Phi Sigma Sigma will be joining UNH’s Fraternity and Sorority life in the fall of 2016.
According to Erin Courville, coordinator of Fraternity and Sorority Life at UNH, students will be able to go through the formal recruitment process and meet Phi Sigma Sigma sisters from other campuses that will be helping the process to start a chapter at the university. Once the open house round of recruitment is finished, Phi Sigma Sigma will drop out and recruit separately.
Courville explained that Phi Sigma Sigma’s national headquarters is working to secure housing for the organization at UNH. Housing would not be immediate because recruitment has not yet taken place.
Phi Sigma Sigma will recruit out of the MUB for its first year. As of right now, Sigma Alpha and Delta Xi Phi are the only other two sororities on campus that are un-housed.
“This is great news for them coming to our campus, they will grow with us and can give the new colony tons of attention and resources which will help them be successful. It is a really long process to bring a group on to campus,” Courville said.
Courville has been working on bringing Phi Sigma Sigma to UNH for two years now.
“I believe this new group will be popular with women who are looking for a different experience. It is much different to be a group’s founder than to join an established group,” Courville said.
Courville said that the excitement for Phi Sigma Sigma coming to UNH is high. She said that the group’s Facebook page, which was created Tuesday, already has 260 “likes.”
The sorority is set to recruit any undergraduate woman. Since the group is new to the UNH campus, it won’t be heavily directed at freshmen and sophomores like traditional recruitment, stated Courville.
With the inclusion of Phi Sigma Sigma in the fall, UNH will have six National Panhellenic Conference (NPC) sororities out of the 26 groups total.
According to Courville, Phi Sigma Sigma is smaller in size nationally in comparison to the other sororities on campus.
Phi Sigma Sigma was founded in 1913 in New York City. Today there are over 60,000 members nationwide.
According to Phi Sigma Sigma’s website, the sorority＊s mission is: “To inspire the personal development of each sister and perpetuate the advancement of womanhood.”
Its vision is: “To be a dynamic sisterhood of powerful women fostering uncompromising principles, igniting positive change and embracing individuality.”
The sorority＊s list of core values includes “lifelong learning, inclusiveness, and leadership through service.”
Courville noted that sorority life on the UNH campus is “quite popular” and that it has grown within recent years.
“Over the last two years we have had over 500 women come out for recruitment each fall and the chapters have now gotten so large that many of them can no longer meet in their houses or a normal room, they need auditoriums,” Courville said.
