Before I began my freshman year of college I created a list of goals for myself. One of the goals that I set for myself was to join a sorority; another goal was to be surrounded by people that challenge and inspire me to become a better version of myself. Naturally, when I went through the rush process my freshman year, I chose to join Alpha Phi because I felt that it contained members who could do just that. I realize every day how lucky I am that I made that decision two years ago. Since becoming a member of my chapter, I have found the most genuine friends imaginable. When it came time for my pledge class to run for positions on our chapter’s executive board, I was encouraged by my sisters to choose the challenge and run for a position. Becoming an Executive Board member brought me closer to girls that I hadn’t known that well prior to elections. One girl that I became closer to, in particular, is our Vice President of Member Recruitment, Faith Moore.

Over the course of the last few months, I have watched Faith prepare our chapter for the insanity that is recruitment. The task of being VPMR is anything but easy, but Faith proved to everyone that it is possible to completely “kill it” at her position. Before this year’s recruitment, I had been an anti-rush sorority girl. I dreaded all things recruitment and saw the process as a chore. It is not that I had a reason to hate rush, I just couldn’t find a reason to get excited about standing all day in heels and making tedious small talk for days. However, I can honestly say that thanks to Faith’s approach to recruitment, I have grown to love rush.

Faith prepared us to recruit girls by reminding us why we fell in love with our chapter in the first place. She stressed teamwork and encouraged us to have each other’s backs when things got stressful. She also had us think about a time in our personal lives when an event made us realize that joining our chapter was the best decision that we’ve ever made. By having us recognize the qualities that we all admire in each other, we were able to realize the qualities that we wanted in our future sisters.

Faith proved every stereotype about the rush process wrong with her genuine approach. Rush is so much more than wearing cute outfits, girl flirting and singing songs. Rush is definitely not about putting other houses down or fighting to make your own house appear as the top house. Rush is about opening up your chapter’s home and helping the new members get a feel for where they belong. Faith dismissed any sort of cattiness and discouraged competitive attitudes. Instead, Faith challenged all of us to put our best versions of ourselves forward and to just be real.

During rush I ended up developing a “rush crush” on a girl that I spoke to. I saw the same characteristics in her that I see in my other sisters. While we were chatting, I realized that I wanted my conversation to make enough of an impact that she would want to join our house on bid day. Throughout our conversation, I explained to her how my chapter has encouraged me to grow as an individual in hopes that she would want that in her future house too. Seeing her run down our stairs on bid day made me so happy because I knew that she was able to see the special qualities of my chapter just as I did two years ago.

So many of my sisters have said that rush on the active side has made them fall in love with our chapter all over again. I can say on behalf of my entire chapter, that we all appreciate the time and effort that Faith put into recruitment. Our awesome 87 new members are a reflection of her hard work and positive attitude. The rush process done right made me proud to be a member of the Panhellenic community, a member of Alpha Phi, and a friend of Faith Moore.

Dedicated to Faith Moore

Thank you for being one of those people that challenge and inspire me.