My name is Christina and I am the founder of the Nu Chapter at UCLA. Right now I am a 5th year in Electrical Engineering, and I wanted to let everyone know how our sorority was founded, why, and to acknowledge all the hard work put in by everyone. So here it is, the short short version!

Phi Rho was started as an opportunity to get to know other women in engineering. In 2002, when I was a 3rd year, I was contacted by the National Expansion Director of Phi Sigma Rho to gauge interest in this kind of group at UCLA and how successful it would be. In mid-March of 2002, I held my first recruitment event all on my own, and I was very proud to say that I had over 20 girls come to hear what Phi Rho was about. After a few months of holding events and getting to know each other, the Alpha Class of 11 pledges was inducted on May 30, 2002. At that time the UCLA Colony of Phi Sigma Rho was created.

By this time the year was almost over and we pledges began to prepare for the requirements that would graduate our colony into an official Chapter. We worked almost every week in the summer to prepare for the next year. I remember most of us had full time jobs too, and we would meet up once a week, make things, work on things, and plan stuff. It took a long time. It didn’t help either that one girl dropped out after a while. I think it was the work, and I don’t blame her, it takes a LOT of time to start something like this. We were appointed our alumni advisor, Sarah Johnson, who is the greatest advisor ever! Sadly she was from Connecticut, so we had to do things on our own and she would fly in every now and then to check on us. It made communicating very difficult. We were getting ready and finishing our requirements, when the bomb was dropped on us. One of our girls was leaving to study abroad for the year, and that would leave 9 of us here. Now, that doesn’t seem like a big deal until you realize that one of the main requirements of beginning a chapter from a colony is to have a minimum of 10 people. With only 9 we couldn’t become a chapter. So with that, we started to plan our first rush.

It was really different for us because we weren’t even a chapter and had to rush people already. Most of us didn’t even really know enough about the sorority to be able to explain it to other people. I was the only one who had been through complete sorority rush at UCLA. As a 2nd year, I had rushed PanHellenic and pledged to Gamma Phi Beta, dropping out when I found out I couldn’t afford it. Because of my past experiences, I was determined to make our sorority the real thing, not some group people called a club for engineers. We have that already. It’s called SWE. We tabled at so many events: orientation fairs, welcome days, residential fairs. And there were only 9 of us to do it too! It was a huge strain on all of us. But in the end it paid off, because with our Beta class Induction on October 18, 2002, we had 7 really great girls pledge to our sorority. And then we had 16.

With that, we really poured ourselves into everything. We had to appoint a member educator to teach the new pledges, though we had barely just learned all the things about the sorority ourselves. I wanted to establish our reputation as a social sorority, not an academic club, so soon our social calendar was packed with so many different things to do, and we were constantly publicizing to everyone.

In February of 2003 I flew to Ohio to attend a National Council meeting for all chapters of our sorority. At this meeting, it was officially announced that our colony would become a chapter!

On March 1, 2003, we were installed as the Nu Chapter of Phi Sigma Rho, and officially initiated as the Alpha and Beta Classes. We held our first Orchid Ball formal that night, and I remember going up to speak to people about our experiences, and ended up bursting into tears in front of everyone. It was embarrassing, but I was just so happy. I was so proud of all the girls that stuck with me on this, and we had waited so long for this to happen, that it was just too much.

For the Spring quarter, we settled in a bit, being burned out from the last year. We took two pledges, Jean and Jen, and I am happy to say my Little Sis Jen is the best!

So that’s the history of how our chapter came to be. It was a lot more complicated than I ever thought it would be, but looking back on it, it was absolutely worth it. I have made friends along the way. I learned so many new things over the time, and I can promise you every girl in our chapter at Phi Rho can say that too. It was definitely an experience, but one I never want to forget. I hope that the creation of our chapter can help many more women out in the future, to make friends, create bonds, and nourish a sisterhood.

Sincerely,

Christina Yang
Nu Chapter Founder

August 2003