New classes come with a new semester, as well as another chance to join Greek life at UNH.

This past and upcoming week, fraternities and sororities are holding their semester recruitments.

Some fraternities such as Sigma Phi Epsilon (SigEp) have just completed their rush week.

Ryan Gancarz, junior mechanical engineer and member of Sigma Phi Epsilon, explained what events they had this past week.

“Saturday we did a night of pizza and had rushing guys come and chat,” Gancarz said, “then on Monday we did dodgeball in the Strafford room.”

On Wednesday, SigEp had an information session at their house, which Gancarz explained, “really gives them a chance to get to know us better.”

However, not as many students rush in the spring, compared to the fall.

About 30 guys have shown interest in rushing SigEp right now, compared to the fall in which usually, Gancarz said, “about 50 guys normally rush.”

“The second semester we usually don’t get as many [students]…so they may decide to do it, or they may decide, I joined this other club and really like that and I think it fits me,” Gancarz added,  “which is still great for them.”

With sororities, things are slightly different.

Alicia DelVento, a junior health management and policy major, sister of Chi Omega, and president of the PanHellenic Council, gave some insight on how sororities do spring recruitment.   

“We have fall formal recruitment…where you sign up and go to the houses,” DelVento explained, “whereas in spring it’s informal, so houses can pick if they want to participate.”

DelVento described spring recruitment as “a more relaxed process.”

“You get to know a lot of girls better [in the spring],” DelVento said, “since it’s not as hectic and there’s not as many girls.

DelVento estimated that around 15 girls rush in spring versus 50 in the fall, and they are mostly freshmen.

Sororities have events such as trivia nights, coffeehouses and ice-skating.

This spring, Delta Xi Phi Multicultural Sorority (DXP) is one of two sororities having a recruitment week.

“We sort of do our own recruitment process,” Francesca Bragan, president of DXP said.

Bragan explained that they “do a two-week recruitment process.”

“Our events are based on our founding pillars,” Bragan explained, “so we’re hosting a event where we’re making friendship bracelets and get well cards for local hospitals.”

This semester DXP actually has more girls going out for recruitment than their fall semester.

Bragan suggested, “freshmen are getting acclimated in the fall, and decide to join a sorority in the spring, after hearing what it is like from their friends.”

Alpha Chi Sigma (AXS), the professional co-ed chemistry fraternity, is seeing a larger number of students than usual this spring.

James Chase, chemistry senior and vice president of AXS described its current spring rush.

“Last fall we had an interest of about 27 people,” Chase said, “which is one of the highest we’ve had in our fraternity, and there’s 19 people now [this spring], and usually there are ten or less in the spring.”

Chase suggested that high fall recruitment numbers are due to “students coming back after summer break and are looking to get into something right away.”

Whereas, in the spring, “students are already on track with their schedules and have their routines down,” Chase said. 

“But really popular last night was our potluck, which we usually have about twice a semester,” Chase explained, “and we had about 50 people there.”

Regardless of size, Chase described recruitment as “chaotic and hectic but still awesome, taking something that you enjoy and join a group of people who like it too.”