Without a house, the recently recolonized Alpha Gamma Delta women’s fraternity is finding other ways to welcome its spring pledge class.

‘A house doesn’t define a sorority,’ said Bianca Cortez, AGD president and junior civil engineering major. ‘But it is kind of special to have our meetings in Hall of Languages, where our founders had their meetings.’

The AGD women’s fraternity participated in its first formal recruitment this spring since recolonizing in the fall. After a successful recruitment, the women’s fraternity has met quota with a new spring 2011 pledge class. Cortez did not have the exact number of pledges.

Now almost three weeks into the six-week process, current AGD members are excited about the pledges and potential sisters, Cortez said. The members enjoy watching the pledges make connections with one another, as well as with the active sisters, she said.

‘I think it’s going well. They have new member meetings to get to know each other and to learn about what it means to be an Alpha Gamma Delta,’ Cortez said. ‘It’s been fun getting to know them and see them making connections.’

During spring recruitment in January, AGD held rounds in locations on and off campus. The first weekend rounds were in the Schine Student Center, and the second weekend rounds were in the Sheraton Syracuse University Hotel and Conference Center on University Avenue. The sisters kept a positive outlook throughout recruitment despite being new and not having a house to work out of, Cortez said. AGD will move into the Butterfield House on Comstock Avenue in the fall.

‘We looked at it positively. Since most new members didn’t know much about greek life, it was pretty level. We kept positive, and overall, us being new didn’t have a negative effect,’ said Cortez.

Cortez said she was very pleased with how AGD’s first formal recruitment went. The women’s fraternity felt prepared and confident through the support from nearby alumnae, other AGD chapter presidents and SU’s Pan-Hellenic Council, Cortez said.

‘For being the first, I think it went really well,’ Cortez said. ‘We had a lot of help from alumnae on campus to help us prepare, and we had a lot of support.’

Although newly recolonized, the women’s fraternity does not have complete freedom in how recruitment and pledging are run. The pledging process began on Bid Day, and the women’s fraternity is adhering to the guidelines set by their founders and followed by each AGD chapter. The recruiting and pledging processes for the SU chapter have been planned since November, Cortez said, and there is also a new member coordinator.

The primary focus of the pledging process is to educate the pledges on the history of the women’s fraternity and what it means to be a sister, Cortez said. The pledges meet weekly, but Cortez could not specifically elaborate on what they did because of regulations.

blszklar@syr.edu

 

Published on February 23, 2011 at 12:00 pm