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  #1  
Old 09-03-2004, 05:46 PM
IFC Advisor IFC Advisor is offline
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Fraternity Recruitment-Formal vs. Informal

I am the IFC Advisor at a small, private university with a small greek system (3 national fraternities, 1 local fraternity, 4 national sororities). The fraternities, for as long as any current staff members can remember, have done formal recruitment. As is the case almost anywhere, recruitment needs a face-lift, or at least a swift kick in the rear.

I come from an institution with a smaller Greek system, too, where informal recruitment worked very well. This seems to be something that might work where I am, now, and I'm considering introducing this potential change to the IFC.

There is always a reason for the way things are done, though. Does anyone have suggestions regarding this? What problems might arise, if any, in response to a change from formal recruitment to informal? Does anyone have experience going from one type to the other? What were reactions like? Just trying to see what I may need to look out for or consider...

Thanks!
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  #2  
Old 09-03-2004, 09:23 PM
lonestaradpi lonestaradpi is offline
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Hi IFC Advisor, I know the school of which you speak. So when are you going to get a chapter of my sorority on you campus? J/K I went to SWT and helped out with men's recruitment and I have never heard of formal men's recruitment?? As far as I knew, the men went to the houses they were interested in (usually only one) and were extended bids at the end of the week if the chapter liked them. That sounds informal to me, or was that formal? Welcome to Greek Chat!! Best of luck in town.
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  #3  
Old 09-03-2004, 10:04 PM
James James is offline
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Do you have deferred Rush?
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  #4  
Old 09-03-2004, 10:13 PM
Firehouse Firehouse is offline
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Every school has their own way of doing things, their own comfort zone. If the fraternities are in trouble with low numbers or poor standing among the general student population, then your direction and experience will probably be appreciated. On the other hand, if the fraternities are well regarded on campus, have good numbers and are happy, your influence may be mis-interpreted and resented.
Generally on a small campus, formal rush takes place a few weeks after classes begin, sometimes waiting till January. By that time men usually know whether on not they want to join a fraternity, and know something about the differences among the four. If - if - formal rush on your campus takes place too early (before classes or in the first week), then the system will benefit greatly by delaying rush for a little bit, so that rushees aren't forced to make a decision (to join/not to join/ which one to join?) right away. Understand this is true ONLY of small campuses.
If I were in your position, I'd make an assessment of the system, then ask them what they wanted to be. If they want more members and to be more highly regarded, then wait till January for formal rush, but remove all rush restrictions on pledging men in the fall. Let the rush machinery heat up. In an open system, everyone benefits. As they achieve more success, the fraternities will be more attuned to what you have to say.
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Old 09-04-2004, 12:02 AM
IFC Advisor IFC Advisor is offline
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A few more details...

We practice deferred recruitment for freshmen, not allowing them to affiliate or pledge until Spring. This is when "formal recruitment" takes place. There are many regulations in place, including the specification of a week for recruitment, the mandate that all chapters participate in all IFC-sponsored formal recruitment events, the designation of days for chapters to hold their own events, preference dinners, the reporting of times and location of events, etc. The IFC, itself, appears to have very hands-on involvement with chapter recruitment.

During the fall, "open recruitment," yet more structured recruitment than what I would call "open" takes place, allowing chapters the opportunity to offer bids to upperclassmen, including sophomores who have delayed making the decision to go Greek.

As of right now, the Greek system, as a whole, is not very highly regarded on campus. The presence isn't what it needs to be, really, and, naturally, I'm wanting to help with this. Individual chapter size isn't bad, but it isn't great. Would providing chapters with the opportunity to more openly recruit encourage them to act and have a bigger presence?
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  #6  
Old 09-04-2004, 02:02 AM
Firehouse Firehouse is offline
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I think the rush guys on this board will all give you the same advice. First, the dynamic at a small private school is very different than at a large public university. At small schools, the fraternities tend more to "specialize". That is, all the football players will join one house, all the finance & accounting majors will join another, etc. It's not a bad thing, and it does ensure a steady stream of new members.
I'm almost always against rush rules of any kind. However, once again, small private schools with deferred formal rush generally do OK with it; some even profess to prefer it. The real danger is that the IFC sounds as if they assume the authority to control rush; that can have a very bad result if jealosy and petty politics take hold.
Here's the most effective thing you can do if you want to upgrade the system. Pick out the chapter that is the best and/or has the most potential, and push them to establish absolute dominance of the fraternity system. The hot blood of competition makes more things happen than the changing of rules. If one chapter steps way out in front, then one or two of the others will work harder to overtake them just because they don't like being so far behind.
One of the bad things about formal rush is that it makes the good chapters lazy. The real opportunity to move ahead of everyone else is in the fall, when upperclassmen can be pledged. There are a few nationals that really buy into this sort of thing; if one of them is on your campus, then you can contact the national office and tell them what you want to do. They'll jump all over it; they'll help you.
Trust me, if one chapter really shows dramatic improvement (superficial improvement: sudden big increase in membership, involvement on campus, etc), the others won't like it and will stoke up their own engines. The IFC is the "X factor", unfortunately. The big boys have to watch out for retaliation for their success. That's where you come in as IFC advisor; don't let that happen.
You could have fun with this!

Last edited by Firehouse; 09-04-2004 at 02:06 AM.
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  #7  
Old 09-04-2004, 09:49 AM
PhiPsiRuss PhiPsiRuss is offline
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What Firehouse said.
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  #8  
Old 09-04-2004, 10:57 AM
sigtau305 sigtau305 is offline
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Originally posted by PhiPsiRuss
What Firehouse said.
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  #9  
Old 09-06-2004, 09:01 AM
Kevin Kevin is offline
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IFC Advisor, what a lot of people have said here is relatively true. I'm on the advisory board for my chapter (thank God I have little to do with Rush), but I observed some interesting things this year. I was able to attend Rush up at Oklahoma University where the student body is around 34-35K. They have a COMPLETELY formal Rush. Rushees are split up into groups of around 20 and led from house to house where they get around 25 minutes each. I believe there are around 30 houses. It's up to these houses to get in contact with these guys and recruit them. Obviously with only 25 minutes exposure, the system hugely favors the larger houses. IFC chapters there range from 4 to around 200+. I think the average house takes around 20 during formal recruitment.

My alma mater is a school of about 16000. I think only around 200 men went through recruitment this year. We only have 6 IFC groups, so we are a little more flexible. I kind of liked how everything worked. On Monday night, there was a formal presentation at the University Center. Each group presented to about 20 men at a time. There was a maximum number of members allowed to be in the room during the presentation, so everyone was able to start off on a fairly even playing field.

Summer Rush is allowed -- THAT IS HUGE. My chapter already had a long list of prospects on the first day of Rush and we had already had extensive contact with many of them. We had 21 bids accepted on the first day of Rush as a result of our work over the Summer as a result of this -- guys that we had contacted, but didn't end up bidding probably went to other houses. Had we never had contact with them, they probably wouldn't have rushed in the first place. I think the practice of "off-season" recruitment is a HUGE plus for the whole campus.

Seeing that you have deferred recruitment, this is an excellent opportunity for houses to recruit guys and setup their lists during that first semester. That's almost like giftwrapping a bunch of guys ready to sign and then giving plenty of time to evaluate them before extending bids. If houses on your campus aren't taking huge advantage of this, they REALLY need to.

Back to our system...

The rest of the "formal" process is pretty informal. On the back of the bid cards are squares containing the names of each house on campus. The rushee must obtain the stamp of each house for a bid card to be valid. This means that if nothing else, they have to give every house on campus at least two shots at them. The process takes all week. Fraternities are responsible for being in their houses or wherever they're rushing from from 8 to 11 each evening. Rush is completely dry. The IFC advisor makes her rounds 'dropping in' on each party to make sure everything's going okay.

The rules are set up so that as much as possible, the rushee ends up having an opportunity to find out as much about each house before signing. I think that's particularly helpful for the smaller groups.

The next week, they allow informal rush. The rushees may still get their bid cards signed, etc. If the bid cards are not turned in by Friday that week, the tardy fraternity won't be able to include the grades or be able to use their new members in intramurals.
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