Hello, everyone. Thank you so much for taking the time to join us for the Getting to Know Michigan Fraternity and Sorority Life Webinar Edition. I’m going to introduce you to my colleagues in a moment. I just wanted to share that if you have questions while you’re participating in the
Session live, please feel free to use the Q&A chat and we will get back to you as soon as possible. We’re going to go ahead and get started with introductions. My name is Shannon Benson. I use she/her pronouns and I serve as the Associate Director of Fraternity and Sorority Life and Panhellenic Advisor.
My name is Jordan Borchert. I use he/him/his pronouns and I serve as an Assistant Director and Interfraternity Council Advisor. Good afternoon, everybody. My name is Abriana Cardenas. I use she/her and I am the advisor to Culturally Based Fraternal Organizations and Community Liaison to Multicultural Initiatives.
Hi, everyone. My name is Cheyenne Chapman. I utilize she/her pronouns and I currently serve as a Community Standards and Leadership Development Manager within the Fraternity Life office. These are just a handful of the colleagues that work in our department to support the fraternity and sorority community and we’re really excited that they’re here
Today to share more about our community and what we offer. As we begin today, we’re going to start with a little bit of history about the community and a little bit of an overview of our department, just so you can see all the support structures that
Are in place, as we work with close to 5,000 students at the university. Fraternities and sororities have a very long history at Michigan. The first two organizations came to the campus in 1845 and, over the next 180 (almost) years,
We’ve had many organizations become part of the community. A couple of highlights: in 1879, the first sorority was chartered on campus. That occurred at a time when our university had just opened to women on campus and then, in 1909, the first traditionally African-American fraternity is
Established a chapter here. Over the next several decades, the fraternity and sorority has expanded to include a variety of diverse organizations. Today, we’re more than 50 organizations strong! A little bit later in the presentation, you’ll learn more about who we are and what we offer.
I mentioned that we have a department that works collaboratively with students and other folks at the university to lead this community: fraternity and sorority life. Our office is located on campus; we’re fortunate enough to be at 1443 Washtenaw, which is kind-of on the edge of campus,
As you’re as you’re coming in. We work with lots of folks; our office oversees four different councils, that you’re going to learn more about, and each council has a collection of fraternities, sororities, or fraternities and sororities, that work with them on various things. Within
The council, we have chapters and the chapters are also governed by international or national organizations. Each have their own policies, procedures, volunteer structures, so there’s lots of opportunities for people to support the community and help our students, as well. The benefits of joining: let’s talk about that, a bit, okay?
One of the benefits: personal relationships. You’re making lifelong friendships. You’re receiving and giving support. You’re experiencing different backgrounds and identities, along with being able to share yours, and getting that sense of belonging within the community. These individuals will be people that are in your most important milestones,
Whether that’s graduation, and weddings, and bringing new life into this world. Academic support and professional development. That’s networking, attending national conferences and events. Being able to connect with other brothers, sisters, siblings, that are in professional fields, that can help your student move
Forward in life. Also, being able to travel and have that experience. Leadership development. Leading with integrity. Gaining and sharpening skills. Working cooperatively and effectively with others. And understanding bystander behavior and intervention. Those are a few, but there’s quite more leadership
Opportunities for students to gain and be able to step up into their communities, as well. And then, finally, service in philanthropy/philanthropy opportunity, so engaging supporting in Ann Arbor, in the campus community. You’re learning positive ways to impact others. You’re raising awareness of… there are topics that are very important to you… you’re able
To bring that up. You have that support system. You’re able to bring awareness to the communities around you and, of course, you can fundraise and donate and other resources that are allowed. Talking about this community, Shannon mentioned that we have 50 organizations or more than 50
Organizations. That number is continually growing! We’ve had chapters that have re-entered our governing umbrella over the past academic year and we’re open to others joining that process, as well. We don’t have that specific number. We do have a couple of groups that are still expanding, so that number does ebb and flow
With that. I think it’s really important for us to note that you can read all about… a little bit more in depth… our councils and their comprising chapters. I have all of the carrots [directions] guiding you on how to find that information on our website.
This link will be shared with [you] a couple times throughout this webinar, so you can be sure to just type in your computer, do your research behind/after the fact and, then, if you have any questions, feel free to come back and connect with us.
About our community is [that] there the chapters that are growing, the councils that are expanding and, then, we also have some information on recognition status changes. What that means is that we are a community that has organizations, like I said, that do enter and leave our community,
Under the governing umbrella, and that information is all provided there. In terms of organizations that might still be active but aren’t necessarily tied to the university or getting support from our office, we encourage folks to do that research prior to any joining processes and we’ll go into
That a little bit more in depth what that process looks like in the next few slides. Academically, our organizations do very well. We are either at or close to the U-M [GPA] average, every semester.
We are usually a little bit above or, like I said, just at. We can see, in the fall, we were just barely above and then, at the winter, we were very, very close–within .001–to the U-M average. Philanthropy dollars. In the last year, the community donated $339,270 philanthropy
Dollars to the community. You can read about that, as we have publishings coming out. We’ve had very large philanthropic organizations and philanthropic events on campus that, as we can see, are raising a ton of money and doing a ton of good in the community.
The last thing that we want to touch on, on this slide, is that on average, every academic year, we have about 19 hours of community service donated per member. If we multiplied that by 5,000 we can see that astronomical impact that our communities are making on the greater
Ann Arbor community and some of their home communities… local Detroit communities… we can see that actually quantified in the work that our students are doing. Before I start to talk about the Interfraternity Council, I just want to remind folks who’ve just
Joined or who joined from the beginning that if you have any questions throughout this presentation… you have questions now… please go to the Q&A tab in the bottom of your screen and you can ask questions. We have staff members who are able to answer those
Questions or [are] able to get that answer for you, you know, for the question that you asked. With that being said, as Cheyenne kind-of mentioned, our community is a large body of humans and, so, one of those councils is the IFC or the Intrafraternity Council.
There are 19 affiliated fraternities that provide opportunities for friendship, brotherhood, and leadership development. The recruitment looks a little bit different and we’ll talk about each kind of recruitment process, but they’ll start the beginning of each semester,
Both the fall and the winter semester, with events called the Mass Meeting in the IFC Forum. The Mass Meeting is an opportunity for students to learn about the process for joining an IFC fraternity, the expectations, the requirements about what that process looks like. The IFC Forum is
Something where, if your student is looking to know and learn a little bit more about the organizations that are part of the IFC, our IFC organizations will have a table–they’ll be present, at this meeting, to get a better general understanding of the IFC community, the community
That make up it [SIC], as well as having time to learn about each individual organization, being able to talk to those members… learn about how to, you know, engage with them, what events that they’re hosting… because we want to make sure that students have the ability to connect with
Some of those members, being able to, at least, attend some of those events, so that they can kind of make a determination on, you know, is this the organization that is best for me? Is this the organization that aligns best with what I want out of my college experience and lifetime experience?
The final thing is that most members, once they join, will live in their chapter house or their facility that is typically in the Ann Arbor community, after they join. That’s typically your sophomore year and most organizations might have an expectation or a requirement; that’s something
That a student should ask questions about–living in that chapter house or that chapter facility. We also have MGC or Multicultural Greek Council. That was established here at the University in 2002. Comprised of 12 organizations, the council specifically celebrates and promotes multiculturalism through programming, service, housing several racial ethnic and
Cultural communities, a wide range of affinity groups (Latinx, being represented, East Asian, South Asian, Arab and multicultural). Even though they were historically founded that way, that does not mean no one else can join. It is open to multicultural membership, of course,
Across the board. Usually for recruitment, they will do a beginning of the semester… it’s usually a week full of events, so that is time for interested students to come, meet the members, learn more about the organization and what their intake process
Is looking like, being able to also participate in community service and other social activities. Then, we have our third council, the National Panhellenic Council or NPHC. Even though it was chartered here at the university in 2005, the earliest chapter
That was established here was in the early 1900s, that my colleague has mentioned, in 1909. We are comprised of seven of the Divine Nine Organizations, right now, but working on getting that expanded. Historically, these black fraternities and sororities have been at
HBCUs and, eventually, came toward predominantly white institutions. They were created to support that community and also promote that awareness on their campuses and so forth. Right now, they also are hosting their own weeks each semester. Again, that is time for interested
Students to come and learn more, come engage in social interaction, learn about their brotherhood, their sisterhood, or their siblinghood, and understanding their intake process, as well. Our fourth council is the Panhellenic Association, very commonly known as Panhel. We currently have 17 sororities within the Panhellenic Association and they’re all unique, in different ways,
But their commonalities include that they believe in sisterhood and friendship. There’s a lot of programming from members that focus on leadership development and topics that are really relevant to them. There are opportunities for professional growth and development, as well. All 17 of the sororities in this council participate in community
Service and philanthropic endeavors. Some of them are local opportunities and, then, they all have national organizations that they work with, as well, to raise money and awareness. There are a couple of different ways to join Panhellenic Association sororities. Coming up in the fall semester and, then, in the winter semester, after primary recruitment,
There’s an informal recruitment process called Continuous Open Bidding or COB. We’re going to talk a little bit more, generally, about the joining opportunities, in just a moment, but for the Panhellenic Association, first-year students will not be eligible to join this fall
Through COB. They will have to wait until January 2024, either for primary recruitment or after. And, then primary recruitment, which is the opportunity to see all of the National Panhellenic Conference sororities, so 16 of our 17 will be held in January of
2024. There’s already some great information on our website and we’ll continue to add more. Sixteen of our chapters in Panhellenic do operate facilities or houses and they are an important part of the experience, here. Most members live-in the year after they join and most members join,
Right now, in the winter semester. If you have a student who joins in January or February, if it’s informal recruitment of 2024, then they would live in the house for the fall ’24/winter ’25 year. On our website, we also have housing and financial information from this last school year,
So you can get an idea about what the costs associated with membership are. (We’ll be updating for 2023-2024 numbers in the next couple of months.) I think something that’s really important to note is that living in the house is a part of the
Membership experience and if you have a student who is even the slightest bit interested in going through recruitment, they should not sign a lease off-campus until after recruitment is over. We have had recruitment in January for a few years, now, and it’s worked out really,
Really well. If your student doesn’t finish the recruitment process or doesn’t get a spot in the house, we have great partnerships with Beyond the Diag, out of the Dean of Students Office, and other folks to help support them finding housing, but that’s a really big part of the experience.
I also just wanted to give a shout out to our 17th member of the Panhellenic Association, our associate member Phi Sigma Rho. They are social engineering sorority and they do not participate in primary recruitment, but they do hold recruitment fall and winter that’s more informal.
The Panhellenic Association does a lot of great things on campus and they’ll have opportunities throughout the fall semester for interested students to connect with them and their member chapters. We talked a lot about the the organizations that make up the community, so you’re probably wanting
To ask, “Jordan, how can my student join or how can a student join?” There are different joining processes for each organization and/or each council. The time periods that they go about this joining process and intake of membership is based on that council and/or chapter. An update, though,
That we can share is that at the University of Michigan, previously if you were a first-year student who did not have 12 credits, you were not able to join a fraternity or sorority. That’s no longer and, so, first-year students can
Engage with our groups for the first five weeks of the fall semester. And, after, they can join a fraternity or sorority. Again, that depends on the council and the chapters processes, but know that for those that are seeking to bring in members in the fall semester that are first-year students,
They can now join and connect with our fraternity and sorority communities. The main thing that I would share of how to learn a little bit more about their processes, the organizations, the council, that makes up our community is to be able to take some time and, you know, look up a national website…
Go to and, you know, look through their social media. They do a great job, our organizations, to tell a story or a narrative of what it looks like to be a part of that organization, and that council, and in our community, the benefits that you receive, the connections that you can make.
I want to highlight, too, that if they know a member of an organization, being able to hear from their experiences, learn what they’ve found beneficial or valuable in their experience, and kind-of learning from them, is also really helpful in, kind-of, deciding and knowing the organizations that are on campus.
The last thing is that we’ve been very intentional, this summer and moving into the academic year, about our marketing strategy. How we are communicating to all stakeholders, our students, our alumni, our family and parents, on what fraternity/sororit life is,
The benefits of fraternity and sorority life. We’ll do that through a bunch of different marketing initiatives, but one I want to specifically highlight is a mailer–we’re going to be sending a mailer–to all first-year students in late July/early August with a lot
Of information about our community. That’s a great way to learn a little bit more, there, as well as obviously our website, which we’ll talk about and highlight one more time in a future slide, as well as we also share a second year postcard which, again,
Is another way to be able to communicate the organizations that are on campus, our community, and to just remind folks that they can, if if they want to join a fraternity or sorority at Michigan. The other piece about it is that we have some requirements for joining a[n] organization.
Any student who wants to join a fraternity or sorority can go through these easy four steps. Each organization… or, sorry, each student who is interested in joining and does join goes through these four steps. The first one is just understanding the process and deadlines. Like I
Mentioned, each process is different by the organization. Where the Panhellenic and IFCU organizations regulate their recruitment process a little bit more and our National Panhellenic Council and Multicultural Council have national or regional officers who set the timing and regulations around their their intake or their recruitment processes. It’s just really
Important to know the details and the deadlines around each process, because they they’ll look a little bit different. If you follow on our website, you’ll be able to see the information that you’ll need on being able to register, the deadlines, and things of that [SIC].
The other two things that we ask students who are going to join our community [are] to complete two different trainings. The first one is just a Educational Module about our community. It’s fairly brief and it just allows students to get a better understanding of who makes up
The community, what are the councils that are part of the community, what do we stand for, what do we value? Finally, we have students do what we call Impact Training. Impact Training [is] for specific populations that provide information around bystander behavior, sexual misconduct, and hazing education. We want to make sure that
Students have this information and are proactive about this, before joining our communities. We like to say that our communities are probably [some] of the more educated communities, with the amount of information that we want our students to know as they’re joining in a part of this process.
Finally is a recruitment and intake gateway. This is where we have a student and we check to make sure that they completed their trainings, that they’re in good standing with their college or their school, as well as [that] they’re enrolled at the University of Michigan. Once they complete
All of that, they will be given the opportunity to move on to the next step in either registering or completing their their process, so that they can join a fraternity or sorority in our community. If you do have questions (obviously, and we’ll share this again) you can email us and or you can
Call us and that information is on our website. We’ll be sharing that a little in a later slide. We’ve been together for almost a half hour, now. Let’s talk about what we learned. Our community is comprised of more than 50 organizations. We continue to grow. We continue to be healthy,
In that growth mindset of welcoming new organizations in regularly. We encourage you to look out for these organizations, look out for opportunities, to join. Jordan just discussed the different structures and opportunities for you to go through those processes. We encourage you to look for them; there’s a lot of them…
You’re going to see them. There’s going to be events and programming throughout the school year for you to meet these organizations, for you to learn more about the organizations and, in a lot of them, there’s going to be structural opportunities for you to learn how to join.
We understand that this is a half-hour, a taste for you guys to really think about what these have to offer, what these organizations have to offer. There’s going to be opportunities for you to get this, more in-depth, maybe, from some current students or current members,
Current leaders in the community. We really encourage you to do that over the next four years that you’re going to spend or your student is going to spend at the university. The best way for you or your student or your parents to get information on these
Organizations–how to join, what they’re up to–is going to be on either the website (right? we talked about status changes, we talked about the organization contacts) or contacting our staff. And, then, the last way is to follow us on socials. Our social media is
The best way for us just tell our stories, both us, as an office, helping tell the story of our organizations and we also have our four council social medias listed there, as well. That’s going to give you that first-hand experience of what it’s like to be a student at Michigan,
What it’s like to be affiliated in a fraternity or sorority at Michigan, from the students. One piece that I will also add, there, as you’re exploring your opportunities: all of these council pages should be following the organizations that they represent, so feel free to dive into that,
As well. Go through and look to see what these organizations are up to– you can see that one chapter raised a ridiculous amount of money and you saw that one other chapter was really focused on service–and you can help guide your interests to match the organization’s best.
But this is all of the information… some of the information… there will not be a quiz. We cannot give a quiz, but we are here if you have questions. Thank you, everybody. We can hang around for a moment, in case anybody wants to
Enter questions in the Q&A. I haven’t seen any thus far, otherwise we could answer them aloud, and emphasize we’ll be around all spring and summer and throughout the school year. If you’re attending any of the orientation sessions, we’ll have a table and we’re just excited
To connect and get to meet your students and help welcome them to the university.
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