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An age-old recruitment week practice will change for UNK sororities in fall of 2021. Sororities will implement affiliated recruitment.
This element of recruitment will be changed to better the process as a whole.
“With this approach. We can be more genuine and show what our community is really about,” said Kelsey Hassenstab, assistant director of fraternity and sorority life. “We want to make sure that they have the best experience.”
In years past, recruitment counselors—also known as Pi Chis—were asked to disaffiliate from their sororities for recruitment week. It is the recruitment counselors’ jobs to guide incoming students in finding the sorority that is right for them. Previously, Pi Chis removed themselves from their sororities in order to remain unbiased for the new recruits. This involved hiding all social media posts or other sources of reference that could link them to a specific sorority.
This fall, they will just disassociate rather than disaffiliate. Disassociation will allow the recruitment counselors to reveal their affiliation while remaining unbiased in helping the incoming students. In addition, the students will still be able to go through the week without knowing the affiliation of their recruitment officers. Recruitment officers will also be able to keep their affiliation a secret if they wish.
UNK sororities were influenced by other chapters throughout the country to enact this new policy. Hassenstab said this change will affect how recruitment officers are trained, but it will not affect the recruitment process itself. This will also allow Pi Chis to be themselves and not hide a part of who they are, as well as make sure the recruitment process is more focused on the student’s experience.
“By the Pi Chi’s chapter not being hidden, it’s hopefully going to provide a lot more authentic experience for the potential new members going through recruitment and hopefully going to put the focus more on the [potential new members’] experience because sometimes we just get caught up in making sure no one finds out what our chapter is,” said McKenna Gierhan, vice president of internal recruitment.