Sigma Chi members and potential pledges play soccer during recruitment week. Photo by Keisuke Yoshimura.

This week, hundreds of UND students will be attending fraternity and sorority recruitment events that are either underway or soon to begin.

Fraternity recruitment began Monday and ends this weekend. This week’s events ranged anywhere from bonfires to lawn games and even a trip to the water park for one chapter. Tonight, the events continue for each fraternity.

UND Coordinator for Fraternity and Sorority Life Alyssa Walker said more than 100 men have signed up for recruitment. However, men are not required to formally register for recruitment, which makes calculating the total number of men rushing a difficult task.

Student Jared Wanger decided to rush this year.

“I have a lot of friends in fraternities and they said it was the best thing they had ever done,” he said. “I want to make connections with people and network.”

Fraternity recruitment will wrap up tomorrow when chapters hand out bid cards, or invitations, to potential new members.

While fraternity recruitment is wrapping up, sorority recruitment is just starting.

The first round of sorority recruitment begins tonight at 5 p.m. Each woman who registered for the process will get a chance to visit all six chapters for 25 minutes each.  Round one is supposed to give both candidates and house members an opportunity to get to know one another.

Round two is held on Saturday and women will be allowed to visit up to four chapters and learn about their social activities, service and philanthropies while also getting a chance to see the house through a tour.

Sunday morning, the preference round occurs.  Women are allowed to visit up to two houses this day, which allows them to learn even more about the house.  Sunday night wraps up sorority recruitment with the last event, bid day. Bid day is when the women going through recruitment will receive a bid to a house.

UND student Megan Janikowski is participating in sorority recruitment this weekend.

“I did it just to see what sorority life is like and to meet people” said Janikowski.

Janikowski is among over 275 other women participating in sorority recruitment.  Walker says what encourages most people to go through recruitment is meeting new friends, getting more involved in campus activities, and finding a home-away-from-home. “Greek life provides these opportunities for our members” Walker said.

At UND, the fraternity and sorority overall GPA is higher than the overall undergraduate GPA.  Walker said that in 2012, members of the Greek community volunteered over 13,000 hours and donated more than $35,000 to non-profit organizations.   Furthermore, 77 percent of sorority and fraternity recruitment members are active in other student organizations.

“Fraternities and sororities provide students with many outstanding opportunities to grow their leadership skills, meet people who are different from themselves, network with alumni, improve their academic skills, and most importantly make great friends” Walker said. “I highly suggest that students give sorority or fraternity recruitment a try, after all, the worst thing that could happen is that they could make some new friends.”

Ashley Marquis is a staff writer for The Dakota Student. She can be reached at ashley.m.marquis@my.und.edu.