First and foremost, the undergraduate chapter wishes that all of our readers stay safe physically and mentally throughout this time, as it has provided many hardships for others. COVID-19 ended our semester short as most of our brothers went home on the weekend of March 20th-22nd of 2020. In one week, we went from selling tickets for our March Madness philanthropy and preparing for Augie to packing up our things and going home. We received a portion of our room and board back. It was a trying time for the fraternity, as our last meeting comprised of elections and the unusual feeling that it was our last meeting of the year even though it was March. Our brothers continued classes for over a month online at home, which resulted in an entirely different way of learning.
To stay connected, our brothers set up zoom meetings to chat, hang out, and catch up. Our executive board also met through zoom to make sure things were running smoothly. While COVID-19 affected our Greek life throughout the remainder of the school year, its effects carried on towards summer recruitment. Considering all the possibilities, IFC decided to move forward with a unique summer recruitment plan. In the summer, all recruitment must be through zoom meetings, so potential new members and recruitment chairs would meet together online. Zoom meetings would also be set up for incoming freshmen to sign to the fraternity of their choosing. Along with this summer plan, a formalized recruitment event will now take place in August, inviting all male freshmen to attend and learn about each fraternity as well as meeting the brothers. So far, this has been somewhat of a struggle to all fraternities on campus since meeting in person is a crucial factor for many potential new members. The loss of summer recruitment events is very unfortunate, but our chapter has worked to adapt to current times and we are still seeing success in recruitment through zoom meetings, text messaging, and informative social media. By early fall semester, we signed 22 high quality new members to be part of our chapter.