Have you been ever interested in joining a sorority? This week’s Campus Profile features the Recruitment Chair for Kappa Kappa Gamma, Supriya Sethi.
We spoke to Supriya about what her experience has been like in a sorority, tips on how to be recruited, and the process of planning their busiest week of the year: recruitment week.
What is “Greek Life” all about at Waterloo?
Greek life is all about having a great sense of community. It’s really nice to walk around campus and see people you know, especially on a campus that’s as big as Waterloo. Every organization is different, we all have our own values and ideals, but I think what we do share in common is our philanthropy, and the kind of volunteer work that we do, and we also work on different charities together.
How long have you been with Kappa Kappa Gamma?
I’ve been with kappa since I was in my first semester of first year, so going on three years now.
Tell us about your role as Recruitment Chair
So as recruitment chair, I do everything from craft all the nitty-gritty (such as name tags, info boards, banners, and backdrops for the event) to coordinating and planning with all the other chairs and everyone else in chapter council. I plan each day and event [of the recruiting week], I contact our advisors and keep them in touch with everything, make sure we’re all abiding by the rules set out by headquarters, and keeping in touch with all those advisors as well.
I work really closely with our PR chair, our president, our VP of academic excellence, our VP of organization to make sure we’re all on the same track on ensuring we have a good recruitment and recruit the type of girls that uphold the same type of values that we do. I also conduct workshops on “how to recruit” for our chapter, so for each meeting I’ll do some kind of workshop on what we’re looking for in terms of values, as well as the kind of conversation we want to have. We don’t want recruitment to be like an interview process, we want it to be the same as it is when you go to make new friends.
How long does that whole process of planning recruitment take?
It takes a long time. I started doing workshops back in the winter term when I was elected Chair, and then around that same time, I also started watching all my webinars for training, meeting with my advisors and meeting with the previous chair. In the summer, I started planning details of the week, and how I wanted to approach recruitment this term. So that included the theme, what I wanted to do for each day, and what type of games we were going to have. In the past, recruitment was very much based on the conversation between the girls, but this year I wanted to make it more structured and have more games, activities, and rotations, so the girls have a chance to meet everyone. I found that in the past, the girls who have succeeded in recruitment were able to talk to as many people as they could within a certain amount of time. That was great, but it didn’t really count for all the girls who came out and were great candidates but were a little shyer, so I think that by having games and smaller groups, everyone can be included and can interact with each other. Going back to planning, as soon as this semester started it was all the little things and PR stuff, so it’s been a long process.
So with your experience specifically, what was it that made you want to join a sorority as a first year?
I was always interested in sororities ever since high school, but I didn’t know what Waterloo had to offer. One of my friends at the time had a brother in a fraternity, so I ended up going out to some of the events with her, and I realized that it was nothing like it is in the movies. At first, when I thought about sororities, I was terrified about getting hazed. Movies portray sororities very differently than what we actually are, and that’s what gives us a bad image, but sororities are actually just a group of strong women with a great bond between them, which is what made me want to join. I realized after I went out to the events that I wanted to surround myself with women who motivated me, are diverse, and who genuinely wanted to help me grow in different ways. I find that in this organization, and this school we go to, everyone has such different but equally important strengths, and being in a sorority gave me the opportunity to build off my strengths and help me be something greater.
How do you think that being in a sorority played a role in your life at university?
I think that my university life would have been very different had I not been a part of my sorority. I think being in a sorority pushed me to get involved, volunteer, meet people, and get out of my comfort zone. I feel like if I didn’t join, I wouldn’t be as motivated to do as many extracurricular, because I would be so overwhelmed with school, but being in a sorority really structures your time and teaches you how to better manage it as well as my days
What advice would you give to someone who would like to join a sorority but doesn’t know where to start?
Well, I think definitely come and talk to us at clubs days and Greek Life 101. I think sororities are very different than what people perceive us to be, but we really are just regular Waterloo students who want to be involved, and want to become leaders one day, so the best advice I can give is to put yourself out there and just be yourself. At the end of the day, we want girls who are genuine and diverse. We’re not looking for a certain type; we’re really looking for diversity within our organization.
Each sorority has their own core values so it’s also about finding which sorority fits the best with you. I know that for KKG, leadership is one of our biggest values. One of our graduates from UofT in the 1980’s actually ended up becoming of one of the leading women in the debate for free choice, and helped strike down a law that denied women from free choice. Another sorority on campus is AOII (Alpha Omicron Pi) and one of their biggest values is sisterhood, so if you’re looking for that family bond within your sorority, AOII is a great choice. We also have a newer sorority, SLG (Sigma Lambda Gamma), and they’re really neat as well. They were actually founded in Waterloo and it’s a combination of girls from Waterloo, Laurier, and Conestoga College, so it’s a little more intimate in that sense.
Interested in joining a sorority? Check out the Waterloo sororities’ Facebook page here
**Recruitment week runs from Friday, September 25th -30th