The moment that KSC Greek Life organizations have been looking forward to all semester has finally arrived in the form of Fall 2025 Formal Recruitment.
Each of the KSC fraternities and sororities went through a five-day long process last week, culminating in the addition of the next wave of Greek Life members.
IFC (Interfraternity Council) recruitment started on Wednesday, Oct. 1, and wrapped up with the Bid Day ceremony on Sunday, Oct. 5. Panhellenic recruitment started a day later on Thursday, Oct. 2, and concluded with another Bid Day ceremony on Monday, Oct. 6.
Senior and Panhellenic Council President Amarrah Gates explained the schedule sororities follow throughout formal recruitment. The process begins with open house rounds that give potential new members (PNMs) a chance to meet all of the organizations, followed by an Invite Night where PNMs continue to spend time with up to all three of the sororities and ends with the Bid Day ceremony that sees the newest Greeks finding out what sorority they will officially be joining. Gates said that the open house rounds are unique to each sorority, with each organization hosting its own individual activities to see which PNMs are connecting with them.
A new aspect for Greek recruitment this year was a college-wide rule change that now allows first-year students to join Greek Life in their first semester at KSC, while they had previously only been allowed to become members of Greek Life in the spring of their first year at the earliest. Gates said that first-year PNMs have typically gone through Spring Formal Recruitment in past years because of this rule, but this year is the first time they have ever been eligible for Formal Recruitment in the fall, making this a unique recruitment period that Gates described as “really exciting.”
Gates said planning Formal Recruitment is a busy process that is all about paying attention to the small details.
“It’s a lot of random little things that you might not think about, like making sure you have the correct tablecloths and everything is printed out and you have all the information you need,” Gates said. “It’s lots of scheduling, which has been a unique challenge.”
Gates described Formal Recruitment as an important and exciting period for all of the sororities, as it is a structured way of bringing new students into Greek Life and bringing the established Greek community together. “It’s also a way to be seen on campus and for people to get to know us. Greek Life as a concept can be very intimidating, so I love Formal Recruitment as a way for people to actually get to know us,” she added.
Junior and Panhellenic Council Vice President of Communications Sarah Stagg said her favorite part of Formal Recruitment is meeting future members of the Greek Life community.
“[My favorite part is] meeting all the new people and seeing the excitement in potential new members who are ready to learn about the chapters and learn about the community. I love seeing how excited they are to get to know new people,” Stagg said.
After the first night of recruitment had concluded, Stagg said her first impression of the potential new members was that they were an engaged and excited group. She also mentioned the unique situation of first-year students being eligible for fall recruitment for the first time, saying, “Some of these potential new members that are freshmen have only been in college for six weeks, so that brings some new perspective.”
This year’s group of PNMs who went through recruitment was larger than usual, according to Gates, who expressed excitement to get to know them all.
“Every year it’s always really cool to see the variety of people we get and the variety of people that join our community,” Gates said. “That’s part of what makes the FSL [Fraternity and Sorority Life] community so strong, is the diversity of people in it. As we get to know the PNMs, it’s very cool to see why all of them are here and how each of them have their own story and their own interests and see how they fit into our Greek Life puzzle.”
After the conclusion of their Formal Recruitment processes, Keene State’s sororities gained 11 new members in total, while the fraternities recruited a total of 20 new members. For individual Panhellenic organizations, Phi Sigma Sigma and Delta Phi Epsilon both gained five new members each, while Kappa Beta Gamma recruited one new member. For the fraternities, Alpha Sigma Phi recruited 10 new members and Delta Tau Delta and Sigma Pi both gained 5 new members each.
Multiple members of IFC did not respond to requests for comment.
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