Monday kicked off recruitment week for four of Marquette's sororities and seven of its fraternities.

While it has been a long-standing tradition for Marquette's sororities to recruit new members together, this is the first year the fraternities have had a unified recruitment week.

"We're trying to work more as a whole, and this is our first step in that direction," said Greek Life Programming Assistant James Rael, a College of Arts and Sciences sophomore.

Fraternities will host an information night Tuesday, and sorority information night will be Wednesday. Both will be held in the Weasler Auditorium at 7 p.m. and the groups will give short presentations highlighting the benefits of membership, according to Greek Life Programming Assistant Anna Titulaer, sophomore in the College of Arts and Sciences.

Men interested in joining fraternities are encouraged to also attend the guided open house on Thursday, said Andrew Cleary, coordinator for Campus Activities and Greek Life. Each chapter will show recruits around its house and allow them to meet members.

The tour is guided "rather than having potential new members just going up to the chapter houses on their own," Cleary said. "This way they have members of the Inter-Fraternity Council who will bring them from house to house."

For the next week after guided tour night, fraternities will host activities to help get to know the recruits better. Cleary said the activities often include "going out to dinner at restaurants or bowling or video game tournaments."

The following week, Cleary said the fraternities send out bids, or invitations to join.

The sororities will host a chapter information night in the Alumni Memorial Union ballrooms at 6:30 p.m. Thursday, Titulaer said, where members of each of the four participating sororities will present specific information about their chapters.

Women who are interested in Greek life must fill out a registration form. Cleary said applicants are then broken into smaller groups with a recruitment counselor, and the groups will tour chapter houses. The next Sunday, recruits meet to find out which group they have been invited to join and have the option to accept the bid or decline and try recruitment again next semester.

Because of the stereotypes surrounding fraternity or sorority initiations, recruitment counselors are quick to emphasize that Marquette's Greek organizations have banned all hazing.

"It happens at bigger schools but we don't have to worry about it, because it doesn't happen here at all," Titulaer said.

Fraternity and sorority members agree Greek organizations are a great part of their life at Marquette.

"The community here is amazing," Titulaer said. "There's a whole community out there that you can be involved."

This article appeared in The Marquette Tribune on Jan. 25 2005.