Formal Panhellenic recruitment might be the version of sorority life most U of T students see first, but it is far from the only one. The Row sat down with Delta Alpha Theta members Anushka and Thivya to talk about building sisterhood outside the Panhellenic system, the perks of being a smaller chapter, philanthropy, socials, leadership, and why Greek life deserves a wider lens.
When people hear “sorority,” there is usually a pretty specific image that comes to mind.
Big houses. Matching recruitment outfits. Bid Day. Greek letters across a front porch. A suspicious number of balloons. Probably a spreadsheet somewhere holding the entire operation together.
That version of Greek life exists at U of T.
It is also not the whole story.
For all the visibility that comes with formal Panhellenic recruitment, there are other sororities building their own communities across the university, sometimes with fewer resources, smaller memberships, and significantly less attention.
That is exactly why The Row wanted to highlight Delta Alpha Theta.
Because if we are going to talk about Greek life, we should probably talk about all of it.
Not only the organizations students already know.
Meet Anushka and Thivya
Anushka is Delta Alpha Theta’s historian, which sounds very archival until she explains that she is essentially the chapter photographer.
She documents events, hangouts, and the random moments that eventually become chapter memories. She is also one of the newer members, having joined last semester.
Thivya has had a little more time to settle in.
She joined in her first year, has now spent three years in the sorority, and currently serves as vice president. Her role involves supporting the president, keeping up with position holders, and helping make sure the day-to-day chapter work actually gets done.
Together, they offer two very different views of the same organization: what it feels like to walk in as a new member, and what happens when you stick around long enough to become one of the people helping lead it.
So, what exactly is Delta Alpha Theta?
Delta Alpha Theta was founded in 2005 at the University of Windsor.
Its Gamma chapter was established at U of T in 2017, meaning the chapter is approaching its tenth anniversary.
At its core, the sorority centres itself around three pillars:
Determination.
Academics.
Teamwork.
Conveniently, that gives you DAT.
Very efficient branding.
Those pillars show up pretty clearly in the way Anushka and Thivya describe the chapter.
They see Delta Alpha Theta as a modern sorority focused on encouraging women, building leadership skills, supporting academics, giving back, and creating genuine relationships between members.
And because the chapter is relatively small, that community tends to feel especially close.
It is harder to disappear into the background when everyone actually knows who you are.
At U of T, where you can spend an entire semester sitting beside someone and still know them only as “girl from tutorial,” that is not a bad thing.
Non-Panhellenic does not mean “not a real sorority”
This is probably the most important distinction to make.
Delta Alpha Theta is not part of the Panhellenic Council and does not operate within the same structure as the traditional Panhellenic chapters students may be more familiar with.
It still functions as a sorority.
There is an executive team. There are position holders. There is recruitment, philanthropy, fundraising, sisterhood programming, socials, and a formal.
What changes is the infrastructure around it.
Panhellenic organizations generally have access to a larger governing system, more established recruitment structures, and considerably more built-in visibility.
Delta Alpha Theta operates much more independently.
As Thivya put it during our conversation, they do not have the same “big boss.”
That independence can make things harder. Outreach takes more work. Recruitment relies heavily on word of mouth, social media, collaborations, and members simply telling people they exist.
But there is an upside too.
The chapter has more flexibility in how it structures itself and what it wants its experience to look like.
Less built-in machinery.
More DIY.
Very university-student-coded, honestly.
Why The Row wanted to highlight non-Panhellenic sororities
Formal recruitment gets attention for a reason.
It is visible.
There are rounds, recruitment counsellors, preference, Bid Day, chapter themes, and enough Instagram content to make the entire process feel like its own season of television.
But when that becomes the dominant picture of sorority life, it is easy to assume it is the only one.
It is not.
Maybe someone went through Panhellenic recruitment and did not find the right fit.
Maybe they never wanted to go through it in the first place.
Maybe they want a smaller chapter.
Maybe they want something more flexible.
Or maybe they simply did not realize other sororities were there.
Organizations like Delta Alpha Theta offer another route into sisterhood, and that matters.
Greek life is not one council, one campus block, or one recruitment weekend.
It is a collection of communities that happen to organize themselves in very different ways.
If The Row is going to cover that landscape, then the quieter corners deserve some attention too.
The stereotype they want to retire
One concern comes up constantly when Delta Alpha Theta talks to potential new members.
Sororities are cliquey.
They are exclusive.
Everyone already has their group.
You have to fit a very particular image to belong.
Anushka and Thivya say that is exactly the impression their chapter tries to challenge.
They describe Delta Alpha Theta as outgoing, welcoming, and open to people who genuinely want to participate and form friendships.
There is not one particular personality they are looking for.
“If you’re coming to our events and you genuinely want a relationship with us and just making friendships and being a part of the sorority, that’s what we’re looking for.”
In other words: show up.
Care.
Talk to people.
A shockingly reasonable admissions strategy.
“It’s automatic smiles.”
When Anushka talks about the chapter’s atmosphere, she does not give us a polished recruitment slogan.
She talks about what happens when everyone sees each other.
“It’s automatic smiles.”
The environment, she says, feels light and joyful. There is no reason to feel like you are standing outside the group looking in.
That matters at a university where it is very easy to fall into the classic routine of class, commute, home, repeat.
Thivya says joining gave her a reason to stay.
There were suddenly people to hang around campus with, people to study beside, and people she could ask for help.
The sorority added the social layer that university does not automatically hand you just because you enrolled.
You can be surrounded by thousands of students and still feel like you are doing everything alone.
A smaller community changes that.
Dine with DAT
One of Delta Alpha Theta’s recurring traditions is Dine with DAT.
When new members join, the chapter makes time to get together over food so newer and older members can actually talk without the pressure of a formal event.
For Anushka, who joined recently, it became something she genuinely looked forward to.
There is something very sweet about how simple it is.
No elaborate theme.
No production.
Just finishing class, meeting people you like, eating something, and talking.
Sometimes sisterhood is not a matching outfit and a professionally designed backdrop.
Sometimes it is dinner.
Everyone actually has a job
One of the things that surprised Anushka after joining was how much responsibility falls across the chapter rather than sitting with a tiny executive group.
Before joining, she assumed there would be a president, vice president, and a handful of people doing most of the work.
Instead, she found that members have their own roles and ways to contribute.
For her, becoming historian gave her something tangible to own.
“I like being able to help out,” she says. “I like being able to do stuff.”
It also gave her a sense of responsibility.
Thivya’s experience has been slightly different.
Before joining Delta Alpha Theta, she did not see herself as someone particularly comfortable in leadership positions.
Then she kept taking them.
Over three years, those roles helped her become more confident until she eventually stepped into the vice presidency.
That is one of the less visible sides of sorority life.
Behind every cute Instagram post is someone learning how to plan an event, coordinate a team, raise money, communicate with members, solve problems, and recover when something inevitably goes slightly off the rails.
The résumé skills sneak up on you.
Giving back close to home
Delta Alpha Theta’s philanthropy changes depending on where members feel support is needed.
The chapter spoke about raising money connected to Palestine, supporting food banks, and helping women’s shelters.
They also participate annually in Coldest Night of the Year, supporting a local organization in their surrounding community.
For Thivya, the local aspect is part of what makes it meaningful.
“This is our home.”
The chapter is especially drawn to causes supporting women and children, something they feel connects naturally with being a women-led organization.
There is something different about helping a community that is not abstract or hundreds of kilometres away.
It is the community around your campus.
The people down the road.
Your neighbours.
Yes, we asked about socials
But first, we asked permission.
Delta Alpha Theta does collaborate socially with other Greek organizations.
Members mentioned past events including a Halloween social with a fraternity and a Women’s Day outing with another sorority, along with socials involving organizations beyond their immediate campus.
For Anushka and Thivya, one of the best parts is simply getting to meet people they would probably never encounter otherwise.
That is one thing Greek life is unusually good at.
You go from having absolutely no reason to know someone to suddenly sharing three group chats and appearing in the background of each other’s photos.
Delta Alpha Theta also holds a formal at the end of the academic year.
Last year’s theme was Under the Stars, with a blue, black, and white dress theme, food, dancing, plus-ones, and an awards ceremony recognizing members and everything they accomplished that year.
Or, perhaps equally importantly, celebrating the fact that everyone survived another year at U of T.
If you are nervous to show up alone, Anushka did too
Walking into a sorority event alone sounds objectively unpleasant.
Everyone else already knows each other.
You do not know where to stand.
You become extremely aware of what your hands are doing.
Anushka gets it because that is exactly how she showed up.
Her advice?
Come anyway.
A lot of potential new members are in the same position, and the existing members are there because they actually want to meet you.
“You’ll always be included,” she says.
That may be useful advice for almost every university club, honestly.
Nobody walking into their first event is nearly as comfortable as they are pretending to be.
Smaller classes, closer connections
Delta Alpha Theta estimates that its fall new-member classes usually include around eight to ten people, while winter classes tend to be closer to three to five.
Compared with larger Greek organizations, that makes for a particularly intimate experience.
You are not one new member buried in a huge class.
People notice when you show up.
They learn your name.
You are expected to participate.
For someone specifically looking for a close-knit environment, that can be a pretty compelling part of the chapter.
The Delta Alpha Theta starter pack
Obviously, we needed the essentials.
According to Anushka and Thivya, the DAT starter pack contains:
A digital camera.
Historian-approved.
Approximately one thousand Instagram group chats.
Because consolidating communication would apparently be too easy.
A busy calendar.
Naturally.
Jaxon.
The chapter’s little monkey mascot.
And finally:
Snacks.
Apparently, the chapter has an entire locker devoted to them.
Potential new members, do with that information what you will.
Their chapter song is “Ribs”
When we asked what song best represented the chapter, Anushka and Thivya landed on “Ribs” by Lorde.
Their explanation was unexpectedly wholesome.
To them, it represents comfort in shared spaces, growing together, and girlhood.
Their group chat sounds like the less poetic version of the same thing.
There are event reminders, school questions, food conversations, and a truly impressive number of polls determining who is free and what everyone wants to do.
There are also Instagram reels, memes, and photos of each other turned into stickers.
Nothing says enduring sisterhood quite like having your worst 0.5 photo permanently saved in twenty people’s phones.
The retreat incident
We asked for the most chaotic story they were actually allowed to tell us.
Apparently, during a past summer retreat, members ran out of water on the final day.
Everyone survived.
For Greek-life chaos, this is almost disappointingly wholesome.
“We believe in genuine relationships.”
Before wrapping up, we asked Anushka and Thivya what they would want someone to remember about Delta Alpha Theta if every other detail disappeared.
Their answer was simple.
“We are a modern sorority, and we believe in genuine relationships and building connections, and just inspiring women to be strong leaders.”
Maybe that is the easiest way to understand why highlighting non-Panhellenic organizations matters.
There is no single correct version of sorority life.
Some chapters have enormous houses.
Some do not have houses at all.
Some are connected to huge international systems.
Some govern themselves.
Some recruit through formal rounds involving hundreds of potential new members.
Others grow through smaller events, social media, word of mouth, and someone working up the nerve to walk into a room alone.
The structures look different.
The reason people stay tends to sound pretty familiar.
They found people.
For Delta Alpha Theta, that means dinners after class, leadership roles members did not expect themselves to take on, philanthropy close to home, socials with people they otherwise would never have met, a group chat full of unfortunate stickers, and apparently an entire emergency supply of snacks.
At a university where it can be remarkably easy to feel anonymous, there is something pretty special about finding a community small enough to notice when you walk into the room.
Panhellenic or not, that sounds a lot like sisterhood.