Recruits make pledges to WSU fraternities
Matt Lawrence and Shelby Grosch sign their bid cards to join Sigma Alpha Epsilon.
Incoming freshmen have many things on their minds before even stepping on Wichita State soil. Although school supplies and books may be high on their priority list, the WSU Greek community has added another box to be checked and another paper to be signed.
June 1 marked the first day incoming freshmen could sign a bid card for a WSU fraternity. A bid card binds a recruit to a specific fraternity for a full calendar year.
“We had a big event and it started at eight,” incoming president of Sigma Alpha Epsilon, Tyler Nepote, said. “We had 96.3 come out. We had volleyball, and we had anywhere from 20 to 25 incoming high school students come by and check out the house.”
Out of those 20 to 25 students who came by, SAE had 12 sign the bid card Thursday at midnight.
“The university gives every fraternity a list of anywhere from 500 to 1,000 names of incoming freshmen males,” Nepote said.
SAE has a 3.0 GPA requirement, and the student must have been involved in at least one extracurricular activity in high school.
“We are a very social house,” Nepote said. “You’ve got to be OK to hang out with a huge group of people to fit into the house.”
Phi Delta Theta had four men sign bid cards at midnight.
“Recruiting is the really the life-blood of the fraternity,” Phi Delta Theta President Troyce Hefley said. “It is how you grow, how you expand your resources and your man power.”
Fraternities are allowed to recruit all year round, unlike the sororities who set formal and informal recruitment during the year.
“We hold recruitment retention very highly because without the turnover of the guys any Greek organization can really collapse,” Hefley said.
Beta Theta Pi recruitment chairman Scott Sutherland said they had six recruits sign the bid cards on Friday.
“You cannot do as many events or raise as much money for charity or anything like that if you have low numbers,” Sutherland said. “We have a strong brotherhood and we have a good connection with our alumni.”
Sigma Phi Epsilon also participated in the recruitment event with three recruits signing bid cards.
