The College Panhellenic Association met last Wednesday to discuss the new controversial changes in setting the Panhellenic total. These changes were announced by the National Panhellenic Council last month. The National Panhellenic Council, the governing organization of 26 national and international sororities, sets a total for each campus. This is the number of members each campus Panhellenic sorority is expected to recruit each semester. Normally, Panhellenic total is set during formal recruitment at the beginning of each fall semester.
With these new changes, the total can be reset each semester using one of several methods: setting it at whatever the chapter size of the largest Panhellenic chapter on campus is; keeping it at what was set during formal recruitment or taking the largest chapter size and adding 5-10 percent. Because UW-Platteville only has two Panhellenic sororities, these changes sparked debate between the two, as the first method announced would mean that Gamma Phi Beta could not recruit this semester.
“I’m currently trying to break the tension by connecting the chapters in many ways. One way I’m super excited about is, I put positions from each chapter together so that they can exchange ideas and advice,” said Panhellenic public relations chair Ayva Bennett.
Bennett is working on building more bonds between the two chapters in order to help ease this strain.
“We are also trying to figure out ways for both chapters to connect through recruitment, instead of it being a competition,” Bennett said.
The College Panhellenic Association meets every Wednesday at 8:00 p.m. in the Markee Pioneer Student Center.