As a new year begins the Winona State University’s Panhellenic Council prepares for its fall recruitment week. Posters and signs flood the campus’ bulletin boards and information screens asking incoming and current students to look into joining a sorority, where they can attend a recruitment open house to talk with several of the girls that are apart of Winona State’s sororities.
Winona State has 3 sororities: Alpha Sigma Tau, Delta Phi Epsilon and Sigma Sigma Sigma. The Winona State Panhellenic Association is the governing body for the three nationally recognized sororities at Winona State and helps run the fall recruitment week. Typically, fall recruitment is focused on getting interaction with first year students to help them find a group that they can connect with, but other non-first-years are still able to find connections through recruitment.
Megan Hefti, a fourth-year Nursing major, is the current panhellenic president and a member of Delta Phi Epsilon, detailed how panhellenic helps students interested in sorority recruitment are able to attend an informational open house where students can talk with different members to learn more about the organizations, their philanthropies, values, and special aspects.
Hefti finds particular enjoyment in this recruitment process. “I love all aspects of recruitment but as a someone who loves to build new connections, my favorite part is getting to know more women on campus and grow as a panhellenic community!” Hefti states.
Creating a supportive collective environment is one of the main key points of the Winona State panhellenic community. Through hosting numerous fundraising and community supportive events the sororities are able to give aid to others and create uplifting bonds with each other.
Grace Schembri, a fourth-year Business Administration and Human Resource Management major and Delta Phi Epsilon member, expressed the sense of community support that she gets from being a part of a sorority. Schembri detailed how she felt that her sorority and the others on campus really help to create a positive environment through advocating and participating in philanthropies, where they are able to pick two organizations and issues to support a year, focusing on one in the fall and the other in the spring.
“I feel like we kind of spread awareness for like all different philanthropies and spread awareness that way as well,” Schembri said. “Kind of bring the community together to help raise money for a good cause.”
Similar sentiments about the fostering of community that takes place in the Panhellenic community was expressed by Ava Lerch, a fourth-year social science history education major and Sigma Sigma Sigma member. Lerch felt that by being a part of a sorority she was able to take what she learned from sorority life and help to make more positive decisions around her academics and help her friends to do the same thing.
“I feel like I’m pulling my friends who aren’t in panhellenic or sorority life into this academic success that I was pulled into, and I feel like everyone is just excelling from being able to have friends who also care about their academics,” Lerch said. “But can also be true down-to-earth people and have those conversations that you need to have.”
Ryan Stirrat, a fourth-year social science history education major and Alpha Sigma Tau member, offered advice to those looking to join a sorority. She recommended reaching out through social media, or to just talk with the girls.
“If you were to reach out, text or come up to one of us and just ask, we would all love to yap about our orgs,” Stirrat said. “We’re always here, we have such a big, like, campus presence.”
Winona State’s Panhellenic community helps women to find a place on campus where they can discover a special type of belonging. In sororities, they can work on uplifting each other, and themselves through supportive friendship and fundraising for various issues.
“Sororities represent hundreds of years of female empowerment and are real life demonstration of the difference women can have on the world, and the strength in working together for causes much bigger than ourselves,” Hefti stated.
If you would like to learn more about joining an uplifting community, or want to learn about the fundraising opportunities that are being hosted by Winona State’s sororities you can find the Winona State Panhellenic Association on Instagram at @wsu_panhellenic
