They don’t march around campus in straight lines wearing camouflage pants and red hoodies anymore. They don’t have restrictions on who they can talk to. And they’re no longer obligated to publicly chant and give formal greetings around campus.

Newcomers to Binghamton University’s Delphic of Gamma Sigma Tau aren’t following the traditional process for pledges of the multicultural fraternity. Instead, through activities like community service, they’re encouraged to be better contributors to society.

The change is part of the multicultural fraternity’s recent push to build up their chapter, which has three members, and pick up a “non-hazing membership process,” said President Gordon Mok.

“Pledging a frat is something you get into by choice and it shouldn’t consume your life,” Mok said. “This is what we are trying to emphasize.”

Mok remembers enduring the membership process when he joined the fraternity.

“But dishing it out to others is something I would not be able to do again,” he said.

Over the years pledging was not very popular, leaving the fraternity with currently only three active members. Delphic of Gamma Sigma Tau started at BU in 2002 with five fraternity members. In 2005 there were eight, but since then members have graduated, and potential pledges “dropped because the process wasn’t for them,” Mok said.

Consequently, the active members of Delphic fraternity have been pushing alumni to allow them to have a more inviting membership process.

“We are trying to steer away from the stereotypical fraternity stuff and have a more wholesome way of life,” Mok said. “This is a step we felt was necessary because traditional pledging is outdated. It is a step in the right direction for multicultural organizations.”

Jack Causseaux, assistant director of Campus Life who also serves as the campus’s adviser to fraternities and sororities, said he is proud of the members for making the change and hopes it will help the fraternity get new members.

“What Delphic of Gamma Sigma Tau is seeking to do is reevaluate several decades of programming,” said Causseaux, “and it is good that they are taking the time to do this.”

For this year’s membership process the Delphic fraternity is “taking away humiliation factors and anything that can be seen as degrading,” Mok said. “The new process will train an incoming member to become a brother who can contribute back to the brotherhood, community and school.”

A potential schedule of membership events was created by the current members of the Delphic fraternity. This schedule includes a weekly Community Service event that the new members will set up, multicultural events, study hours and learning the background of the fraternity itself. To replace the public greetings and chanting of the fraternity’s history, the new members will be given quizzes on the history.

According to Causseaux, the Delphic fraternity is not the first fraternity to reevaluate their pledging process. Each year the organizations evaluate the new member program to make sure it fits in-line with the university policies, and is in-tune with the goals of the fraternity or sorority.

The Delphic fraternity will be holding a general interest meeting on Monday, Feb. 11 at 6 p.m., and on Wednesday, Feb. 13 at 7 p.m., in the Old University Union room 103 to recruit new members.