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  #1  
Old 03-23-2005, 06:01 PM
AWSPE AWSPE is offline
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Deferred Rush...I need the bad side

Quick summary. I joined 3.5 years ago as a fall freshmen. Love every minute of my fraternity. I've been VP Communications, VP Programming, and President.

Just last year, campus administration decided to punish the fraternities, not sororities or greek life, by imposing deferred rush. Our rush numbers were an average of 20-25 signed bids per year with the majority in the fall. This number dropped drastically during this past year of deferred rush to only 8 total. This is not just with my organization, every fraternity is struggling and IFC is pushing hard for traditional recruitment.

The bad - Our Dean of Students announced that he has no plans to lift the deferment at this time. My class of 15 is graduating and will nearly cut the chapter in half. His logic is "that as greeks we are not living up to the standards that are for us". I see the problem being no clear standards. I was never told these if they were developed.

What I am asking for - Give me some concrete reasons/arguements I can use to fight this from happening. I fear that administration is trying to do away with fraternities even though we have put in hundreds of service hours, we personally raised our gpa from 2.504 to 3.1 in one year to avoid this again, and raise thousands of dollars for charity. I'm at wits end on what it is they want from us.

So if anyone has suggestions on getting IFC out of deferred rush it is much appreciated.
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  #2  
Old 03-23-2005, 08:17 PM
TSteven TSteven is offline
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First - contact your inter/national HQ for help and support.

Next, NIC members are opposed to a deferred rush and support year round recruitment. If your fraternity is an NIC member, then perhaps your IFC rep can present this to your campus IFC and get them on board as well. Or if you feel inclined, contact the other chapter's HQ to let them at least know what is happening on your campus and get their help.

Here is the NIC's position on open recruitment.

From NIC

Quote:
Open Recruitment

Host institution will support open recruitment and will not prohibit any male enrolled as a full time student in good standing from participating in rush recruitment activities and joining an NIC member fraternity. Host institution will not prohibit NIC member fraternity from recruiting/rushing male students on campus.
Good luck.
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  #3  
Old 03-23-2005, 08:20 PM
TSteven TSteven is offline
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I should have added that instead of going against deferred rush, you should present a positive spin on why y'all should be allowed to rush in the fall. i.e. Freedom to Associate and an NIC Standard.
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  #4  
Old 03-23-2005, 10:15 PM
AWSPE AWSPE is offline
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Quote:
Originally posted by TSteven
I should have added that instead of going against deferred rush, you should present a positive spin on why y'all should be allowed to rush in the fall. i.e. Freedom to Associate and an NIC Standard.
Very good point. Also thank you for the above information. I failed to mention before that I am a SigEp and yes we are NIC affiliated. And on a national HQ note, a rep from our nationals is actually in the house as I type. I will get to gettin' on this.
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  #5  
Old 03-23-2005, 11:46 PM
WLFEO WLFEO is offline
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How about this argument---- Even though you may not be officially recruiting until spring, you have to spend the whole fall semester informally recruiting or really getting PR/your name out there. You could be using that time for more resourceful projects or studying. It also puts added time and pressure to PNMs (or whatever they're called in the NIC world) to have that whole first semester to be "courted" by all the fraternities. It takes time away from studies, etc. for both the Greek members and the PNMs.

Here's what my NPC Greenbook says about fall formal recruitment. I am not going to type it all out but I'm looking at the 13th addition, pages 64 and 65. Here's a summary of why NPC recommends early fall formal recruitment:

1. Greek programs emphasize academic, social, cultural, spiritual, and service aspects- the earlier the student has an opportunity to participate, the better.

2. Helps the new student adjust to college and make friends quickly

3. Opinions about different chapters based on rumors is reduced

4. Students have better adjustment to college- they feel they belong, feel supported, etc.

5. They settle down to serious studies earlier- chapter's scholarship program helps them in the fall semester

6. More opportunity for leadership

7. "When membership recruitment is deferred, recruitment planning activities are always in the background, and tensions in anticipation of membership recruitment are prolonged, disrupting the academic adjustment of all students."

There are a couple more- I don't know much about men's GLOs but those arguments seem to make sense for both NPC and IFC groups.
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  #6  
Old 03-24-2005, 12:09 AM
PhoenixAzul PhoenixAzul is offline
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Quote:
Originally posted by WLFEO
How about this argument---- Even though you may not be officially recruiting until spring, you have to spend the whole fall semester informally recruiting or really getting PR/your name out there. You could be using that time for more resourceful projects or studying. It also puts added time and pressure to PNMs (or whatever they're called in the NIC world) to have that whole first semester to be "courted" by all the fraternities. It takes time away from studies, etc. for both the Greek members and the PNMs.
That is a great argument!!! Even though I come from a place that uses deferred recruitment...we run on quarters, not semesters, and the whole "it's the way we've always done it" thing. I agree that on some campuses, fall recruitment works best.
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  #7  
Old 03-24-2005, 12:18 AM
SmartBlondeGPhB SmartBlondeGPhB is offline
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We've had deferred for years for both men and women and it doesn't seem to have hurt.
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  #8  
Old 03-24-2005, 12:37 AM
AWSPE AWSPE is offline
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Quote:
Originally posted by SmartBlondeGPhB
We've had deferred for years for both men and women and it doesn't seem to have hurt.
No offense but thats not exactly what I was looking for. Try to keep things on topic here with advice on ways to get back our regular schedule. Because in our example, deferred is going to eliminate fraternities.
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  #9  
Old 03-24-2005, 12:48 AM
AGDee AGDee is offline
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If you don't succeed in changing the administration's position though, you will need to adjust how you think of things. You can plan on a new member group in the fall being mainly sophomores or juniors and then focus on freshmen in the winter. You can think of new ways to meet potential members such as offering tutoring services to freshmen. Don't just accept that it will destroy your system if they don't budge! You can find ways to make it work for you. I think that how well deferred recruitment depends on a lot of thing, but the biggest issues on some of the campuses that I assist with are housing and finances. You have to plan to fill your house with men who will be juniors and seniors the following year rather than with sophomores, since they won't be initiated until housing contracts are signed. I would definitely do all the things that others have suggested to try to get things changed, but simultaneously start planning for a different way of doing business, just in case.

Dee
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  #10  
Old 03-24-2005, 12:52 AM
33girl 33girl is offline
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Quote:
Originally posted by AWSPE
No offense but thats not exactly what I was looking for. Try to keep things on topic here with advice on ways to get back our regular schedule. Because in our example, deferred is going to eliminate fraternities.
Umm, chill.

Deferred rush will not eliminate fraternities unless you convince yourself it will.

Are you allowed to talk to freshmen in the fall? Are you allowed to invite them to hang out with you in a non rush party atmosphere? Look at it this way: you have a whole extra semester to get to know people, rather than giving a bid to some guy you have known for two days. You don't have to worry about giving a bid to someone who really shouldn't be in college and will flunk out after the first semester. It will probably cut down on giving bids to people who aren't truly interested and drop out or are crappy members. You said you had 20-25 signed bids - how many of those men finished pledging? How many of them stayed active throughout their college career? This cuts both ways of course, the rushees have a whole semester to get to know you. So you have to be sure that your brotherhood is showing throughout the fall semester.

Use the fall to give bids to sophomores and other upperclassment you've gotten to know who might be interested. Rushee does not equal freshman.

There shouldn't be a "courting" process - you should be interacting with men on a normal, friend to friend basis. You should use that semester to make friends with people and get to a point where giving them a bid is just a formality. Recruitment is supposed to be 24/7/365 - not 2 weeks where you put on your best face and forget about it otherwise. That model is outdated and even the sororities are starting to realize it.

It isn't right for you to be asked to "live up to standards" without being told what those standards are - but things where the school develops a set of standards that are uniformly for all GLOs can be disastrous. Show your Dean what your national GLO's standards are, and how you are living up to them
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  #11  
Old 03-24-2005, 01:49 AM
Firehouse Firehouse is offline
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This is important: Is yours a public, or a private school?
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  #12  
Old 03-24-2005, 02:28 AM
AWSPE AWSPE is offline
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Public school. The Greek system here is weak, about 2-4%. There's 6 IFC fraternities. And again please please stay on topic. I know how deferred rush works and how to 'hypothetically' do it. Problem is that students here have a tendancy to go home for the weekends their first semester cuz its kind of a boring school (if you arent involved in something, like greek life). We've been through one year of the deferred and its horrible here. IFC took 16 ppl total all year over 6 fraternities.

Also, for those not familiar with my chapter, we are a non-pledging fraternity (Sigma Phi Epsilon Balanced Man Program). So when you ask how many made it thru/are still in of my original class of 19 we have 15. Not really bad considering nearly 4 years later.

So please again, help with ideas of how to rid the deferred versus embracing it.
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  #13  
Old 03-24-2005, 08:30 AM
Firehouse Firehouse is offline
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If yours is a public school, the Dean of Students is not allowed to impose a restrictive system on you. Consult a civil rights attorney. The Dean may be personally liable for economic damages suffered by the chapters. Too often, fraternities simply do what they're told without any knowledge of their rights. This is not theory; it's case law. You're trying to cooperate and give them what they want; sounds like what they want is to hurt you. Consult a good lawyer; you can spook them right back.
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  #14  
Old 03-24-2005, 12:41 PM
AWSPE AWSPE is offline
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Quote:
Originally posted by Firehouse
If yours is a public school, the Dean of Students is not allowed to impose a restrictive system on you. Consult a civil rights attorney. The Dean may be personally liable for economic damages suffered by the chapters. Too often, fraternities simply do what they're told without any knowledge of their rights. This is not theory; it's case law. You're trying to cooperate and give them what they want; sounds like what they want is to hurt you. Consult a good lawyer; you can spook them right back.
Firehouse - great news! thanks a ton. Probably going to talk to our advisor who I believe has practiced law and currently teaches criminal justice here. If anything he can refer me to someone.
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  #15  
Old 03-24-2005, 12:46 PM
WLFEO WLFEO is offline
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I think that's true, Firehouse! I believe I just read something about that in Fraternal Law. Have you seen that, AWSPE? Your national office gets it, I bet. It's a 4-5 page publication put out by a law firm that covers the law as it relates to Greeks.

Too bad I always throw mine out after reading it or I would send it to you. Maybe it's on the internet somewhere???

I'll try to dig through my files to see if I have any back copies......
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