Northern Kentucky University’s Greek community will grow in the spring of 2012. According to Kim Vance, assistant director of Student Life, the NKU Panhellenic Council began to discuss opening campus for additional sororities a few years ago.

That discussion continued from Oct. 25 through 27, when women from the national organization of three sororities presented a formal business proposal to NKU staff, students and alumni as to why they should be a part of the school’s Panhellenic community.

The presentations began on Tuesday with Alpha Delta Pi, followed by Alpha Omicron Pi on Wednesday, and Chi Omega on Thursday. Of these three sororities, two will be chosen to join NKU.

Each organization spoke about membership and educational and philanthropic opportunities they could provide for our campus. They also said why they wanted to join NKU’s Greek community.

According to Andriew Sien, a member of Pi Kappa Alpha and vice president of standards for the Interfraternity Council, the visiting sororities talked about their beliefs and philanthropies.

“The big thing for me was two of the sororities took NKU’s mission statement and compared it to their own goals and values,” said member of Phi Sigma Sigma and President of Panhellenic Council Stephanie Anderson.

According to Vance, the Panhellenic Council’s criteria includes strong national support, alumnae support, marketing and marketability, plans for sustained support of the colony and new member education, among others.

The students at NKU are part of a current, national trend that shows an increase in interest in becoming part of a sorority.

“We had such an increase in the number of women in recruitment and such an increase in pledge classes, or new member classes in fall 2010,” said Vance, adding that the trend repeated in fall of 2011.

“Based on the fact that we had an increase in the number of women accepting bids, we had an increase in the number of women who came to recruitment, and then we had all these women who must have been interested in sororities but didn’t find their match. The council and the delegates decided to see if the organizations interested in coming to campus were willing to come to campus in January instead of in the fall,” Vance said.

Originally the plan was for a chapter to join campus in fall of 2012, but spring recruitment and special initiations will allow them to participate in formal fall recruitment.

Vance said that students who attended the presentations asked knowledgeable questions.

“They were good questions, like, ‘What would you do to encourage diversity within the chapter?’” Vance said. “Everyone left the presentations feeling like any one of these three chapters would be a good addition to our campus.”

Panhellenic will announce the new addition to NKU Greek Life on Nov. 13 at 5 p.m. during the Grand Chapter meeting, which will include members from all Greek sororities and fraternities.

According to Vance, Sien and Anderson, the two sororities to join campus will make a great addition to NKU and will colonize quickly.