The Pace Pleasantville community is a tight knit group of students, many of which are in clubs or organizations who are facing new challenges amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

Amongst these students are those involved in Fraternity and Sorority life on campus. These Greek Life organizations are fighting to recruit and plan new member intake programs that follow Pace’s COVID-19 guidelines.

According to Brandon Mathieu, Associate Director of Fraternity and Sorority life, the Greek community is going to have to have a bit of creativity to ensure recruitment goes as smoothly as possible.

“Obviously, we talk about ‘keeping it fresh’ every semester so that the brand name of each organization is out there, however given COVID-19, and all of the impacts that has brought on, it really is an opportunity that allows for organizations to come together and re-strategize not only for recruitment, but overall chapter operations this semester/academic year.”

Even so, many Greek organizations have had to reschedule, edit or cancel their recruitment events which is one of the main ways they get to know potential new members.

According to Mikayla DeSantis, Recruitment chair for the Sorority Delta Phi Epsilon, they “Have not been able to have their typical recruitment events because of Pace’s limits on attendance.” DeSantis continued. “It’s hard to get to know PNMs and really see what their facial expressions are and if they look interested with their masks on.”

Recruitment is not the only thing affected by Pace’s guidelines. According to Cory Kinchla, New Member Educator for the Fraternity Alpha Chi Rho, new member intake is going to be different as they have to follow safety guidelines put in place by SDCA.

“A good chunk of [process] is going to have to be on zoom, or over the internet, so we’re not interacting with each other. So that’s going to be the most challenging part because I think it’s important to focus on bonding within the Postulant class,” stated Kinchla.

With these restrictions and the changes within college campus culture due to COVID-19, a lot of the FSL community is left hoping that the future of Greek life on Pace Pleasantville isn’t at jeopardy.

Footnotes:

PNM- Potential New Member.

Postulant- A Postulant is a Potential New Member who is currently going through the new member education process for Alpha Chi Rho.