Fraternity & Sorority Life (Fall Webinar Series)

Good afternoon everyone.

Thanks for joining us for this fraternity and sorority life session.

We are so glad that you're here to learn a little bit more about our community.

So we're basically going to talk about our community, the benefits of joining the specific organizations at Colorado State University, and how you might join at any point. If you have a question, go ahead and put that in the question feature.

So regardless of the type of organization that you would choose to join within our community, we believe that you would receive three things. The opportunity for pursuit of knowledge, a commitment to excellence and community in connection.

Oftentimes we get students asking what are the benefits of joining a fraternity and sorority, and those really exist in four categories. Those are learning and academic support, personal growth and development. A community of support, and the opportunity to give back to our community.

So we'll spend a little more time talking in detail about all of these, but this graph that you see in front of you is the academic performance of Csus students in general.

And then this knew gold line is the academic performance of students involved in a fraternity or sorority at Colorado State. And as you can see, our fraternity and sorority members tend to outperform their non fraternity and sorority members. That's consistent throughout all of our semesters.

In addition, we know that our fraternity and sorority members are more likely to make it to graduation then are unaffiliated pier. So we actually have a higher retention and graduation rates than folks not in the fraternity or sorority community.

Within our fraternity and sorority community, we have a saying that no one high jumps to a low bar, so we raised that bar and the way we do that is by pure accountability, GPA, expectations, and the opportunity to serve as a leader, all really to reinforce that our students have the opportunity to be better versions of themselves tomorrow than they are today.

The final benefit of membership that will talk a little bit about is giving back to the community, so this is a really important component of fraternity and sorority membership. Our fraternity and sorority students raise thousands of dollars for charitable organizations every semester. They do hundreds of thousands of hours of community service every year, so it's a really exciting way to connect with the Greater Fort Collins community and have an impact outside of their individual chapters.

Community of support is even more important right now than it has been in years past. We understand that students are looking for the opportunity to build connections with their peers, especially during this global pandemic. So it's a really exciting opportunity for students to build relationships. Right now, all of our chapters are primarily recruiting and maintaining virtual operations, but that is not stopping folks from joining our community.

In the last several weeks, we've had hundreds of students become members of fraternities and sororities through virtual recruitment processes, and they're actively connecting and engaging, mostly through virtual platforms with their new brothers and sisters.

After we talk about the benefits of membership, we really want to talk about expectations of membership, 'cause that's a huge component of who we are as a fraternity and sorority community. So those exist in several categories as well. So that includes behavioral expectations, academic expectations, financial commitment, and housing obligations. If that's applicable and time commitment.

So those behavioral expectations are really where we talk about the university's commitment to health and safety, so we know for all of our students and their parents and family members who might be supporting their decision to join. There are a lot of questions about the universities expectations of all registered student organizations, so I really want you to know that the University is deeply committed to student safety. That includes broad education on the university's anti hazing policy.

And general Rs oh is a registered student. Organizations policies. So we talked to our students about the individual expectations that govern their membership and the expectations that govern their collective chapter. We also right now spend a lot of time talking about COVID-19 an the health public health orders that also govern their membership. So our chapters are diligently working to ensure that they are maintaining safe physical distance, wearing face coverings or masks.

And not gathering in groups larger than 10 people. Which is why, as I noted earlier, most of their chapter operations are virtual. This is a really unique component about fraternity and sorority membership. Because our students are actively engaged in those community accountability conversations and get to talk to each other about what they're doing for you all, which is great.

Academic expectations there are GPA expectation for every single one of our community, fraternities and sororities. So there is an expectation to join and there's an expectation to remain in good standing related to the academic expectations in GPA requirements and many of our chapters have academic support built into them, so studying and mentorship groups, opportunities to connect with one another.

And really have some meaningful conversations.

Time commitment is something we get a lot of questions about what's really important to note is we say you get out of your fraternity and sorority experience, but you put in, which is really an opportunity to connect with students, mostly in the form of a weekly chapter meeting. As I've noted previously, right now those are virtual meetings, but also additional opportunities that occur throughout the semester, whether that be social events or Brotherhood and Sisterhood events or community service and philanthropy events. All of those are normally discussed.

At that weekly chapter meeting what's really important to note about time commitment is the majority of our fraternity and sorority students are engaged outside of their particular chapter, so they may be working on campus. They may be engaged in research. They might be connected to another registered student organization. Both the student government, incoming president and incoming vice president, or members of our fraternity and sorority community. So that's just one example of the ways that our fraternity and sorority members are engaged.

Outside of our fraternity and sorority community, and they do that because the time commitment is really, really manageable. We like to say that fraternity and sorority membership can be part of your overall involvement experience at Colorado State University, but it does not by any means have to be the only thing that you are engaged in here at CSU.

Financial and housing obligations is something we get a lot of questions about. Will post some links in the chat for you all but really, as an opportunity for folks to connect with this information, I would refer you to our office of fraternity and sorority life website. Our office of fraternity and sorority life website under the finance, an facility information has detailed information about the unique costs of membership and housing obligations.

It is important to note that every single one of our chapters has some sort of financial obligation in the form of a semesterly dues payment, but that ranges from organization to organization. So we refer you to the detailed information on our website for specific information.

Within our fraternity and sorority community, we have 5 governing councils and the way we like to talk about this is there, essentially, like buckets that we group like organizations in so our Inter fraternity council or IFC is home to our social fraternities for men.

Our multicultural Greek Council, or MG C is home to our culturally based fraternities and sororities for men, an women NPHC or the National Panhellenic Council is home to our historically black or African American fraternities and sororities for both men and women are Pinolenic Association is home to our social sororities for women.

And our professional fraternity council is home to our professionally focused fraternities and sororities.

About 14% of CSU students are involved in a fraternity or sorority.

And we have 60 unique chapters within these five councils, so over the next few slides we're going to provide some more details about our community. In specific, what I want to say before we get in there is worth going to throw a lot of numbers that you and a lot of information all at once. Please know that really what we want you to understand and focus on is the council that you would be interested in joining. So for example, if you're interested in joining a historically black or African American fraternity or sorority.

You'll want to pay particular attention to our national Panhellenic Council, or MPH. See if you're interested in joining a social sorority for women. You would want to pay attention to our panel Linick Association an I'll reiterate that when we get to that point in this in the slides, but please, just note that.

So again we'll start with our first council which is the Inter Fraternity Council. This is home to our large social fraternities for men. There are 24 individual organizations within this council with an average chapter size of 50, two members. There are six groups within this council that have a particular focus. Whether that be religious like Jewish Catholic or Christian or professional interest or focus like men in.

Stem or men in AG? There are some pretty unique opportunities within this council.

There are 10 chapters within this council that operate facilities, seven of which are residential and our Inter fraternity council makes up 38% of our fraternity and sorority community. With over 1000 members.

Our multicultural Greek Council, again home to our culturally based fraternities and sororities for men. An women is made up of 14 chapters, seven women's organizations and seven men's organizations. There are chapters with a cultural or multicultural focus and that includes one Asian interest organization, several Latin X interest organizations, and several multicultural organizations are mgsi. Community makes up 9%.

Of our total fraternity and sorority membership with just under 250 members.

Our national Panhellenic Council, home to our historically black or African American organizations of two fraternities for men, an three sororities for women with an average chapter size of six members, you will see on your screen the names of the NPHC organizations that are active on our campus, in our fraternity and sorority community. Has is made up about 1% of RNPHC, so a total of 20 three members.

Our next council is the Panhellenic Association. This is home to our social sororities. For women there are two types of organizations within this council so are large social sororities for women. With residential facilities have an average chapter size of 165 members and eight of those groups have a residential facility and then within this council there are four associate chapters with a religious or professional interest within.

Average chapter size of 32 members. Those particular focuses include a Jewish sorority, a Christian sorority and agricultural sorority, and a women in technical studies sorority.

Are women's organizations within the Panasonic Association make up about 51% of our fraternity and sorority community with over 1600 members?

Our final council is our professional fraternity council. Again, this is home to our professionally focused fraternities and sororities. This council includes three all gender for attorney.

These two sororities for women, an one fraternity for men.

It's really important to note that the professional fraternity council offers a really unique membership experience because several of the organizations within this council allow members to be part of a professionally focused fraternity or sorority and a social fraternity or sorority for men and women. So, for example, if you're an incoming student studying business, you might choose to join our professional business Coed fraternity.

And also be a member of a social fraternity for men or women.

Our professional fraternity council makes up about 4% of our fraternity and sorority community. With over 200 members.

I just threw a lot of numbers that you, but really what I want you to remember from today's presentation is that there are so many opportunities to consider when you consider joining a fraternity or sorority at Colorado State University. We have over 3200 students involved in our community in 60 unique chapters within our five councils, but they're all committed to being one community and supporting and welcoming you as you join us.

At Colorado State University.

At this point in the presentation, I'm happy with progress. Any particular questions that you might have about fraternity and sorority membership? If you're interested in learning more about our community, the best resource for you is for you to refer to our office of fraternity and sorority life website at FS l.colostate.edu.

I do see a question in the chat feature specifically about the amount of dues per semester. That really varies by Council. It's really important that you check the detailed information on our website at our financing facility information page, so I will post that in the teacher here momentarily, but on average it goes anywhere from a couple $100 a semester to over $1000 a semester. But again, that is really determined by the type of organization.

You are most interested in joining, so for the most accurate information I would refer you to our website.

Other questions, I just posted the link to our financing facility information page on in the chat feature so that you can quickly refer to that for detailed information.

Are there other questions? Yep, so the percentage of students involved in a fraternity or sorority at Colorado State is 14%. So just over 3000 students, but 14% of our fraternity and sorority community is involved in a fraternity.

Yeah, so Molly would you mind telling me what type of organization you would be interested in joining? So for example, a social sorority for women or a professional sorority, whatever that would be would help me answer your question about what would recruitment look like.

Yeah, so our social sororities for women there are two main ways to join in the fall semester which is our primary recruiting semester. We have a structured recruitment process called primary recruitment so you would register for primary recruitment and you would go through a four day period where you would meet all of the women in all of our chapters and it's a mutual selection process so you would register.

And you would have the opportunity to meet folks in that process in the spring semester, an after primary recruitment in the fall, we do an informal recruitment process called continuous open bidding, which is really an opportunity to meet one on one with sorority women. They post those that information on social media and it's also available on our website, but it's less structured. Our recruitment process does not occur before the start of the semester. It occurs about a month into this semester.

Honestly, it's based on the football schedule, so we do not have the dates for next academic year because we do not have the NCAA football schedule. But it's our first away game is normally the weekend of primary recruitment.

Other questions.

Yeah, absolutely. So on Colorado State University's campus, you can be a first semester first year student going through recruitment, so there are no restrictions for our social sororities. For women or our social fraternities. For men that you be a second semester student, some of our culturally based groups in MG C&NPHC in particular. Do you have expectations that you have completed a certain number of credits before you're eligible to join? But our general social sororities for women or our social fraternities for men have no such restrictions.

I will stick around if you have additional questions, feel free to continue to put them in the chat feature, but that concludes the end of today's content for this webinar. So if you do not have additional questions, I encourage you to continue to explore all of the offerings as part of our admissions slate webinar series, but I'm so grateful for your time. Thank you so much for joining us today.