Strolling, stepping, calling and hand signing, the newest sorority at Simpson College made their vibrant debut at Yell Like Hell.

Sigma Lambda Gamma, a Latina-founded national sorority with around 3,000 sisters, was founded in 1990 at the University of Iowa and the Simpson College SLG was founded in the spring of 2015.

The mission of SLG, according to their website, is to promote academic excellence and higher education through incorporation of the sorority’s principle: academics, community service, cultural awareness, morals, ethics and social interaction.

Junior Brenda Soto, SLG president, explains the work that was put into making the SLG colony that Simpson has now.

“There were a lot of applications that go with it, trying to find out if they are the right fit for us and if we are a right fit for them. Then we went through this whole process of becoming a colony and once we gained that status we went through the process of becoming members. Then we were initiated on April 8, 2015,” Soto said.

SLG’s recruitment is different from other sororities on campus because the recruitment is overall informal.

Sophomore Alexis Bargas said traditions of SLG stem from the Divine Nine, the nine historically black sororities or fraternities that cereal the National Pan-Hellenic Council, Inc.

According to the website, the mission of the NPHCI since the 1930s has been: ““Unanimity of thought and action as far as possible in the conduct of Greek letter collegiate fraternities and sororities, and to consider problems of mutual interest to its member organizations.”

“We start off with socials, which are in informal, hanging out, doing crafts and getting to know each other,” Bargas said of the recruitment process. “No business and no talking about specific things about SLG. After that we have informationals, which is business casual attire. It’s a presentation that this semester I will be giving, and it talks about our specifics, where we were founded, who we were founded by, dues and the timeline of everything it takes to become a member. After that there is an application and after that there are interviews.”

After that process SLG gives out a bid and then makes the decision between the girl interested and the colony.

Soto believes one thing the campus should know is that though SLG is Latina-founded, which does not mean that they only allow Latinas into SLG. They are a multicultural sorority and all backgrounds are welcome.

“Campus should give us a chance, just because we are different and we are small and maybe we look like we’re all together at the same time, I think there are seven of us and each one of us has a lot of things to bring to campus, not only in sorority life, but in academics and other organizations that we are a part of, and I think they should open up and get to know us,” Bargas said.

Though SLG is a smaller sorority and a colony at the moment, Soto said SLG is similar to the other sororities on campus.

“Some of the processes we do aren’t exactly the same, but we are pretty similar to the other Greeks. We participate in all the things the Greeks do and we want to be part of the Greek community,” Soto said.

Some of SLG’s goals for this year are to get enough members to be at chapter status and to fundraise enough money to send two members to National Convention in July in Texas.

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