Multicultural Greek numbers increase
Numbers are up for the Asian Greek Council and Multicultural Greek Council as both organizations reported higher recruitment numbers this fall.
MGC registered about 50 new students, most of whom were women, according to MGC President Celen Rosales, a member of Sigma Lambda Gamma.
AGC gained close to 100 new members, which is a significant amount for the smaller fraternities and sororities focused on Asian American culture, AGC President James Hwang said.
“We have definitely increased our numbers since last year. We’re continuing to experience an upward trend in the amount of ‘rushees’ which are mainly freshman,” said Hwang, a member of Gamma Epsilon Omega.
Hwang said the increased rush numbers might be because of AGC attempts to create a bigger presence on campus during AGC’s rush, which takes place during a two-week period.
“We post fliers everywhere and participate in the various involvement fairs. In the summer, we were also present with other organizations at an orientation for the Asian Americans,” Hwang said.
MGC organizations each have their own rush weeks and events after the main MGC informational.
The overall goal for next year for both councils is to improve the publicity of their respective organizations and plan more events, including philanthropy activities, on campus.
Both councils also hope to cooperate with each other as well as the other Greek councils at USC.
“We’re working on creating more events to put on the USC calendar,” Rosales said.
AGC is also working to expand its network across the state. It is now involved in the Asian Greek Council of Southern California, which brings Asian American culture organizations from other schools together, connecting the USC organizations with other universities.
“Each organization in the AGC has about 20 to 30 members, so it’s great to be able to network with the organizations from other schools nearby,” Hwang said.
Although the traditionally small councils face challenges for expansion, members said that’s what makes the many multicultural and Asian fraternities and sororities unique.
The smaller organizations allow members and prospectives to know each other on more of a personal level and allow prospective members to choose an organization based more on the interests and personalities of the members, Hwang said.
“We usually receive a small number of bids ranging from one to 10. Ten bids for the organizations in MGC is actually a huge number for us. However, our smaller amount of members per organization allows us to focus on unity,” Rosales said. “For us, recruitment is a lot harder because our council is a lot smaller than most of the others.”
Hwang said the recruitment effort this year went well.
“Overall, I am satisfied with how recruitment went this fall,” Hwang said. “The AGC is increasing as a family and we’re doing our best to make sure prospectives join the fraternity or sorority that is the perfect fit.”