At Fort Hays State University, Greek Life is prevalent but in a state of constant growth. With every new semester comes new recruits and increased sizes. It is apparent that the recruitment numbers of the fraternities and sororities on campus are large enough that it encourages other Greek organizations to colonize, as seen with the recent reinstatement of Sigma Phi Epsilon and Sigma Sigma Sigma. Does this necessarily mean that the numbers are large enough to welcome even more Greek organizations or, rather, does it all depend on the recruiting abilities of the groups themselves? Are the current organizations finding themselves with high enough membership numbers to keep themselves alive with new organizations coming?
In fall of 2016, it was announced that the fraternity Alpha Kappa Lambda (Or AKL), was going to be colonizing at FHSU in the spring of 2016. They did that, and their headquarters sent skilled recruiters to FHSU to build the chapters numbers. It is well known that the spring semester is a difficult time for recruitment for Greek life with recruitment numbers generally being half of what they are in the fall, so the decision to begin their colonization in the spring was a bold decision. Unfortunately for AKL, they could not find the numbers to stay afloat and were no longer an organization at FHSU by spring of 2017.
Recruitment has not been bad for all of these new organizations, though. As mentioned above, the Sigma Sigma Sigma sorority (or Tri Sigma) saw decent recruitment numbers when it recolonized in the spring of 2015. This could be due to the formal setting of sorority recruiting, where all of the women interested in joining a sorority are divided evenly amongst the sororities, but Tri Sigma has also retained their members.
It will become more apparent what dynamic effects the stability of new Greek organization recruitments this coming fall when the Alpha Sigma Alpha sorority will begin their colonization.