term.
“Something I’m really excited about is that we are in the process of hiring an assistant director, and we’ve been working on this all summer,” Plew said. “It’s going to be great to have another staff member helping and advising.”
For Shukas, the excitement stems from a desire for more outreach in the Greek community.
“It’s definitely going to be a huge help to advising the Greek community and offer chapter leaders a lot more guidance,” Shukas said. “We have been hoping for this for a long time, and we have been understaffed for a long time so it’ll be great to get some new perspective in the office.”
Other changes happening down the road include Panhellenic expansion in both the falls of 2015 and 2017.
“In the fall of 2015, Sigma Kappa will be here, and fall of 2017, Delta Zeta will be here,” Plew said. “They weren’t ready to colonize so quickly, but we will be telling (potential new members) that there will be an opportunity in the future, if that is something they want to keep in mind.”
For young women and men who are considering joining the FSL community this fall, secondary registration for Fall Formal Recruitment is open until Oct. 5. @@checked link@@
Overall, current FSL members are just excited to see their community growing.
“I think fall is definitely our busiest time of year, so there is a lot of energy, especially with recruitment, and it’s exciting to see all the new students wanting to join the FSL community,” Shukas said.
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