Southeast Missouri State University's Interfraternity Council and Panhellenic Council will elect new executive board members within the next months.
The Interfraternity Council at Southeast is a council that serves as the student governing body of the men's fraternities associated with the North American Interfraternity Conference. IFC is represented through all male fraternities on campus including Sigma Nu, Lambda Chi Alpha, Sigma Phi Epsilon, Delta Chi, Sigma Tau Gamma, Sigma Chi, Theta Xi, Pi Kappa Alpha and Phi Delta Theta.
Each year people apply for one of the seven positions within IFC including president, vice president of internal affairs, vice president of recruitment and retention, vice president of education, vice president of risk awareness, vice president of community relations and vice president of administration. Each position is available for anyone within the fraternities to apply for as long as the minimum requirements are met including a 2.65 GPA and an active role within their fraternity.
"If every chapter was just out there recruiting for themselves it's not going to have the same impact for the Greek community that it is having people who are actually fighting physically for them," Southeast's IFC president Nick Maddock said. "It kind of brings us all together and sets us on the same playing field."
A position on the IFC comes much responsibility, including the vital job of recruitment. Through marketing campaigns the IFC board has clear goals and ideas it aims to make common within all fraternities.
"I think IFC has come a long way in the last year. We have increased our numbers by 65 percent, which honestly is almost unheard of," Maddock said. "Our new member GPA made a huge leap, and I think a lot of that relates to in the spring we had passed a GPA increase from 2.5 to 2.65. I'm looking forward to see what the new board will do with it."
The Panhellenic Council at Southeast is a council that serves as the student governing body of the women's sororities associated through the National Panhellenic Council. The council itself is led by elected officials from each sorority at Southeast.
"Essentially the Panhellenic Council and Interfraternity Council oversee all of the chapters," president of Southeast's NPC Katy First said. "Each chapter has an executive board, but we're like the executive board in charge of all of them."
The process of applying for both IFC and NPC executive boards is similar to many other jobs. The applicant must first fill out an application and from there has an interview conducted through the respective boards.
"It's a very fair process," Greek Life director DeAnte Smith said. "Now with the IFC right now they don't have all the representatives on the exec board from every organization so for those that are not represented on the current exec boards they are allowed to have a chapter president sit in on the interviews so they can get a vote as well, so it's not a bias thing."
The NPC board has already made its decisions about the next people to sit on the executive board, and the IFC will make its final decisions on Nov. 19. All new executive board members will be sworn in at the December Greek Life Banquet.