This semester, the Interfraternity Council at UL Lafayette recorded its biggest increase of new members over the past decade.
According to Assistant Dean of Students Tucker Sappington, 189 new members chose IFC fraternities as opposed to 135 new members in 2009. That’s a 40 percent increase.
He explained that these fraternities follow a recruitment pattern known as 365-day recruitment.
“ The chapters maintain a list of potential new members that they have collected from people across campus and stay in contact with them over the course of the year,” said Sappington. “The names on the list can include people who are still juniors or seniors in high school, all the way up to seniors in colleges.”
The IFC includes eight chapters including: Sigma Alpha Epsilon, Theta Xi, Kappa Alpha Order, Pi Kappa Alpha, Kappa Sigma, Lambda Chi Alpha, Phi Kappa Theta and Sigma Nu.
Currently, all eight are beginning the new member process and will be initiating at the end of November.
“ This is expected to yield the highest numbers of new member initiations in the past 10 years as well,” said Sappington.
During 2009, these fraternities contributed 7,500 hours of community service and raised $62,000 for charity.
Earlier this semester, the Panhellenic Council had record numbers of women participate in its 2010 sorority recruitment. More than 200 women joined one of the five sororities including Alpha Omicron Pi, Kappa Delta, Delta Delta Delta, Phi Mu, and Sigma Sigma Sigma. That was a 16 percent increase over last year.
These sororities contributed more than 8,000 hours to community service projects and raised nearly $120,000 for charities.