Rushing and college constraints

[33girl]

I’d like to comment on some of the things Josh and Mikki were discussing in the “Anti-Hazing Has Gone Out of Control” thread (since the thread itself was getting a little long & out of control).

I know what Josh is talking about in saying a lot of people who would make the best members are turned off by the phoniness of rush, especially at the more “regimented” campuses. I know our chapter always sucked at formal rush, but we were wonderful at recruiting friends of members and open-bid parties.

However, Mikki is right in saying that the college wants the students to go to the Greeks and if it happens the other way around, God forbid. There are a lot of ways other than rush that students learn about Greeks. For example, I remember when I was a freshman in the dorm, there were people who were pledging and had their Zeta bunnies (or whatever their mascot was) and door tags hung up outside the door. It made you interested and curious to know what it was about. But guess what, you can’t do that anymore. The school banned it for some dumb-ass reason or another. They have also banned chanting in public places and pledge pickup (going around to the dorms and picking up the girls at their rooms). It infringes on the other students’ rights to privacy or something. I guess the ROTC dudes yelling at 5 AM is OK though.

We also used to be able to give an open bid that was good for a calendar year – they could pledge the semester they were given the bid or the next semester. Now that is considered hazing. They have to begin pledging right away, which has pretty much ended the (successful) practice of giving staggered open bids.

It seems no matter what you do these days, you are going to miss out on good prospective members one way or another. The walking on eggshells thing is enough to make anyone’s numbers plummet.

[mgdzkm433]

I do agree that "walk on eggshells" is a good phrase to describe greek orginizations today. In another discussion, OSU supposedly put off a bad image of greek life in the "Rolling Stone" magazine. This is why we "walk on eggshells." This particular image of college greek life is what makes all these "rules" possible. However, if we didn't give a reason for the rules, they wouldn't be there. In the past, and present even, we do have greek orginizations that defy the meanings and traditions of greek orginizations. The social forum is a good example of this. You go to the social forum and find that people constanly post refrences to beer and partying. This image is bad for greeks. Despite what they think. We constanly get posts asking what opportunities that greek life offers. I know that I try to be as helpful as possible in explaining what greek life is "suposed" to be like. Then when these prospective greeks here about all the parties and beer fests, they get turned off. "Who wants to pay 300-600 dollars to join a drinking club?" I hear that all the time. If you can recruite and do it correctly and responsibly, by all means get out there and do it! I don't condem those who do. The reason why colleges don't allow recruiting anymore is the fact that recruiting has lead to bribing, dishonesty, hazing, pressure to join, confussion, chaos within a org and outside, rivalry among students and greek orgs, . . . the list is long. I'm not saying that this is all that it leads to, or that every school is like this. These are some issues that orgs have to watch out for. We want to present to the students that we are responsible, hard-working, good people. We want a good image. By doing this we take care of internal situations by working together and helping each other. We can not forget that all greek orginizations have common goals:

1. Philanthropy
2. Numbers/Rush
3. Community
4. Helping the school
5. Ritual
6. preserving greek life

We want these goals to be what people see. We want these goals to be why people join.

Mikki

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"The trouble with self-made men is that they worship their creator."

--Unknown