Univ. of Kentucky to move NPC recruitment
 

The University of Kentucky will move NPC recruitment from before school starts in the fall to after everyone is on campus.

http://www.kykernel.com/news/greeks-...7bcb751f5.html

How does this relate to the eventual Gamma Phi Beta colony?

I thought that was supposed to be Fall 2017, but I can't find anything about it online-was it postponed?

The article states sorority retention needs to boost, perhaps a sign GPhiB waited or was asked to wait on their colony.

It was postponed.

Take another look at the article. The University wants to increase UNIVERSITY retention rates, not sorority retention.

"As part of soon-to-be-leaving, Provost Tim Tracy’s five-year strategic plan which began in 2015, UK hopes to raise first-year retention from 83 to 90 percent by 2020. Changing sorority recruitment dates could potentially boost those rates."

This is exactly what Ole Miss has done. They pushed Rush back to after the date that freshmen could drop out and receive a refund of their semester fees.

Girls have been known to throw their hair ribbons on the floor and call her parents and demand that they come get her & let her transfer to try rush at another university. Parents are less likely to allow their little precious to drop out of school when she doesn't get exactly the sorority she wanted, if it is going to cost them a semester's tuition.

Holding rush while classes are in session makes the whole rush process so much more difficult and stressful on the PNMs , as well as actives.

Kentucky rush isn't one of the more competitive SEC recruitments. I always consider UK and Vanderbilt SEC lite, as far as recruitment is concerned. I am not sure there is a mass exodus of women out there leaving due to recruitment. This seems like kind of a head scratcher.

Uh, it's kinda hard for the sororities to be involved in K Week when they are busy with recruitment that week.

I imagine admin also thinks that if women who would have missed the boat on recruitment had it been held early now have a chance to sign up when they get to school, they might be able to hold on to more women that way. When you're trying to bump up retention even the smallest changes can help with keeping students.

The state of Kentucky's budget is, in my opinion, driving this change. All state schools are not only facing an across-the-board budget cut, but they're also being required to meet certain performance standards in order to receive funds (funds which used to be automatically included in their annual allocations). The more students who graduate, the more money the institution is able to receive; the opposite is also true - fewer graduates means less money.

Right. If UK retention falls, fewer students will graduate, which means less money from the state.

Each student is valuable (monetarily). Whatever the administration can do to keep any students from leaving is on the table.

Right.

I have strong feelings about the lengths to which the university will go to continue funneling basketball phenoms through the one-and-done turnstiles, especially considering the way all non-(basketball)athletes are treated, but I'll try to keep those to myself.

Kentucky is a tough state to work in right now if you're in state-funded academia (or any other state-funded agency). In many ways, the students hold all the power. As potential future employees of the state, I would love to see them band together and fight. I worry that our state's budget crisis will result in our best and brightest going to other states to work. But that's another topic for another thread.

tl;dr?
It's all tied to money. More students = more money, and administrators will do (almost) anything they can to keep students happy/enrolled.

As relates to the University of Kentucky, I have observed more UK and UK Wildcat stickers on cars in my northern U.S. area during the past two years than in all the previous five years. University of Alabama car stickers have become quite prevalent, too. Only two of those cars sported any greek letters, for Zeta Tau Alpha and Pi Kappa Alpha.