Snow day delays Bid Day for Greeks

Bid Day 2011 welcomes 116 new women actives and 82 new men actives last Saturday

by Sneha Janardhanan

Bid Day was rescheduled to last Saturday after the Crisis Management Team determined that Friday’s inclement weather was too dangerous for university activities to continue. Despite this delay, Bid Day proved to be successful as the number of people who accepted their bids did not differ much from last year’s numbers.

According to Laura Barron, senior and co-chair of Greek Council, the numbers were on target this year and look consistent in comparison to previous years.

This year’s new actives include 116 women and 82 men.

Though the women’s numbers are slightly lower this year than last year’s 123 new women actives, the men’s numbers increased from 70 last year to 82 this year.

Though 215 bids were extended this year, only 205 were accepted, according to Barron.

“We extended, with fraternities and sororities combined, 215 bids,” Barron said. “If people preffed, usually they accept their bids.”

The weather did, however, have some effect on the organizations’ pre-planned schedule of events.

“Some organizations had to change their orientation around a little bit, but it’s just for one weekend, and people were accommodating,” said Lauren Hickman, rush and orientation co-chair of Spur sorority.
But according to Barron, Greek Council was willing to help organizations with reorganizing their activities to fit the delayed schedule.

“Greek Council fortunately has enough budget to help out people who have deposits placed on places so it didn’t really affect anything severely,” Barron said. “It turned out a lot better than we had hoped. Originally we were going to move it back one week and that would have been disastrous” said Barron.

For the most part, people didn’t seem too disappointed in the delay of Bid Day.

“We had to change around some stuff but it all worked around for the better, we’d rather have our girls warm” said Alana Hochstein, senior and member of Sigma Theta Tau.
Maduka Ogba, senior and co-founder of Pi Kappa Alpha, shared similar sentiments.

“Greek Council has to do what it has to do. The weather wasn’t that great yesterday, but now the weather is awesome so they definitely made a good choice of making sure everyone was safe,” Ogba said.

Festivities started around the fountain at around 12:30 p.m. Students who were not offered bids by Greek organizations received phone calls between 12:30 and 1 p.m., after which students who did not receive phone calls headed towards the Witt Center to accept their bids.

New members started arriving at the fountain at around 1 p.m. Men who were offered bids went directly from Witt Center to the fountain, while the women were greeted by the presidents of their respective sororities at Murchison Lounge, after which they headed to the fountain.

“I’m so excited for the babies, it’s not even healthy” said Kendra Doshier, junior and member of Zeta Chi.

Makenzi Lindamood, first year and new member of Zeta Chi sorority, agreed.

“This is the most exciting day of my year, and I am so honored to be chosen,” Lindamood said.

As usual, members of Greek organizations were decked out in clothing and accessories corresponding to their respective organization colors waiting to welcome their new members. Many Greeks wore or carried colorful boas, tutu skirts, flags, banners, colorful tights, sunflower headbands, capes and more.

“It’s colorful and it’s exciting, and the students have done a good job of making that celebration something that’s fun and appropriate, so I think it’s a great tradition,” said David Tuttle, dean of students and interim vice president of Student Affairs.

According to Ben Newhouse, who has been watching this event over quite a few years, this day is the highlight of the year for Greek organizations.

“It’s really nice to see the enthusiasm they have about taking on new members and just growing their own individual community and collective community as a whole,” Newhouse said.

Some parents who were passing by were also pleasantly surprised and happy to see the combined Greek celebration.

“We were just walking through campus and heard all the screaming and horns. We were wondering where it was coming from. We followed the sounds and found a ton of kids out there celebrating their Bid Day, and it looked like they were having a great time”, said Judy Waldon, parent of a graduate student at Trinity.