The Georgetown colony of the Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority held its pledge ceremony Sunday, making it the first National Panhellenic Conference sorority at the university.

The colony was founded by Carrie Cosgrove (NHS ’16),Bayla Pidgeon (SFS ’16) and Katie Steininger (MSB ’16) and has 25 members in its inaugural pledge class. Last spring, the founders started looking into bringing KKG to Georgetown.

“We all really loved Georgetown but felt like something was missing,” Pidgeon said. “We lucked out because we all felt that Kappa was the right organization for us. … We got in touch with Kappa. They were really eager to start a colony here.”

Like all social fraternities and sororities, KKG will not be recognized by the university.

Cosgrove, Pidgeon and Steininger reached out to friends on Facebook to gather interest in a sorority.

“A lot of girls did respond and wanted to form the initial interest group,” Cosgrove said.

Margaret Krackeler (NHS ’16) expressed interest in joining over the summer and is now part of the new colony.

“It just seemed like a good way to get to know people who I probably wouldn’t have met otherwise,” Krackeler said. “Hopefully it won’t be too stereotypical a sorority.”

The original founders have been in close contact with the KKG alumni network in Washington, D.C., who are working to gain national affiliation for Georgetown’s chapter.

National Fraternity President of KKG Julie Leshay expressed enthusiasm for the new chapter on the KKG website.

“The interested women at Georgetown share a desire to have a community with their female peers,” Leshay wrote. “We are thrilled to welcome the interested women at Georgetown into Kappa, and to provide them with an infrastructure to support their aspirations.”

Members of Georgetown’s other two sororities, Delta Phi Epsilon and Adelfi, will be allowed to join KKG in addition to their current groups.

“It’s a bunch of girls from different organizations and different places on campus, from around the country and the world, who have different interests and come together despite these differences,” Pidgeon said.

The first class, formed entirely of girls from the original summer interest group, began their eight-week pledge program last weekend. The program will culminate in an initiation at the end of October.

Like Panhellenic sororities and fraternities across the country, new members will be required to pay dues each semester. Members of KKG declined to share the size of the fee for the fall semester.

“Our first semester will always be a little more expensive, mainly because you have to pay a new member fee,” Pidgeon said.

The sorority has no plans to partner exclusively with fraternities on campus.

“We are really eager to program with all the organizations on campus, not just Greek ones,” Pidgeon added.