Southeast Missouri State University student publication

Interfraternity Council Recruitment Process

Saturday, September 5, 2015

Southeast Missouri State University is home to 10 Interfraternity Council chapters, which all have one reason to celebrate: bid day.

Bid day is the day that men who have completed the recruitment process commit to joining a brotherhood. The process began with registration.

“Whenever you’re registering for fraternity recruitment you’re basically giving the office of greek life the permission to check your grades to make sure that you’re eligible to receive a bid, and that recruitment is a 2.65 GPA for Southeast,” Parker Butler, president of the Interfraternity Council said.

Once the men are registered, the organizations (Delta Chi, Lambda Chi Alpha, Phi Delta Theta, Pi Kappa Alpha, Sigma Chi, Sigma Nu, Sigma Phi Epsilon, Sigma Tau Gamma, Theta Xi and Tau Kappa Epsilon) hold events like barbecues, game nights and dinners to meet potential new members.

“People use the term hanging out,” Butler said. “I think it’s really about building relationships, building friendships and really learning what an organization is about and what their focus is.”

Most of the chapters vary in population and in what they’re looking for in new members.

“Our process with fraternity recruitment is very informal, and with that there are no regulations, no caps on new class sizes, which could be good or bad, it just depends,” Austin Cordell, Vice President of Internal Affairs for the Interfraternity Council. “I always tell people that come around just to meet as many people as they can, because there are smaller chapters but maybe that’s where you’d thrive more, where everyone is really close. Or there’s bigger chapters and maybe that’s where you want to go because they have different things going on there.”

This year, there was a total of 233 men who registered for recruitment, which is the largest number of men to date to go through Southeast fall recruitment.

“As long as you fall above that 2.65 threshold you can accept bids from anyone,” Cordell said. “So lets say you go to three houses and two extend bids to you, or any house really. You can get as many as you want, but you can only accept one.”

Sept. 4, is when all the men going through the recruitment process signed their bid cards and celebrated bid day. It happened in Glenn auditorium where the Interfraternity Council had a grade sheet to double check potential new members GPAs, then hand them as many bids as they were offered from different chapters. The men then had to choose one and sign that bid.

After the bids are signed, the new members go to Parker Field where the active members await them and each fraternity takes turns running to their new brothers.

“It’s very satisfying knowing that you’re part of something so successful on Southeast’s campus,” Cordell said. “I think the Greeks do an outstanding job maintaining a good image and doing good things, so it makes me happy to see new people coming into your own house but also to see the community grow as a whole.”

The new members of Pi Kappa Alpha running to the active members on bid day.
Malana Bradford

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