Valued Campus Partners,
As many of you are in the midst of coordinating plans for fall 2020, Phi Sigma Sigma would like to express our explicit support of the guidance provided by the National Panhellenic Conference as it relates to recruitment contingency planning. We feel we are prepared to support our chapter and your community as you navigate a virtual or hybrid format recommended.
With great care, we shared our take on safe and responsible recruitment practices with our membership recruitment chairmen and Panhellenic delegates during a conference call on May 12. The conversations we have facilitated since have shaped and reinforced our beliefs in the essential role sorority involvement will play during fall 2020, regardless of the format.
Phi Sigma Sigma does not support deferring fully structured recruitments. Here is why:
- Sororities have the privilege and the opportunity to provide connection among women in a college environment. Connection is needed now more than ever. Our doors should be open wider and our voices more inviting. We have been serving others to better our communities for hundreds of years – we can and should share this space with as many students a possible in the face of all obstacles.
- Our misguided instincts to defer recruitment come from a place of hope and protection. Preserving an in-person recruitment experience that may not be responsible for the foreseeable future is what makes us comfortable. We hesitate to challenge and change what we are comfortable with out of fear. We are failing to remember that recruitment isn’t for us, it is for others – those willing and wanting to join our circle. They, as PNMs, won’t grieve the change, they will celebrate the opportunity.
- Remain focused on what matters. There is a difference between CAN and SHOULD. What is allowable is not always what is selfless, ethical and right. It is important to redirect someone who is stuck questioning whether we can do something and start evaluating what we know is right. We should collectively focus on how to preserve the students’ right to join, promote innovative and solution-based thinking and protect the health and safety of our community members at all costs.
- Chapter’s that are able to maintain membership and financial stability through the fall are going to be better equipped to lead your campus community through a time when capable and healthy leadership is critical. Phi Sigma Sigma is working to adjust chapter operation models to ensure that stability is achieved, part of that is an opportunity to recruit.
Phi Sigma Sigma started 2020 with a charge to our members to
BE
BOLD. At the time, we weren’t aware how critical that battle cry would be. We know your community will feel grief and frustration over the loss of the recruitment that makes them feel comfortable and safe – as bold leaders, that should not stop us. Growth and comfort cannot coexist. It is going to take bravery and bold action to innovate.
We hope you will be our partner.
We offer our support and assistance.
We can’t wait to see what you are capable of.
