The Student Leadership Center provides opportunities for students to engage in leadership learning and work on developing leadership skills and strategies through involvement, programs, and self-guided learning opportunities.

The Student Leadership Center has a few programs, one of which is called Make Your Mark on Madison Leadership Development Program. It is a 10-week leadership development program for first-years, sophomores, juniors and seniors. The goal of the program for every participant is to obtain a sense of belonging, start to become more self-aware, and to begin to recognize their innate ability for self-authorship. In short, it emphasizes every student’s ability to make a difference on campus.

Another involvement opportunity is through Strengths Coaching. After participating in the coaching program, you can become a coach yourself. You will gain the knowledge and the skills to help other students learn about and apply their own unique talents and abilities to solve problems, overcome challenges, and achieve excellence in their academics, their personal goals, and their relationships. Look for Strengths Coaching on our website.

We host both in-person and virtual Leadership, Conversation, and Strengths Coaching. When you sign up you choose the type of coaching experience you want, the coach you want, and the time you want to do it. Most of the coaching experiences give you the opportunity to complete an assessment that your coach can help you understand and apply to your life. You can sign up for any of those coaching experiences to do personal development that you can take with you through your college career and beyond. Check out our website.

There are online modules that take about 15-20 minutes to go through that you can do on your own time, at your own pace helping you with Creating a Vision, Personal Mission Statements, Strengths-Based Leadership, and more. Check out our website for more information. 

The Leadership Center has Outreach Educators called the LEAD Team. The LEAD Team is a group of student facilitators who can come to your residence hall, organization, or work with you individually for leadership development. They can facilitate sessions on various topics like Difficult Conversations, 5 Key Leadership Practices, Building Trust, Leading Others in a Student Organization, and much more. They can can also prepare you to facilitate your own sessions.

Sorority Primary Recruitment takes place over two weekends from September 18-20 and September 25-27; Bid Day is September 27. Register here.

Fraternity Recruitment will take place between September 6 and 18. Register here.

While a recommendation is always a good thing and can only assist a chapter in getting to know a potential new member, letters of recommendation are not required for our chapters.

There is an on campus “Greek Row” located along Newman Lake behind Bridgeforth Stadium. Greek Row is conveniently located next to the Godwin Transit Center and the Madison Union Bus Stop. Twelve sororities and two fraternities are housed on the row.

All sororities have a live-in housing commitment as an obligation of Membership. Those participating in sorority recruitment should not sign any off-campus housing leases until they know that they will not be required to live in the chapter facility.

Each chapter facility on Greek Row houses 28 Members in double occupancy rooms. Each facility has two common bathrooms, a laundry space, a kitchen, study lounge space and chapter room space plus storage space for the chapter. Chapter Members are allowed to customize bedrooms and paint their bedroom space over the summer if they wish on designated days.

As members of the JMU community, we have a legal and moral obligation to promote an atmosphere that is free of hazing ‑ the Office of Fraternity & Sorority Life contributes to this directive through a variety of policies, procedures, and programs.

We encourage any member of the JMU community who becomes aware of subtle or overt hazing to report this activity to our office. We keep all reports anonymous.

It is critical that students know the dangers in joining an “off-campus” or unrecognized Fraternity. Unrecognized organizations are not advised by the university, are unable to use campus resources, and are prohibited from participating in Fraternity and Sorority Life events. These organizations are not recognized by an Inter/National headquarters and are not held to the same standards and policies as our recognized fraternities/sororities.

Often times these groups will claim they are “working on getting recognized by the university.” This is not true. JMU currently has no plans to recognize any of these unrecognized organizations, if the national headquarters of ones of these groups is invited to colonize on campus, they would be starting a completely new organization separate from the unrecognized group or the people that unrecognized group would have been recruiting.

Current List of Unrecognized Fraternities:

• Alpha Tau Omega (Also known as: The Alpha Society, Alpha Omega, JMU Taus) ‑ Lost recognition in Fall 2015 due to multiple violations of probation
• Delta Chi (Also known as: Pi Beta Chi, Crosskeys Society) ‑ Lost recognition in Fall 2013 due to hazing (Forced calisthenics and underage drinking)
• Sigma Chi (Also known as: Iota Chi, Sigma Iota Chi) ‑ Lost recognition in Fall 2015 due to hazing, issues with drugs/alcohol, and multiple risk management concerns
• Tau Kappa Epsilon ‑ Lost recognition in Spring 2019 due to violating probation and sanctions levied after a hazing violation

We have a comprehensive scorecard for each of our organizations.

Send us an email or call Lexi Swinimer, Assistant Director for Fraternity & Sorority Life at 540-407-8379.

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Student Activities and Involvement provides opportunities for students to develop an ongoing relationship with the campus and community through programs, activities and support as they become educated and enlightened citizens who lead meaningful and productive lives.

UPB puts on events for the JMU and Harrisonburg communities. We host fun programming events for campus like Late Night Breakfasts, concerts, movies in our campus theatre, trivia nights, and creative special events like self-care and casino nights.

UPB does a larger recruitment process at the beginning of the Fall semester where we take in new members and train them in the PIT (Programmers in Training) process. There are opportunities to get involved during the Spring as well if students are interested in joining. Students can submit an online application and participate in a brief interview to show that they are interested! Follow us on Instagram (@upbjmu) to see when we post the application and make announcements about information sessions.

Most UPB events are free to everyone! Movies are free to all students with a valid JACard and $3 to anyone else who wants to attend. Our smaller concert series is free, while we sell tickets to our bigger concerts once a semester.

BeInvolved is a platform that provides information on every recognized student organization here at JMU. 

Attend Student Org Night, our involvement fair where recognized student organizations, campus departments, and Harrisonburg community partners are available to talk with JMU students wanting to be involved in their community. The Fall Student Org Night is set for Monday August 31.