You know the old expression “birds of a feather flock together”? Well, it’s true, sometimes we as sorority women, can get caught up in surrounding ourselves with people who have similar characteristics as ourselves. This can make us become much stronger in certain areas, such as very close-knit sisterhood bonds, and weaker in other areas, like leadership on campus.
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Does your chapter have more social butterflies, straight A students, or more leaders than any other sorority on campus? It is important to have a mix of all types of women to develop a well-rounded chapter. When planning for recruitment, you need to discover what your chapter’s ‘gaps’ are in order to recruit PNM’s who can diversify your chapter.
Do you need more women to get involved on campus? Well, then you need to be looking for PNMs who have a laundry list of activities from high school during recruitment.
Has your chapter been focusing on campus involvement the past few years, and now your sisters are so busy they seem like they hardly know each other? Then you need to look for those behind the scenes women going through recruitment who always organize outings with girlfriends, are very supportive and looking to develop close relationships with new women. They could help rebuild your sisterhood.
Has your chapter fallen down the ranks in GPA over the past year or two? You need to seek out those women who put academics top on their list of priorities this recruitment season.
Could your chapter participate in more community service and/or raise more money for one of your philanthropies? You’ll want to find the PNM’s who did a lot of volunteering in high school and seem to have a passion for philanthropic work.
Assess your chapter. Figure out where the gaps exist. Then find the PNM’s who possess the ‘gapped’ qualities to help bring your chapter to its full potential.
So what does your current membership look like? Some fun and effective ways to do this are through personality color-coding or Myers-Briggs. You can take a free personality assessment at www.colorcoding.com and check out Myers-Briggs at www.myersbriggs.org.
You may also want to have members assess themselves on a scale of 1 to 5 in all the areas your chapter values. Put together a visual for the chapter to see where they ranked themselves, so they can see it as a collective group. It’s important to have your sisters take ownership, so they will hold themselves accountable down the road.
Once your chapter has done their assessment, you can decide what type of women you are looking for during sorority recruitment. Once you know what type of women you’re looking for, you can figure out the questions you’ll need to ask and the qualities you’re looking for in a PNM. Creating these guidelines will help you and your sisters know just the right women to recruit this year!
How has your chapter filled any gaps in the past?
Cheers!
Casey, Kate, and Rachel
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