Sororities: An Important, Personal Request

by Matt Mattson

[I'm proud to announce the birth of our second daughter... Josie Wisdom Mattson, born 6/20/11.  She joins her sister Elliotte Piper Matttson as potential members of sororities in the fall class of 2026 and 2029 respectively.]

Here’s my reality:

1. I do a LOT of work with fraternities and sororities.

2. I have 2 daughters.

It seems inevitable to me that one or both of my beautiful little girls will probably become a sorority woman.  Reasonable guess, right?

So here’s my request to all the sorority women out there who read this blog… For the next 16-18 years, please do all you can to attract high quantities of ridiculously high quality women.

Please seek out women that are willing to challenge the status quo, women who are brave enough to buck tradition, bold women who recognize that sororities can change the world. My daughters will know that sororities are supposed to change the world, and they’ll accept nothing less.

Please, if you can, don’t have fake conversations during recruitment about cute purses, that girl’s ugly shoes, or how skanky the girls in the house down the street are. My girls will seek out women who are not afraid to be smart, curious, caring, and confident.

If possible, please stop trying to attract high quality, intelligent, worldly, leadership-oriented women by doing skits, singing songs, shouting door chants, or having lots of balloons.  Please stop worrying about your T-shirt color. My daughters won’t be interested in that stuff.  Neither are the best women on your campus.

Please make sure to remember that just because you were recruited by a formal, structured, bizarre, frilly, system built for fairness not excellence, you don’t have to keep doing it that way.  In fact, your sorority is yours to make it what you want.  My daughters will definitely know that they have the power to change what doesn’t make sense.

Please remember what your founders’ vision was for your organization.  And while challenging yourself every day with the values your founders laid out, be brave enough to create your own modern legacy of what your sorority can be.  My daughters will know that sororities aren’t for joining.  Sororities are for living.

So, to the amazing women out there in the world right now leading the sorority movement, I’m counting on you.  Big time. Be bold. Be rebellious. Be dynamic. Be excellent.

If you focus right now on recruiting truly the best of the best women on your campus to co-create the future of your sorority with you. And if you do that through authentic personal connections and powerful conversations. Then, if those women you recruited repeat that process next year, and the next year, and the next year… well, by the time my daughters come to college, sororities will be the obvious option for all the best of the best women.  By then, sororities will be recognized as the most influential, important, and well-respected groups on campus.  By then, sororities will be the epitome of Social Excellence. By then sororities will be changing the world in ways that their founders never even imagined.

I’m proud to support the sorority movement.  I’m even prouder of what I know it can become.  Thanks for reading.