80s Band Recruitment (2-3 PNMs)
 

There are 8 chapters participating in Fall recruitment

Alpha Xi Delta
Alpha Sigma Tau
Alpha Gamma Delta
Delta Zeta
Sigma Sigma Sigma
Sigma Delta Tau
Sigma Kappa
and a local named Sigma Nu Phi.
The only unhoused chapter is Sigma Nu Phi. Sigma Nu Phi was founded in 1897. Yes, 1897. It's a long standing local with a lot of tradition.

In no particular order, I will call them:
Queen
Journey
REO Speedwagon
Pink Floyd
Foreigner
Boston
Styx
Bon Jovi



Dates:
9/17: Kickoff, 6pm, Student Center Ballroom
9/18, 20: Chapter Rounds, 7pm, various locations in the student center
9/24, 25: House Rounds, 7pm, chapter houses (for unhoused chapters, student center and Big Bob's Lakehouse)
9/28: Preference, 9pm, student center
9/29: Bid Day, starting in the student center with celebration and running home in university park

Eastern Michigan uses a minimally structured recruitment with no Quota. Chapter Total is 55 and chapters can only take as many PNMs as they need to get to Total. They cannot go over Total. Some chapters could take 30 PNMs, others may only be able to take 10 or 15.

On kickoff day, the PNMs meet with their Rho Chi groups and will have the opportunity to visit each of the 8 chapters for approximately 20 minutes each. PNMs have to "self-time," meaning that their RC's didn't take them to each room, it was up to them to decide when to leave. So a PNM can spend an hour at XYZ, and then have to divide the remaining two hours equally among the chapters. PNMs are not forced to attend any chapters they don't want to. PNMs don't rank, but chapters vote on PNMs and create invite lists with girls that attended with possible attention to girls they are interested in.

Chapter rounds are divided into two days, four sororities on each day. Girls will visit each chapter for approximately 40 minutes, again, self-timed. PNMs do not rank. Chapters vote to extend invitations to girls for house rounds.

House rounds are divided in two days as well. PNMs get invited back to houses, no maximum number. If they get no invites, they are not dropped, they can still visit any and all chapters. If they have partial invites but want to visit a chapter they weren't invited to, they can, but most of the time girls who aren't invited to house rounds at house XYZ (especially the larger chapters), don't get invited to pref so it's kind of a waste of time. PNMs do not rank.

For preference, girls can be invited to all 8 chapters, but they can only select two invitations to accept. PNMs cannot attend a chapter they were not invited to. They find out their invites the day before preference. PNMs pick two chapter ceremonies to attend.

A PNM can get more than one bid, this happens often. They can choose which bid they want to accept.

(Thanks to victoriana for the great explanations!)

There are two or three of Hypo’s friends who are intending to go through recruitment. I have written recs for two of them and am waiting to hear whether the third is going through. Recs are kind of unheard of at this school.

Did I mention this is my alma mater?

I shall call the young ladies Pat (Benatar), Joan (Jett) and Stevie (Nicks). I have known all of them for 7 years and they were all in Hypo’s tight circle of friends. They also call me “Mama AGDeeLastName”.

Pat is trying to NOT join the same chapter as Joan and Stevie (If Stevie goes through). She wants to break free from the high school crowd and make new friends/expand her horizons. Pat also bought me a squirrel birthday card and gave me a squirrel garden ornament before she left for school.

Again, I have told these young ladies to look at every chapter and see where they feel at home, although I'd be thrilled to attend any of their Initiations too :)

The rest won't be posted until Bid Day!

That's crazy to see so many chapters and they only do partially structured recruitment. Have they ever thought about having it be fully structured?

This is very much like the rush that I went through. Are freshmen permitted to rush, and if not, is there a more structured formal rush in the spring when freshmen can rush?

This system would seem completely logical for 2 or 3 chapters, but 8? Crazy.

Freshmen are permitted to rush and the only other rush the rest of the year is COR. They were doing typical structured rush until 4 or 5 years ago when they moved to this structure. Prior to that, quota tended to be between 7 and 9. There were 9 groups, but one closed recently due to low membership numbers. Sigma Nu Phi does not always participate in formal recruitment. As a local, that's their option.

It's challenging from the chapter side because, with the "self-timed" events, you don't have a real start/end time. You have to watch the door carefully for PNMs coming in to make sure they aren't walking in and standing alone. You could have 200 women in the room at one time or you could have 15.

I remember reading victoriana's recruitment thread and realizing it must be my alma mater because of the way it was structured (or not structured?). Several people questioned her validity as a poster when she was posting her thread because the structure was so strange.

I found out Joan was going through recruitment because she sent me a text asking "Which sorority should I rush for?" and I replied back "All of them!" I encouraged her to go to events for all groups for the first round.


Here is a link to victoriana's thread. http://www.greekchat.com/gcforums/sh...d.php?t=115813

Love your theme Dee! Can't wait to hear how everything goes.

Excited to read this because the chapter I advise (this is my first year!) has partially structured recruitment, and I'm still trying to wrap my head around it.

The no time limit thing is what's throwing me. I went through partially structured formal recruitment but we still had the strictly timed parties, couldn't take anything out of the rooms, etc. And, why do invites for rounds if all PNMs can attend anyway? Is it like a way for chapters to indicate to PNMs that they're interested in them?

I know my school's recruitment is super weird! In some ways, it works for us and in other ways it's just so terrible. To answer some of your questions...

Have we ever thought about making recruitment fully structured? Yes! We are under a lot of pressure from many chapters' national organizations and the local alumnae Panhellenic. We can't do anything about it for this recruitment, but discussion and voting on the issue is expected to happen before Fall 2013 recruitment. I know a lot of people are against doing a fully-RFM style recruitment because of certain aspects that would hurt us. Their argument is that the big chapters would get even bigger and that the smaller chapters would struggle even more. There are also people that are for the system (like me). I think that by forcing PNMs to visit all chapters they were invited to and banning them from attending chapters they weren't invited to, we would have a higher placement rate. It would prevent Patty PNM from having her heart set on XYZ and ignoring all the other groups and then winding up bidless. Like I said, this is a situation in progress. I really hope we at least implement some of the aspects of RFM fully structured recruitment.

Freshmen can and do rush. I'd say at least half the PNM pool is freshmen. They have no knowledge of COB, we keep it a secret until after structured recruitment. Groups COB after structured recruitment in the fall if they want more new members and all groups COB in the winter.

The time limits are definitely strange. They can't take anything out of the room, but they could spend up to the entire 3 hour recruitment block in one room if they really wanted to without visiting any of the other sororities. We invite girls back for house rounds to narrow our list down for preference so we can focus on PNMs we are interested in. For PNMs, it serves as a gauge of how much a chapter is interested in them. Some girls see it as if they don't get an invite back for house rounds, they shouldn't waste their time. If you don't get invited to house rounds, you won't get invited to preference (you can, but I've never seen it).

It sounds like there are two separate issues being conflated: 1) moving to more structure and 2) allowing every group to take quota when some are already larger than others. The second one sounds like some kind of growing pains...I'd think there would be some way to handle this in the first few years to make it work out, e.g. uneven quotas or something of that sort.

Is this a situation where adjusting chapter total (lowering, increasing or at average chapter size) might also come into play? Perhaps adjust chapter total after each recruitment - for at least the first few years - similar to what DeltaBetaBaby suggests doing with quota?

I'm sure NPC can provide you all kinds of backup on the success of RFM in similar size/demographic schools. But there would probably be some ugliness for a year or two until the rushees understand the process and don't drop when their favorite cuts them. But if you fully follow RFM, including modifying chapter total at the end of formal rush every year, it would help, not hurt the small chapters. Rushing to a random number is not the most effective way to rush and puts too much pressure for numbers on an off year and too many cuts on strong years.

The question I see having to be addressed in your special circumstance is what do you do with your local? They may not want to be tied to the rules of RFM and you can't really make them, and you don't want a girl to have to list the local in order to fully maximize her options. Maybe you could suggest RFM guidelines to them, and if a girl SIPs instead of listing the local, she's not penalized against QAs. In any case, I think it can be worked out and should be for the long term strength of all of the chapters on campus.

As long as I've been involved (28 years now), the local decided each year whether they were going to participate in recruitment with Panhellenic or not. Usually when their numbers were up, they participated. When their numbers were down, they didn't. Formal recruitment has never been a strength for them so their return numbers would be such that they probably wouldn't have to cut anybody.

This particular structure has been in place for around 5 years. At that time, half the chapters were well over Total and the other half were at about 50% of Total. I think they hoped this would equalize things, but it really hasn't. I'm pretty sure it went into effect the year after they weren't in my area of oversight as part of Alpha Gam's Volunteer Service Team. At the same time, Wayne State University in Detroit went to a similar model.

I don't understand why they allow women to attend parties without an invitation. I don't really see any pros to that! The self-timing part is interesting though. As tough as it can be to adjust rotation, the chapters also get a very good idea about who really wants to be there.

I've encouraged my PNMs to attend all the parties equally when they can and to attend only parties for which they receive invitations (and ALL the parties for which they receive invitations also, until Pref when they have to decide).

I advised at a campus that tried partially structured recruitment for a few years and it worked fairly well for us because the PNMs were required to attend at least one 30 minute event at each chapter. If they did not visit each chapter at least once, they were not eligible to receive a bid. I think this is the key to partially structured. PNMs don't get their hearts set on one without ever seeing what the other chapters are like.

I agree. That's the biggest problem we have here. If we made that change, things would improve drastically. I think that's the first step in moving to a fully structured, RFM recruitment for us. It would be such a dramatic change between our current set up and RFM that it would really hurt recruitment numbers for at least the first year or two.

Why not just stay with partially-structured? My campus changed from fully-structured to partially-structured during my time there and our quota numbers definitely saw a bump.

I just don't get how you can do minimally structured with that many chapters and be successful.

We're actually classified as minimally structured due to some other rules we have that I haven't talked about on here. Each group can only spend $1000 including t-shirts, food, decorations, etc. No one can have any matching item of clothing. No skits allowed. Plus we have no time limit for PNMs at the parties and they can do pretty much whatever the hell the want and they will not get dropped from recruitment.

It's successful for about 3 chapters (perceived as the "top" groups by some, but I don't really buy into that) who are consistently at or near total and only take about 3 girls through winter COB. For several other chapters, it's unsuccessful. Some groups may get a large new member class but only retain half of that class before initiation, so they have a really high turnover rate. Some groups may only get 5-10 girls and stay around 25-35 members out of a possible 55 total. Then there was a group on campus that struggled so hard with numbers that they were closed by their nationals. Chapters seeing issues with numbers only started when we switched to this god-awful system. Pre-RFM, my chapter was at or near total most of the time. Now we have just around 30 girls.

In my opinion, the system perpetuates the idea of the large chapters staying large and the smaller chapters staying small. Of course, if we restricted PNMs to only attending chapters they were invited to and requiring them to attend all the chapters they were invited to, this would not be as much of an issue because they would be forced to look at other chapters. But Dee already covered most of this so I'm not going to rant anymore (I could rant all day about this).

I don't think this has much to do with minimal structured recruitment. At the campus I advise we do exactly the same except our budget is $2500.
This part is what I think needs to change the most as you and others have stated.

In a slight twist, I'm going to our new house tonight to assist them with mock recruitment. I get to be a mock PNM. I haven't been a PNM in a very long time :) This is going to be fun!

Are you going to be a good rushee or a BAD rushee?

EMU is in the district with which I work in my volunteer capacity, and the good news, as Victoriana points out, is that eduction is occurring from the NPC and national organizations' levels. We are hopeful, as she points out, that changes will occur prior to formal recruitment 2013. There is a new sorority advisor, an alumna of the school, and she appears to be receptive to finding ways to move the Panhellenic forward. Fingers crossed that after a few potential years of growth pains, more parity and stability can be gained for all the chapters there!

I was going to a bad one but I ended up being a good one because I really liked the sister who was rushing me. She was a great rusher :) I liked all of them, actually. It's always fun to go help a chapter and realize that you probably would have loved them if you were a collegiate again!

I was told tonight that they are already implementing some changes for first round. All PNMs will be expected to visit all of the chapters and it will be for a set amount of time.. at least for first rounds.

The letters went up on the new house today too. I had a good time tonight :)

Ahhh so sad I wasn't home last night!! Super sad I didn't get to see you. I just love the AGDs though. I was actually hanging out with them the other night. Their house is gorgeous is it not?

Can/do the chapters who don't get up to total often take a pledge class in the spring, or is that taboo? What do the fraternities do? Are they taking pledge classes both semesters?

This system would be no problem at all if it were a rush geared to upperclassmen, with a partially structured (i.e. you can't go where you're not invited) rush in the spring mainly for freshmen. I just really really really hate the idea of freshmen being able to avoid seeing all the possibilities.

All chapters have spring pledge classes, fraternities and sororities both. Spring classes are generally 3-7 or so. I hate the fact that freshmen aren't exposed to all possibilities either. Although, as Dee mentioned, we voted to give more structure to kickoff day. Each PNM will have to stay with their Rho Chi group and visit each chapter for 20 minutes only. If she doesn't want to visit a chapter in their set time frame, she can't go to another one she just has to sit outside and wait with her Rho Chi. I'm very happy about this.

Also, we have over 400 girls signed up last time I heard an update. It's very likely that there are more now. There are 45-50 girls in each Rho Chi group. Kickoff is Monday!

Every time we "PNMs" went out on the porch, I peeked over at your house to see if anybody was around...lol. Our women were talking about great it is to be living next to your chapter :) The house is gorgeous. Our new Fraternity Housing Corporation did a beautiful job with the furnishings and decor.

This makes me happy :)

They start tonight! I got several texts this afternoon saying "What should I wear?" and pictures through texts asking "Does this look alright?" One of the women has an obstacle but she's hoping she can work around it somehow. They sound excited and nervous!

Late classes and family emergencies are making it very difficult for my PNMs to get to events this week :( I don't know if this going to work out for them. They might need to COR or something later, we'll see.

All of my girls at this school have dropped out of recruitment. They went over the financial information carefully and decided they just can't afford it this semester. They may COR in the winter or go through next fall. They are all just reeling from all the initial costs of going away to school and need to build up their savings some.

That is a shame but I understand. I have two kids in college, both OOS. It adds up quickly. I hope they are able to get involved in other things on campus.

They will get involved. That's the kind of girls they are. Buying all that stuff for the first dorm room just put them behind for now. Most chapters do some COR in the winter and it isn't at all unusual for sophomores to go through recruitment on this campus either, so there is time for them :)