IFC recruitment period ends, temporary suspensions lifted

Lehigh’s Interfraternity Council’s recruitment ended after new members signed their invitation “bids” to join chapters on Friday.

According to the Office of Fraternity and Sorority Affairs’s website, the IFC recruitment process “occurs in the spring semester and consists of events hosted by individual chapters. Students (will) attend events hosted by chapters they are interested in, and if the chapter expresses interest, the student will receive an invitation to begin new member education.”

IFC monitors the entirety of the internal recruitment process.

“There are people in IFC checking to be sure that each potential new member has hit their requirements, so that they’re able to formally accept their bid,” said Bennett Cole, ’20, an IFC brotherhood recruitment officer. “(They also) make sure each chapter is following protocol.”

Ryan Kirton, ’18, the IFC recruitment chair, said the recruitment process lasts two weeks, starting on the Sunday before the spring semester begins. In previous years, recruitment was three weeks long.

In the beginning stages of the recruitment period, potential new members attend house tours to visit each chapter’s facility and meet its members. Kirton said IFC implemented a new eight-house minimum for house tours this year.

After the tours, potential new members attend open events hosted by chapters they are interested in joining. Kirton said open events are some of the most exciting parts of the recruitment period because chapters host activities like trampoline dodgeball or pig roasts.

Cole said open events are often relaxed and informal.

“The idea is for potential members who maybe weren’t around too much first semester to come and meet some of the brothers in a low pressure situation,” he said.

Also new this year, chapters were required to host at least one invite-only event between Jan. 27 and Jan. 29.

“(An invitation is) usually a really good sign of interest,” Kirton said. “It really tells the potential new members that we would like you to join here, get to know you more and get to know us more.”

Cole said chapters were told at the beginning of recruitment that minor incidents could result in a loss of at least three days of recruitment.

Lehigh’s chapters of Theta Chi fraternity and Psi Upsilon fraternity were temporarily suspended from conducting any recruitment activities in late January. 

“If we have credible evidence that something occurred and we are concerned it threatens the health and safety of students, and we want to stop things until we can investigate, we can put a hold on things,” said Christopher Mulvihill, the associate dean of students.

Psi Upsilon’s executive board is required to conduct an internal investigation into the chapter’s “activities that put the health and safety of Lehigh University students at risk,” according to the Lehigh Greeks blog.

Theta Chi is on disciplinary probation until May 31 and is required to follow several education sanctions. The fraternity’s recruitment activities were initially suspended after the chapter “took recruits to a Flyers game in Philadelphia and (they) were disruptive, intoxicated, and offensive to others around them.”

Mulvhill said the suspensions have since been lifted, so the chapters were able to take new member classes.