Alpha Delta Chi, known as USC’s Christian sorority, has officially been welcomed into the Panhellenic Council as an associate sorority.

Sisterhood · Known as the Christian sorority, Alpha Delta Chi has joined the Panhellenic Council as an associate member. The ADChi house is located on 29th Street. - James Watson | Daily Trojan

For the first time during fall rush, Panhellenic included ADChi in the official brochure to potential new members and recruitment counselors referred to the 11 — not 10 — sororities.

Rebekah Stokes, president of ADChi, has already noticed an advantage to being associated with Panhellenic, as the sorority’s responses for rush have increased “double or triple from last year.”

“When I was a freshman and sophomore a lot of people would think I said ADPi or ask what [ADChi] is,” Stokes said.  “Now I’m hearing people say, ‘That’s so cool, I’ve heard of you guys.’”

Though ADChi is now considered an associate member of Panhellenic, it did not participate in formal recruitment.

“The membership requirement of our house is technically discriminatory because a girl who does not identify as Christian cannot be in our house,” said Emily Camin, ADChi’s social vice president.  “We don’t want to turn people away, but girls who aren’t Christian probably won’t want to come to our house anyway so formal recruitment doesn’t even make sense.”

According to Stokes, ADChi is a sorority that exists for spiritual growth and development, academic excellence and Christian fellowship for students at USC.

“Our biggest spiritual growth is between bigs and littles. Ours is more of a discipleship program, someone to look up to and respect and help you find where your priorities lie,” Stokes said.

Though ADChi members bring a spiritual element to their sorority, Stokes said they have social activities as well.

“You always have a sister there to pray for you before your big test, and our house is fairly close to campus so we have movie-watching parties and other events,” Stokes said. “We provide positive options for people to build relationships in a way that they will remember the next day, but still have a great time.”

With only 32 members so far, ADChi has not received much attention in past years, but some members believe the new association with Panhellenic will enable the sorority to have a larger presence on campus.

“Without the status it was a little harder to get our names out there and get involved,” Camin said. “Now we have exposure to other Greek events going on and even greater contacts.”

Some members like Paige Gartland, a junior majoring in psychology, were hesitant at first to accept the new connection with Panhellenic.

“At first I wasn’t so excited because I didn’t want to be seen as the stereotypical sorority girl, but as I was talking to other girls I realized it will give us more of an opportunity to reach out to the sororities and [fraternities],” Gartland said.

Stokes said that her goal is to have ADChi become involved with Homecoming, a prominent USC football tradition in which the Greek community participants.

“We haven’t signed up for [Homecoming] or anything, but even just to be able to watch it for a year to know what to do next year will be great,” Stokes said. “I just want to be there to observe and make sure girls who will lead next year understand what’s involved with Homecoming.”

Recruitment for ADChi begins Sept. 13.