Updated as of 4:07 p.m. on May 16 to include comment from Executive Director of AEPhi Bonnie Wunsch.
Elon’s Panhellenic council announced the addition of AEPhi, a historically Jewish sorority, on May 13.
“We are thrilled to announce our community expansion with the establishment of Alpha Epsilon Phi here at Elon University,” Panhellenc wrote in an instagram post.
Alpha Epsilon Phi was founded at Barnard College in 1909. AEPhi has been interested in founding a chapter at Elon for almost 20 years and visited Elon’s campus on May 2 to host an interest meeting.
“We could not be happier and believe that this is just an amazing match for our organization and for the school and students,” Bonnie Wunsch, Executive Director of AEPhi, said.
Voting on adding the sorority on campus was held last Tuesday, May 7 during A Panhellenic delegates meeting, but waited until the following Monday to announce the vote.
During their interest meeting, AEPhi announced that they plan to hold off on joining recruitment until January, and instead, intend to have upperclassmen join first in order to gain a solid footing on Elon campus.
Wunsch said the next steps are to learn more about the community and set a course for success for the organization.
“We have a lot of questions and a lot of knowledge still to be gained,” Wunsch said.
Following AEPhi’s induction, national council members plan to return to Elon’s campus to spread the word.
“I think that’s one thing is to understand that we’re going to enhance the community and not detract from any of the other groups,” Wunsch said.
Wunsch said a common misunderstanding is that AEPhi is a sorority only for jewish women. However, AEPhi is open to all women. It is a culturally Jewish organization, not religiously Jewish.
“It’s the fundamentals upon which we are based, and Jewish values are human values,” Wunsch said.