Overview of the new member recruitment by the nine member of the Greek Multicultural Council.
With a number of large Greek organizations present at Ohio University, it may be easy to overlook one of the university’s tightest-knit and most open-minded Greek entities, the Multicultural Greek Council.
The modest council, consisting of nine members, has been starting the semester by meeting with potential new members in a unique way: getting to know them on an unstructured, personal level.
“We have a bidding process, but it is much smaller,” said senior Morrice Scott, president of Sigma Lambda Beta. “After we meet someone interested, we talk amongst ourselves and decide who's who. We don't want to draw a '50 plus' crowd. We want it be more personal.”
Consisting of a seven-member sorority, Sigma Lambda Gamma, and a two-member fraternity, Sigma Lambda Beta, the Multicultural Greek Council's mission is to expose their members to other races, ethnicities, cultures and lifestyles. The organizations have Latino roots but welcome all.
“(Sigma Lambda Beta) has given me a chance to see how other cultures live,” Scott said. “I've stayed weeks with Asian bros and Mexican bros, and you start to understand the similarities we all have, which is important because a lot of problems come from people not understanding other people.”
Dues for Sigma Lambda Gamma and Sigma Lambda Beta total $215 and “less than $250” per semester, the chapters’ respective leaders said.
Alex Taylor, president of the Multicultural Greek Council and member of Sigma Lambda Gamma, also added that the two chapters stand for “scholarship, service and also to empower individuals.”
With those goals in mind — coupled with the group's small size — the Multicultural Greek Council's recruitment allows interested students to reach out to either of the chapters and spend time with their current members.
“We like to get to know each other on a social level,” Scott said, who said the organization doesn’t promote itself as much as the others at OU. “We don't look for a number. We don't discriminate anybody: white, black, Latino, as long as you're cool. We look for people with a good head on their shoulders and are driven by ambition.”
Both chapters use an informal bidding process and hold informational meetings, though they say that their small size sometimes makes it difficult for them to find interested students.
“It's a more lengthy process,” said Taylor, a senior studying nursing. “People don't really know who we are.”
Despite their lack of exposure, members from both chapters say they have remained involved on campus and plan to hold events throughout the semester. They say they welcome anyone who interested in broadening his or her cultural horizons, expanding employment opportunities and meeting new and diverse people on common ground.
“(Joining) opens ups a lot of networking connections. I've met a lot of people and know a lot of names in my field because of it,” said sophomore Dave Brown, vice president of the Multicultural Greek Council and a member of Sigma Lambda Beta.
“If anybody has any interest in meeting new people from different nationalities, joining is definitely the best way of doing it. Everybody is put on the same level.”
lf491413@ohio.edu
