Do B So Good morning welcome to the summer webinar series sponsored by the off campus student and family engagement office i am your host jay jackson the coordinator for family engagement today’s webinar is fraternity and sorority life presented by jennifer griffin please note the following housekeeping guidelines as a participant
You are unable to speak directly with presumers but you may use the q a function on the zoom link in the chat feature on facebook live we are unable to see you all your cameras and microphones have been muted for this webinar questions will be taken after the
Presentation please ensure that you do not place any personal identifying information in your questions and if your questions are not answered during the presentation you may reach out to fraternity and sorority life um later on once the presentation has ended and the last question is taken the webinar will end for all participants
Thank you for participating in today’s webinar here is your presenter jennifer griffin hello good morning everyone and thank you so much for to off campus student and family engagement for having me this morning i’m going to go ahead and share my screen because i do have
Some slide content that i wanted to to share with our viewers this morning all right and so like jamisia said my name is jennifer griffin and i serve as the director of student involvement and leadership and here at uab our fraternity and sorority community is a part of the student involvement and
Leadership team so it falls with under our office department an area of oversight here at uab and so we do have two dedicated staff members that are here to support and provide direct support and advising to that fraternity and sorority community those two staff members we have an assistant director for fraternity and
Sorority life as well as a coordinator for fraternity and sorority life again that are advising those communities and serving as a direct point of contact and so my goal with during our time today is to share with you a little bit about the our community a little bit about fraternity and sorority life
Nationally and talk a little bit about what are some reasons for why your student might consider choosing this this path or venue in terms of their involvement experience while they’re at uab and so i actually wanted to start there you know i think that when you come to uab
You have a wide variety of opportunities and even routes that you can go in terms of involvement but there are some specific reasons why our students choose to go the route of fraternity and sorority life involvement in terms of their experience and part of that is because
Of the desire to build a sense of community our fraternity and sorority community is a tight-knit community i’m going to go over the size of that community here shortly but nationally we’re looking at 9 million total members across all of the affiliated organizations across the country
And so our community here at uab is much smaller obviously but the community that our the members receive is not just that from their direct brothers and sisters here on campus it’s their brothers and sisters across the country and so a lot of students really choose to go the route of fraternity and
Sorority life as intentionally to prepare them for their future professional endeavors their future career endeavors knowing that they might not always be based in alabama but they will always be in a place where they can be surrounded by their brothers and sisters who have similar values
To them and and those values that are really at the core also serving for the organization that they’re a member of another reason that students choose to to go greek is is due to the resources and support that students who are a member of one of those affiliated organizations receive
So because of the academic supports and the sense of community and the the connection to the university that membership brings those students are are more likely to not only be retained at the university from say their freshman to sophomore year or their sophomore to junior year but they’re actually more likely to be
Retained and to actually graduate with the 70 graduation rate naturally or excuse me nationally for our fraternity and sorority members similarly many of our organizations if not all of them have service to the community as a core value and so uh being a member of an organization is going to come with an
Expectation that you are a of service to your community and that’s going to be a part of the fraternal and sorority experience as well and as a result our greek organizations and greek organizations across the country contribute 10 million hours of volunteer service each year to their local and even national communities
And then another reason is really i think unique to the greek experience and that a lot of times becoming a member in a fraternity or sorority is a great gateway to other involvement experiences and part of that is because you are connecting with other students with other peers who are involved in other
Organizations and so it’s a great connection to bring a friend along and help them um get exposed to other involvement opportunities that exist on campus additionally some chapters even require that so they don’t want the fraternity or the sorority to be the only outlet for that student’s sense of community
They want them to have other experiences on campus and so many organizations will even have a requirement that you have to be involved in something else outside of the chapter as a way to ensure that they are really assisting with the development of a well-rounded student and so looking specifically at uab i
Wanted to give kind of a broad overview of what our community looks like i do think it’s helpful to know what the fraternity and sorority life landscape is nationally but thinking about if you’re students getting ready to become a blazer we also want them to know what it
Means to be a part of our uab fraternity and sorority community and so here at uab in the spring 21 semester we ended with a a community or fraternity sorority community that had a total of 928 members we have 28 active chapters and i’m going to share with you all this morning
What those chapters are and how they recruit or conduct intake for their new members and those 28 chapters fall within four governing councils that we have here on campus and those governing councils are going to provide support as well as oversight to ensure that the chapters are aligning with their national
Standards um and also aligning with the university’s expectations for greek membership here on campus our fraternity and sorority community is made up of about 70 females and and about 30 males um and you’ll see that within our fraternity and sorority membership and then like i mentioned before we do
Have four count governing councils here on campus that i will talk about in just a few minutes um and so the breakdown there in terms of what percentage of the community we’ve got about 50 of our community is our panhellenic sorority members 14 percent is our nphc fraternity and sorority members
Um about 7.5 percent is our multicultural greek organization members and then about 25 percent is our inner fraternity council members and again i’ll talk about what chapters make up those councils here shortly and so when thinking about again you know what students give to this experience as well
As what they give out of it community engagement is a core pillar of our fraternity and sorority community here at uab and it’s it’s a core pillar of that community nationally as well but here at uab our chapters typically we do have a volunteer requirement for their members
Because that’s a core mission pillar for them they want to make sure that their members are are demonstrating a commitment to service through their involvement and outreach to the community and so that typically looks like the chapter going and serving together a few times throughout the year um maybe
Maybe even more frequently throughout the year depending on the organization and even the interests of those members and so what that looks like on an annual basis is over 14 000 hours of service that our fraternity and sorority community here at uab is giving back to the the local birmingham community
That service can also take the form of philanthropy dollars raised so they do a lot of fundraising for philanthropic organizations that have a direct tie to their organization um and so in each organization actually has probably a minimum of one some of them have multiple though they’ll have a national
Philanthropy that they support as well as a local or regional philanthropy that they support and so they’ll plan events um as well as service activities opportunities for them to really contribute and give back to that organization and sometimes even raise money that they can donate to to that organization and so
What that looks like on an annual basis is over three hundred thousand dollars of philanthropy dollars that have been raised again by our undergraduate students that are a part of our our fraternity and sorority community um you can see a breakdown of even how those philanthropy dollars fall
Between council please keep in mind as i share these percentages that every council is is going to be have a different size they’re going to have a different average size in terms of their chapter as well as their new member experience and i would say that size is not
Equal to the type of experience a student is going to have i just think it’s helpful for for your students to understand what is that experience going to look like what is this community that i’m i’m considering joining what is that going to look like and how many people
Are we talking about that i’m gonna interact with as a part of that experience so that’s really why i share that information in addition to community engagement academic achievement and success is a huge priority for our fraternities and sororities and in fact every chapter is going to have a minimum
Gpa requirement in order for them to be able to extend an invitation for membership to an incoming or a new student or a student who’s interested and so i share that so that your student understands that that is going to be an expectation not only to join
But it’s also going to be an expectation that they maintain a certain gpa in order to remain a member in the organization throughout their college experience and so what i’ve got here is not the gpa requirement this is actually what their average these councils average gpas were
For the spring 21 semester and so for the spring 2021 semester our interfraternity council average gpa for a chapter was a 3.31 the average gpa for our multicultural greek council was 3.27 the average gpa for a chapter within our national panhellenic council was a 2.91 and the average uh chapter gpa
For an organization in our college panhellenic council was a 3.37 aren’t all greek gpa so the average gpa for our entire greek community is at 3.23 and we like that is pretty significant i like to talk about that because it isn’t a full point higher than the all uab
Undergraduate gpa which was a 3.12 for the spring 2021 semester similar we similarly we see that our sorority women um succeed and earn a higher gpa than our non-sorority women with a a 3.37 gpa compared to the all undergraduate women’s gpa at uab which was a 3.19
And the same goes for our our fraternity men we had an all fraternity gpa of 3.11 compared to the all undergraduate men’s gpa that was a 3.01 for the spring 2021 semester and so i share this to say this is where our current our chapters currently stand
But they are going to have specific criteria again for their members and so that is really specific to the chapter i would say that even within each respective council it varies a little bit it’s pretty consistent and i would say at the at the very least the student has
To be in good academic standing at the university in order to be in good standing with their chapter but many chapters are going to have a higher expectation for the gpas of their members and they’re going to provide support to ensure that the students are are able to be successful academically
Our fraternities and sororities understand and even celebrate the fact that our students are here to earn a degree and they want to support that degree completion they want to support that that success throughout the four years in college with the hopes that these students will will earn and be able to identify
A career path following graduation and so they put standards and expectations in place to help support that throughout the students college experience i also think it’s helpful to to have a little bit of information in terms of gpa specifically about our new member community and so this past year we accepted a
Total of 453 new members um to our fraternity and sorority community through those four councils and so you can see here that about 42 percent of those new members joined our panalynic council 24 joined our national panhellenic council 12 percent joined our multicultural greek council and 23 joined our inner fraternity council
And again some of that is really based on the amount of new members that the chapter could take i would say these numbers are also a little unique this past year due to the coven 19 pandemic we did see a little bit of a change in the type of
Type of intake and recruitment processes that we were able to do due to restrictions surrounding gathering and so i anticipate that we had some students who even chose not to participate because it was not going to to be like the traditional experience that they expected and so we’re hoping to welcome those
Students back this coming fall um and to allow them to go through that process so that they can join the community if they intended to do so similarly i wanted to share the average gpa for our new members during their new member semester and so i know
That a lot of times with involvement in general academic achievement and success can be a concern for our new students in terms of being able to manage multiple priorities and balance their time commitments in addition to what they are managing with their academics and so i would say as a whole our
Fraternity and sorority community really places again a lot of emphasis on supporting that academic achievement and even has an expectation that that our students or that their members are successful in the classroom and so we’ve got their their average gpas again for each of the councils
Do keep in mind that the reason you might see some variation is also because of the number of new members within each of each of those councils and so i wanted to dive in and talk a little bit about the councils that we do have represented
On our campus here at uab we have four governing councils that really provide like i said direct support and oversight for the 28 chapters that we have on campus our inner fraternity council consists of nine social fraternities and has an average chapter size of 26 members our multicultural greek council has a
Total of five fraternities and sororities so they actually have three sororities two fraternities and they have an average chapter size of 14 members our national panhellenic council consists of we have eight of the divine nine chapters there’s in both fraternities and sororities within this council and the average chapter size within this
Community is 16 members and then finally our college panhellenic council has a total of six social sororities that fall within it and the average chapter size within this council is 81 members so just a helpful overview of what kinds of what the chapter sizes are we’re going to talk specifically about
Each of these councils what chapters are fall within them and what how they conduct their recruitment or intake process here shortly and so we’ll start off with the inner fraternity council like i said this this council consists of nine chapters nine social fraternities and those fraternities include alpha sigma phi
Alpha tau omega delta sigma phi lambda chi alpha pi kappa phi tau kappa epsilon theta chi phi gamma delta and sigma chi and one thing that i do want to note i’ve got colony written next to both alpha sigma phi as well as sigma chi and the reason for that those chapters
Are active organizations that are currently recruiting members they are recognized by the university but they are newer organizations on our campus and so they currently exist as colonies meaning that they have not officially chartered at the university both of these organizations are in the process of planning their charter
Ceremonies which is really exciting um and like i said they have every privilege that the rest of our our ifc fraternities have it really just means that they’re a little bit newer to the campus and are still getting established and so but again participate in all of our recruitment activities for this council
Host events and activities in the same way that any other fraternity does and both of these these chapters are affiliated to national organizations like i said the average chapter size for ifc is 26 members the average new member class size for our ifc fraternities is about 13 members
And so typically through the recruitment process and through a student’s new member process they’re going to be going through that experience with about 12 other 12 other guys they conduct recruitment and ifc is uh um here at uab actually participates in what they call a 365 recruitment model
And so what that means is that technically these chapters are recruiting year-round right there’s there’s not a formal recruitment period although technically on our campus we do still host a formal recruitment process that period of time is kind of ongoing and they can really take members
Up until this a certain point i would say the only the exception to them being able to recruit 365 days a year is are certain times of year they have to allow um or provide enough time for any men that they take in to participate in their new member process
And initiate and they’re not allowed to have a member or a group of new members serve as new members over a like a university designated break so for example they could not recruit members in the month like say at the end of april have those guys serve as new members
Over the summer and then initiate them in the fall they have to do it all within one academic term but because the chapters both new member and initiation process will vary by chapter in terms of time um like how long it takes they are able
It is a little bit more fluid in terms of when they can accept new members with that being said ifc still does host a formal recruitment in both the fall and spring semesters and so a student does not have to participate in this formal recruitment process
In order to join a chapter but it’s a great way to do so especially if your student is unsure which chapter is the right one for them you know we’ve got some students that come in and know what chapter they want to join right off the bat
And so they may choose not to go through this formal recruitment process and to be picked up by the fraternity but going through formal recruitment maximizes your students options of being invited to to join as a member um for that semester and so the formal recruitment process in the fall will
Take place in september we’re still trying to understand what the university’s expectations for gathering are going to be and so that council is still in the midst of planning those exact dates and even the the exact time frame but the process is typically a week long
We do about uh there’s kind of an open house introductory night where they’ll come and learn about all of the chapters then they’ll go and kind of visit those chapters that they really enjoyed a couple times throughout the week and then we end it with bid day and so great opportunity
Even if your student chooses not to join a fraternity through the process i would encourage them just to go through and because it’s a great way to meet other people um and meet new friends and and guys that you can really develop a lasting relationship with our next council is the multicultural
Greek council and and there we often call them mgc and mgc consists of five chapters here at uab and so we have beta chi theta fraternity incorporated delta epsilon psi fraternity incorporated delta phi omega sorority incorporated sigma sigma rho sorority incorporated and sigma lambda gamma national sorority incorporated
The average chapter size for our multicultural group chapters is about 14 members with the average new member class size being around six members and so with these students they are again joining a a a more intimate experience and so especially if your student is concerned about being overwhelmed
With the with the number of members and some of those larger organizations a council like this might be a better fit for them i’d also encourage you and your student and i’m going to talk about some things that you can do to really continue to understand the fraternity and sorority community and
Also make the most informed decision about if membership is a good fit for you but at a minimum i’d really encourage you to look up these councils look up the individual organizations to really understand what their values and priorities are as an organization the multicultural greek council conducts an
Intake process in terms of how they accept new members and so they actually do a bit of a hybrid where there’s a little bit of recruitment so they do some open houses um they they do some i guess what you would call recruitment type events um and that they’re putting information
Out there pretty openly and broadly but then their actual intake process where they are accepting new members and inviting them to participate as a new member in the organization their new member process does really operate with a component of discretion and that they are really meant to be committed and
Dedicated to that experience through um through the organization and so while those recruitment and intake processes are actually hosted individually by each chapter the multicultural greek council as a whole does offer a kickoff event that they host the beginning of each semester they do it in both the fall
And spring semesters and at this kickoff event it’s really a great way they use it more as um i would say like an introduction to each of the organizations that are within the council and so each of the organizations will talk a little bit about their chapter
Um they are you know maybe their their values or priorities what’s important to them as an organization they’ll talk a little bit about if they’re going to be conducting intake that semester um and who the who the participants can reach out to if they are interested in joining
And they typically host that event in september and so if your student has any interest in potentially joining one of our mgc organizations i would encourage them to attend the kickoff event and to be on the lookout for the specific dates and times for that event when they get on campus in august
One other thing about recruitment and intake that i think is helpful to understand is that the organization is also going to go over the process varies a little from organization to organization and so they’re going to cover that really during those interest meetings their information meetings that they’re hosting
So those are a great time to also ask questions a lot of these chapters additionally will have an outline of what their new member process looks like on their national websites and so you can if your student is curious about what that process will look like what’s the length of the process
A lot of that information can be found online our next council is the national panhellenic council like i said before this council does consist of eight chapters both sororities and fraternities and so within nphc we have alpha phi alpha fraternity incorporated alpha kappa alpha sorority incorporated kappa alpha psi fraternity incorporated omega sci-fi
Fraternity incorporated delta sigma theta sorority incorporated phi beta sigma fraternity incorporated zeta phi beta sorority incorporated and sigma gamma rho sorority incorporated so again we have eight of the divine nine chapters here at uab within this council the average chapter size for these organizations again is 16 members
With the average new member class size being 13 members i will share that we have this is probably the council where i see the most variation in terms of the number of new members that are in a line and so i’m going to use a couple of our chapters as an example
Alpha kappa alpha um conducted an intake process this past spring semester and welcomed 69 new members and so that is obviously a lot bigger than 13 but then in the same vein we’ll have a chapter who is conducting intake and welcomes about six new members and so that’s where why you see that
That average chapter size at 13 um i would say the average is more on the smaller side but we have a couple of really our sororities specifically that um tend to have larger lines especially if they’ve not been able to conduct intake for a while
So in aka’s case they did not accept any new members in the fall semester they were really trying to understand and navigate covid and what their new member process would look like completely virtually and so they decided to postpone taking a line until the spring semester which is was completely reasonable um
But again so sometimes you’ll see some variation in the number of new members that these these organizations are taking based on how long it’s been since they last conducted intake i will share that these chapters do not recruit or do not allow new members to join the organization every semester
They get to choose when they are accepting new members um if and when they do they’re there they do communicate that to our office and so we are able to really serve as a resource to students who are interested in joining a chapter within nphc
Um but let me go on and we’ll talk a little bit more about how they do their process so nphc really follows an intake model in terms of how they accept new members the one recruitment event that this council does host is called greek speak and greek speak is really
An opportunity to where any potential new members can come and they will hear a presentation from each of our each of the eight organizations that i just referenced and those organizations are going to talk about their membership criteria they’re going to talk about what their priorities are as a chapter
What they’re spending their time energy and resources doing as an organization um and and what even their organization looks like nationally and so what that allows a student to do especially a student who maybe is not super familiar with these organizations and isn’t sure if it’s the right fit for
Them it allows them to better understand what are what are the values of those chapters it also allows them to make direct contact with those individuals so there is an opportunity following greek speak where and even during the actual presentations where the students are allowed to ask questions about the intake process
Those questions are typically more general for the chapters as a whole and the chapters can choose to answer and address those concerns or questions that the students might have but how this is different from the the multicultural greek kickoff that i mentioned other than it being specific for this council is that attendance
At greek speak is required in order for a student to be accepted as a new member in one of these eight organizations and so greek speak this community and this council specifically really values students having all of the information before they make a choice about which chapter is going to be the
Best fit for them and so it’s important that they come and they hear about what the council is what the expectations of this community are um and what that experience is going to look like prior to indicating an interest in membership and so something to keep
In mind and that greek speak event will take place in september of the fall semester they host it in both the fall and spring um and so and again it’s typically early on so in the fall it’ll be in september in the spring it’ll probably be late january um
Probably late january i don’t see it going into into february and then finally our our last council that is the college panhellenic council and like i had said earlier this council consists of six social sororities including alpha gamma delta alpha omicron pi alpha z delta delta gamma
Kappa delta and sigma kappa the average chapter size is a little larger in this council with an average chapter size of 81 members with an average new member class being around 30 members and one thing that i will share is so this council conducts consistently every chapter will accept new members in
The fall semester and that’s one thing i forgot to say about our inner fraternity council similarly every chapter will accept new members for our ifc community in both the the fall and spring semester and piano linux so in this college panhellenic council everyone accepts new members in the fall
And if there are chapters that have spaces in the spring they’re allowed to accept new members but not every chapter will be able to do so this is the one council that actually has a maximum number of members that each chapter is allowed to have and that number is the same for every
Chapter and so depending on you know how many women potentially graduate in december or if you have some women that leave the institution for whatever reason that is really what determines if they are able to take new members going into the spring semester and so if your students interested in
And being a member of one of these organizations they really need to participate in the fall primary recruitment process primary recruitment is scheduled to take place monday august 16th through saturday august 21st and this recruitment week i would say is is more structured than any of the other councils
So every chapter will participate in this experience and all interested participants so if you’re any women who are interested in being a member one of these organizations will need to participate in this recruitment process if they’d like to join monday is really there um it’s really an
Open house it’s where we’ll talk about some information and what that recruitment week is going to look like they’ll be assigned every student participant will be assigned a recruitment counselor and so and that that individual is really meant to help answer questions for your student throughout the week um
Provide insight about what to expect as they’re going and meeting these different organizations and they’ll talk about how each night is different from the one prior um conversation will will change as the week goes on you know they spend time talking about their philanthropy talking about their sisterhood and then
Talking about their organizational values um and priorities they’ll talk about membership criteria financial expectations all of that throughout this recruitment week and there is a registration that’s required in order to participate in our primary recruitment process and so the registration form is currently live it’s on our fraternity and sorority life
Website and i’ll make sure to provide you all with a link directly to that um but there is it’s currently open it’ll close on and actually i should have had that date prepared let me look real quick registration will close i believe it’s i want to say it’s friday august 13th
Um and so but that information is on our website as well there is a 55 registration fee for this recruitment process and that is serves to cover the cost of really just the cost associated with recruitment uh we host recruitment a mixture of both on and off campus
And so there’s and we provide transportation for the women that entire week to get them where they need to go for for the different events and activities that are taking place we also do provide them with um a couple of meals throughout the week and options um all every participant gets a
T-shirt that they can wear on bit day before they’re they’re given their new chapters letters and so um again that fee is something to to expect if your student is is planning to register and hasn’t already one other thing that i didn’t want to finish this presentation
With without touching on was our hazing prevention efforts so we all have access to the news and i’m sure that there have been stories that you’ve read or heard about that have really articulated you know the presence of hazing on on the college campuses across the country
And so knowing that hazing is something that is rooted in tradition for a lot of our for a lot of national organizations it’s something that we proactively address and educate our both new and active members on and we so we’ve developed here at uab hazing prevention and education training it’s actually
Harm reduction so it focuses on hazing prevention it also focuses on bystander intervention as well as alcohol and other drugs and we offer this training program specifically and actually we don’t offer it we require it for our entire new member community that they participate in it during their
New member semester so we want to make sure that they’re receiving this information in a time frame when it is relevant and that we’re giving them information about how to identify and intervene if they see hazing while they are in the time period when it traditionally takes place
Um and so again this training is required for all of our new members and there’s actually three trainings that they participate in during their new member semester following their new member semester they complete the hazing training every year on an annual basis through the university
And i would say that that is most times in addition to hazing training that they are also having to complete for their national organization and so there’s multiple touch points where both the university as well as their national organizations are really supporting these organizations and reducing harm to to their members and
With a definitely a goal to completely prevent hazing from ever taking place on this campus we do have uh right under 98 community compliance with this training so of course with the community of almost a thousand students you’ve always got one to two that that we’re trying to make sure
Or are falling in compliance i will share that a student is not permitted to to initiate into their chapter if they don’t complete these trainings and so that has really helped us with our compliance numbers and it helps to ensure that the students are getting the information that we need
As a result of the training student participants reported a 75 percent um increase that they were better equipped to handle hazing when confronted with it and 80 felt more committed to preventing hazing as a result of participating in the training and so we’re looking at this data every semester to understand
What tweaks or changes do we need to make within the training to ensure that it’s having the impact that we intended um but again really critical component that i want you all to know is a part of our new member as well as ongoing experience for chapter members
And then last i wanted to end my presentation today with just a few ways that you can really support your student through their fraternity and sorority involvement and so especially in this exploratory phase where i’m sure many of you are the what i would ask that you do now is
Really review the potential benefits that we’ve talked about of joining a fraternity or sorority with your student right and we talked about those benefits being a sense of community friendships you know a venue for involvement being able to develop as a leader um even involvement in the local or
National community whether it be through service or leadership opportunities talk with your student about balancing their time and and scheduling um and schedule and in making sure that they understand that this chapter or involvement in the greek community is a time commitment every chapter is going to have chapter meetings that
Your student will be required to attend they’re going to have new member meetings during that first semester that they’ll be required to participate in and that’s really where they’re meant to be learning about the organization and and understanding what it means to to be a member of that chapter
And so it’s important to talk with your student about how they’re going to manage those commitments in addition to their academic work as well as potentially there if they’re employed or have have a job as well as any family or personal commitments additionally i’d encourage all of you to
Find ways to get involved within the organization chapters typically host um in fact in conjunction with meredith’s office opportunities for family members to connect to learn more about the organization to get involved with the organization through events and volunteer opportunities and so i’d really encourage you to look
Into what are those opportunities for your students chapter or organization of choice because your involvement is going to make a world of difference to your student having a positive experience i’d encourage you to be aware of the importance of academic achievement and talk to your student about their academic progress
And this is kind of whether or not they choose to join a fraternity and sorority this is important in general but it’s helpful to understand i think a lot of times when a student is struggling it’s it’s easier to keep it to themselves and to think that they’re
Going to work through it and so check in with them you know the chapter is going to be checking in with them but at the end of the day the chapter doesn’t know how your student has done until they receive those grades at the end of the semester
And so checking in with your student to make sure that they have the support they need will allow them to be successful both inside as well as outside of the classroom and then finally help them think through the risk management decisions that they’re going to have to make as an
Individual on a personal level and again this is relevant to our fraternity and sorority community but it’s also just relevant to being a college student your student needs to stay informed on policies and procedures so that they are best equipped to make informed decisions um as they are doing so autonomous
Autonomously right with with little to no oversight from from their parents or families and so finally our office here in student involvement of leadership really wants to be uh we hoped and strive to be a wealth of knowledge and a significant resource for you and your student through their involvement journey and that
Includes the fraternity and sorority experience and so i encourage you and your students to to follow us on instagram at get involved uab you can email us directly at getinvolved.uab.edu these emails come directly to my inbox um and so myself or another member of our fraternity and sorority life team will
Be happy to connect with you and answer any specific questions that you may have and then finally a lot of the content that i covered today can be found on our fraternity and sorority life website you can access that website by going to uab.edu backslash greeks i’ll say additionally some of the events
That i mentioned especially the ones that don’t have a confirmed date yet that will be a great place for your student to check back over the course of the the summer wants to see once those dates have been confirmed and published and similarly any registration materials or applications that they might have to
Complete in order to participate in one of these recruitment or intake activities will be available on that website as well and so that concludes my presentation this morning i’d be happy to take any any questions that you all might have about the information that i’ve covered this morning or even if there’s
Information that that you feel i’ve left out but jamesia i’m going to turn it back over to you thank you jennifer i was having to get everything situated so we have a couple of questions coming in let’s remember to use the q a feature on zoom in the chat feature on facebook live
And one of the questions that we had come in jennifer was do the fraternities have a specific recruitment week and i know that go ahead yeah yeah absolutely so they do um we they have not confirmed the specific dates it does take place over the course of one week
Um but it is going to be in the month of september and so that’s kind of one of those dates that i’d encourage you to check back on our fraternity and sorority life website probably towards the end of july to see when that recruitment week is going to take place
They do have they’ll have a registration process for fraternity recruitment but it won’t open until august so and the recruitment process itself is several weeks after your students on campus so they typically wait to to host their recruitment process until students have had a little bit of a chance to to get acclimated
To the campus i will share that does remind me the one council that does not or that host their recruitment process prior to the start of classes is our college panhellenic council so the council that has those six social sororities their recruitment process and i did share the dates i
Guess but that is actually the week prior to class and so we do work with the students who are going to or have indicated that they’re living on campus we work with student housing and residence life to allow them to move in early so they can participate in that experience
Um but yeah check back on our website for those confirmed dates for fraternity recruitment okay and can a student join delta sigma theta as a freshman so delta sigma theta like i mentioned before does have their own specific membership requirements they typically require that the student be a sophomore
Buy credit hours in order to join so it’s tough to say can they join as a freshman because many of our students come in as a first year student with lots of credit hours to the point where they may be technically at a sophomore status in terms of credit hours by their second
Semester and so i would encourage you to look into your students are they coming in with any credit hours what’s their first semester going to look like and how will that measure up to delta sigma theta’s expectations in terms of recruitment they do typically wait to conduct intake until the spring semester that’s
Traditionally when they posted it um and that’s been a result of that they’re giving the students time to meet the credit hour requirements so that they can go through the intake process but i would look at delta sigma theta has a national website where they articulate their membership requirements and they’d
Say exactly what that credit hour expectation is okay and do you have any um sorority chapters that aim in multicultural and inclusive goals we do i’d say we’ve got specifically three chapters within our multicultural greek council that really do have that as i would say a significant pillar
Of their chapter values and priorities um and so those sororities are sigma lambda gamma sorority incorporated delta phi omega sorority incorporated and sigma sigma rho sorority incorporated so i’d encourage you all to check them out okay and do we have fraternity houses on campus great question i can’t believe i didn’t
Think to proactively address this we do not currently have fraternity or sorority houses on campus so there is no greek housing component to the fraternity and sorority experience here at uab we are uniquely positioned as i’m sure you all are aware in the middle of a very urban setting and so
Uh real estate is hard to come by but that has not been a part of our greek experience up to this point um the chapters utilize shared community space and event space with the rest of the campus to host their events and activities um you may hear through talking with
Some of these chapters that they have members who live together both either on or off campus but that’s not sponsored or paid for by the organization it’s not facilitated through the organization at all jennifer thank you so much for this information and for presenting to us today
We have another question coming in it says um move in is for august the 16th you stated that they will be able to move in sooner than august the 16th if they’re going through panhellenic recruitment no august 16th is the early move-in date and so yeah i’m saying that without recognizing traditionally i
Would say prior to last year our freshman move-in day wasn’t until the saturday right before classes so it would have traditionally been on the 21st but you were right they have spread out freshman movement over the course of that first week but our panhellenic women will need to move in on on monday
August 13th august 3rd okay so they wouldn’t move in sooner than august the 16th okay got it they would not thank you jennifer yeah absolutely if you have any more questions before we conclude the webinar please go ahead and send them in i’m going to give us about two more
Minutes for any further questions if not we want to thank you for participating in today’s webinar thank you so much once again jennifer for all your information that you have provided for our families and we’re just grateful and we look forward to everybody coming in the fall and having a great time
Absolutely thank you all again so much for having me and yes please feel free to reach out if you’ve got questions that that you think of after this morning know that our team is is here and ready and excited to answer any questions we really just want to
Ensure that your students have a positive and safe and fun experience while they’re a student here at uab and fraternity and sorority life is is just one of many outlets for that okay well we didn’t have any more questions so you all have a great day
You have a great week thank you jennifer absolutely thank you all have a great day you too bye-bye you
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