Siblings supporting watermelons, Slavs lugging milk jugs and NuNus wearing colorful costumes flooded campus along with eight other social clubs, as club members put 350 pledges through Bid Night on Friday.

The number of pledges increased for most clubs this year and pledging overall increased 36 percent for female clubs and 30 percent for male clubs. Women’s clubs have 213 pledges and men’s clubs have 137, up from the 160 women and 107 males who pledged last year.

Mauri Westbrook, director of student organizations, said the reason for the increase could be attributed to more women deciding to pledge the smaller clubs. She also said this year’s sophomore class is larger than previous years, which could also have been a factor in the large amount of pledges.

The women’s social club, GATA, has 37 pledges this year, up from 5 pledges last year.

GATA President Bonnie Kellum, senior psychology major from Allen, said the club found a great group of girls this year who are excited about pledging.

“Last year we were much smaller, so we’ve been really advertising that it is our big year to come back, and we’re well on our way to that,” Kellum said.

Men’s club, Gamma Sigma Phi, was down from 46 pledges to 37 pledges this year. President of GSP, Bryan Elrod, senior marketing major from Missouri City, said he couldn’t be happier with the 37 who decided to pledge.

“It’s not about numbers,” Elrod said. “It’s about the quality of guys we’re taking, and just how involved they’re going to be and how much they are going to make club a big deal in their life.”

Westbrook said an increase in pledges is not the only change to pledging this year. Some changes have also been made to the pledging process.

In previous years, pledging occurred in two phases. In the first phase, pledges learned about the history and traditions of the club, and Westbrook said pledges and members were in separate groups. In the second phase, the club brought the two groups together, creating unity for the whole club.

In theory, Westbrook said this was a great idea, but in practice it was hard to distinguish between the phases. She said clubs thought pledging would be more effective if they could intertwine the goals from both phases into one phase, developing a system that works for the club.

Because Student Life is allowing clubs to sequence their events, Westbrook said they also wanted to recognize that pledging is a significant commitment for pledges. They decided to reduce the number of hours a week pledges are required to participate in club activities from 15 hours to 12 hours. Westbrook also said clubs must give pledges one day off of required pledging activities per week.

Student Life made the changes last spring with input from club officers and advisers. Westbrook said the changes were based on the idea of the club choosing the values they would like to portray, then choosing the activities that represent those values.

“So, maybe the value that they want to portray in an activity is unity, but they start thinking about the value, then they develop the activity around the value,” Westbrook said.

She said another new goal for pledging is for members to be more encouraging and inviting as the pledges learn and grow into membership.

Westbrook said clubs have known of all the changes since the spring, so they have had plenty of time to reevaluate their pledging activities.

Brandon Fry, junior accounting major from Ballinger and president of Frater Sodalis, said the changes haven’t affected them very much.

“Honestly, I think it’s been good for us,” Fry said. “We are in a position where we’re able to make those changes because we are smaller, so it’s good. They are all for good reasons, so we’re more than happy to do it, and we’re just having a good time.”

Westbrook said all pledging rules could be found in the Student Organization Handbook.