Updated: July 15, 2015 at 5:50 p.m.
Delta Sigma Phi fraternity will become GW’s 16th fraternity this fall, concluding a months-long decision-making process.
The Interfraternity Council voted to add a chapter last October, after more than half of the students who signed up for rush ended up not joining a fraternity. Greek leaders said then that adding a new chapter would help students end up in a group that was a better fit.
Delta Sigma Phi was one of three options Greek leaders considered last winter, after sorting through letters from other interested national organizations. The Greek community at GW is more than 30 percent of students, and has swelled in recent years.
Delta Sigma Phi will not participate in general fraternity rush in the fall. Instead, the fraternity’s national organization will send two “recruitment specialists” to campus for six weeks starting in October, according to a press release from IFC President Keaton White released on Wednesday. The specialists will hold meetings and gather referrals for potential members from student leaders, staff and faculty at GW, according to the release. For the next five weeks, the specialists will recruit students through “group presentations, group bonding activities and a service project,” the release read.
“Their first new member class will be called the ‘founding fathers’ and they will have the opportunity to shape the fraternity into something uniquely them while adding something different, yet unified, to our GW Greek community,” White wrote.
Kappa Alpha and Sigma Alpha Epsilon are the most recent fraternities to join campus, both opening in 2011. Sigma Alpha Epsilon had previously operated as an unrecognized chapter for more than two decades.
Two fraternities have also recently closed on campus. Alpha Epsilon Pi was kicked off campus in January 2014 following a string of hazing and drug violations. Tau Kappa Epsilon’s chapter was closed last January following an investigation by GW.
Delta Sigma Phi will also join several other campuses in October, including the University of California – Los Angeles and the Rochester Institute of Technology, according to its website. There are currently 106 Delta Sigma Phi chapters across the country.
