Ohio University is following the National Panhellenic Association, an umbrella organization for 26 international women's fraternities and sororities, vote to eliminate recruitment videos from the recruitment process.
Ohio University sororities' recruitment videos can garner thousands of views online, but next academic year those videos won't be around.
OU is following the vote by the National Panhellenic Conference, an umbrella organization for 26 international women's fraternities and sororities, to eliminate recruitment videos from the recruitment process.
“It’s not a huge loss in all honesty,” Regan Kemp, president of OU's Alpha Omicron Pi chapter, said. “It takes a lot of money to make (videos) sometimes and it’s a lot of time to go in and organize it.”
Kemp, a sophomore studying athletic training, said in the past her sorority displayed videos on its welcome day and philanthropy day that highlighted its cause, arthritis awareness.
“We have girls in the chapter who have arthritis,” Kemp added.
The only type of video allowed to be shown during recruitment will be during the "philanthropy round," Kristen Kardas, assistant director for OU Sorority and Fraternity Life, said. The philanthropy round of formal recruitment, which takes place during Fall Semester, allows sororities to showcase a cause they support, Kardas said.
“There will not be videos allowed during the formal recruitment rounds outside of those used for explaining philanthropic causes,” Kardas said in an email.
Philanthropic videos will not be created by local chapters, Kardas said. Instead, the video will come from the international or national organization or the philanthropic cause the organization supports.
“This will be the case for all formal recruitments at Ohio University moving forward,” Kardas said in an email.
The National Panhellenic Conference deemed other kinds of videos as a “frill." The organization defines a “frill” as something that would take away from quality communication with potential new members, Kardas said.
OU's Sorority and Fraternity Life Office will continue to follow “values-based recruitment” standards voted on by the national council in October 2015, Kardas said.
The "values-based recruitment" plan eliminated recruitment skits as well as gifts, favors, letters and notes for potential new members. It also lays out a plan to keep decorations to a minimum and confined to the interior space used for recruitment rounds.
“We want to maximize the opportunities for potential new members to engage in meaningful personal conversations with sorority women,” Dani Weatherford, executive director of the Panhellenic Conference, said in an email.
Weatherford said the national council knows the majority of sorority women make a choice to join an organization because they connect on a personal level with the sorority's mission statement and membership.
“We believe that a Greek community is at its best when it’s engaging its potential members in ways that introduce them to the values and opportunities its organizations offer,” Weatherford said in an email.
Kemp added that the time and money her sorority won’t spend on recruitment videos will be used in better ways.
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“We’re fine with (the change),” Kemp said. “People don’t join sororities for their videos and their clothes, they join for the people.”
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