A total of 1595 women are participating in the Panhellenic Council’s first formal spring recruitment this semester. Despite the changes that have taken Greek life by storm over the past year, this number remains consistent with past formal recruitment cycles.

“Despite concerns that our numbers would severely drop due to the new university requirements, we are happily surprised by our numbers,” Panhellenic Council President Amanda Saper said via email. “This is quite a large number all things considered, and it seems that the interest in Greek life has not really wavered on Panhellenic’s end.”

Panhel’s last formal recruitment drew its largest recruitment class ever at the beginning of the fall 2016 semester as the university simultaneously welcomed one of its largest freshman classes ever. The 1,819 women registered for recruitment that semester, which was an uptick of about 200 from the previous fall, leaving fall 2015 and spring 2018 about even.

Women participating in recruitment started visiting individual chapters at their open houses over the weekend. Bid Day will be held on Monday, January 22.

This is the first time Panhel has focused its formal recruitment efforts on the spring semester, as first-semester freshmen were not permitted to rush at the beginning of the fall 2017 semester. This restriction was imposed by the university among other new regulations following the death of Tim Piazza from injuries he sustained after a night of hazing during Beta Theta Pi’s spring 2017 bid acceptance night.