With zero sisters and a house not yet ready for members, the women’s fraternity Alpha Gamma Delta is trying to develop its future pledge class.

 

The group is meeting with interested girls later this month to join, but it won’t be the rush system typical of Syracuse University, and some SU sorority girls have mixed opinions on whether the new fraternity’s system will work. 

 

The fraternity will be recruiting interested girls from meetings and interviews held in buildings around campus, not the house where the girls will live, said Jill Harter, the fraternity’s director of communications.

 

That’s because freshmen girls currently live in the fraternity’s future house: Butterfield House on Comstock Avenue. The group is planning to renovate the house and move its new members there in fall 2011.

 

For recruitment, the group will hold two events on Sept. 28 and 29 to casually meet interested girls, Harter said. During the three days after that, the fraternity will hold 30-minute individual interviews with the girls to tell them about the fraternity. 

 

Three of the fraternity’s staff members came on the SU campus before school started to reach out to students and campus officials, Harter said. The staff members are trying to go to high-traffic pedestrian areas and hand out cards about open house events.

 

‘It’s all about building relationships,’ Harter said, estimating staff members have talked to nearly 500 students so far.

 

Being able to start the chapter on campus again is something attractive for prospective members, said Hilary Zimmerman, the fraternity’s extension specialist and one of the staff members on the SU campus.

 

‘You get to start new,’ she said. ‘You get to kind of create your experience.’

 

The fraternity staff will try to hold interviews with prospective girls in buildings near other sorority houses and within close walking distance, Zimmerman said. 

 

But some SU sorority members don’t think Alpha Gamma Delta will necessarily have an easy transition.

 

‘I think that they’re going to have a really hard time,’ said Anna Baek, a sister in Alpha Chi Omega. 

 

She questioned where the women’s fraternity would have chapter meetings if it got girls to join.

 

Seeing the house where the new girls could live if they join a particular sorority is also an important part of the final decision, Baek said.

 

‘It’s something that sticks out in their head,’ Baek said. ‘And they’ll remember.’

 

But other sorority members said the house will not be the final decision in a girl’s sorority choice.

 

‘It’s not really the house,’ said Jill Gennaco, a sophomore sister in Delta Delta Delta. ‘It’s more of the people you meet.’

 

She said her sorority had received e-mails about Alpha Gamma Delta, and some greek members had dinner with the fraternity’s staff this semester.

 

‘Everyone’s kind of welcoming them with open arms,’ she said.