Brian Borden

The ten Greek organizations affiliated with SDSU had a successful week of recruiting new members, with 90 new members added to the Greek system.

Sometimes referred to as “rush week,” recruitment week is a time for the chapters to seek out new members to add to their ranks. This fall, recruitment week ran from Sept. 16 to Sept. 25.

Female fraternity Alpha Xi Delta brought in the most new members with 20 new pledges.

The new recruits will now begin pledge classes to become full members of their respective fraternities.

Greek Council Advisor Shonda Reed said the process and the rules of recruitment are not the same for both sexes.

Men and women fraternities have their own set of rules set by a national organization, Reed said. Individual chapters are allowed to add to those rules so long as the new rules don’t violate the existing rules, which include no hazing and no alcohol at official recruiting events.

Senior Erik Risa, recruitment chair for male fraternity Alpha Gamma Rho (AGR), said one key to getting guys to come to events is through their stomachs.

“What we normally try to do is some free food to get people out there,” he said. “We give a free meal and a house tour.”

Risa, an animal science major, said they also try to have a former alumnus of AGR come and talk during the week. This year retired animal science professor Dr. Dan Gee spoke to the prospective new members.

Risa said recruiting can sometimes be harder for Alpha Gamma Rho because the frat is nationally agricultural. In order to join, a student must have an agriculture major, background or career in mind.

“It makes our job a little more difficult because there may be some interested, but we have to turn them away,” he said.

Despite the requirement, the recruitment events for AGR produced a strong turn-out. AGR added 17 new members.

“That’s the biggest class that we have had in the last four years,” Risa said.

Sophomore Laura Geraets of Ceres said her fraternity gained seven new members this year.

“We’re very happy with the number of people we got and the quality of the people we got,” she said.

Geraets, the Ceres recruitment person, said her fraternity held several events, including a hay ride, a scavenger hunt and a hamburger feed.

Senior Jessica Schultz, the membership vice president for Alpha Xi Delta (AZD), said this was one of the best recruitments they’ve had in several years.

“We haven’t had this many people pledge since the 80s,” she said. “Two years ago we only had four members. At the end of last year we had 24 and at the start of this semester we had 12 due to graduation. Now we have 32.”

Schultz, a sociology and Spanish major, said AZD had many successful recruitment events.

“We had a Mardi Gras party?that went really well, we made masks,” Schultz said. “Our info night was AZD-wood, we used all the different streets and that was the best party we’ve ever had.”

“It’s the year of Greek life altogether,” she said. “All the chapters that were hurting seem to be doing well.”