Indiana University New Recruitment
 

As everyone knows, IU does rush in a strange way in more than one aspect. One of the aspects, other than bed rush is that we do 21 party the weekend before finals and then conduct the rest of recruitment after winter break ends. This year, IU will push all of recruitment to after winter break.

There's an article in the IDS that talks more in detail about it. https://www.idsnews.com/news/mobile/story.aspx?id=91714


Personally I'm really excited about this change!

Personally, I am not excited about this change. For many reasons. On a selfish level? Because before I would go down for the weekends and just be away from my family. Now I have to burn vacation time so that I can be there for 21 party (I don't live close enough to drive back and forth every day).

Also, I think the schedule is just too grueling. 11 parties one day, 10 the next, 7 the next and then 7 more on day 4. With no breaks.

Wait, what? I thought the initial 21 party day was in November, like right after Thanksgiving. When does the semester end?

The semester ends around the third week of December- however IU has this thing called "dead week" which is the last week of classes- the last week of the semester is finals week (the third week of Dec.). So recruitment this year was the first weekend in December, however it was the Saturday and Sunday before dead week.

Many professors will have projects and papers due during dead week instead of giving finals. So the complaint from the student newspaper was that with recruitment the weekend before dead week, the women couldn't finish their projects and papers, and therefore PHC was hypocritical to put so much emphasis on grades and then take up the weekend before dead week with recruitment.

Not like everyone didn't know when recruitment was scheduled months in advance. I know for my girls, those that had papers and projects due had them finished BEFORE 21 party. So basically, this change was a pander to the bad press from the newspaper.

They did give PHC a choice, either all deferred or 21 party during fall break in October. PHC voted on all deferred.

I am going to show my age here, when I was an active we had 21 party but it was done over three days. We had 5 parties on Friday night, 9 parties on Saturday and 7 parties on Sunday. Those last two or three parties on Sunday were rough. We were tired, the rushees (yes, they were called rushees back then) were tired. I just don't see the logistics of having 21 party in two days. It will be grueling, at best. Recruitment will have to be spread out over two weekends in January.

I completely agree with FR, the change is totally pandering to the bad publicity encountered last December. As a Greek and a journalism major from IU, the student newspaper has historically been highly critical of Greek life in general. The level of negative press open house round received last year did NOT surprise me in the least.

Is it true that IU is thinking about adding another group since there are still too many PNMs not being matched? Maybe Sigma Kappa?

Yes, IU is open for expansion again.

I personally am not a fan of the switch to all after winter break recruitment. This is going to be brutal on the actives, given how little sleep we already got without 21 party being included. Having to tear down and re-set up the entire house after each round...I shudder to think at doing this again. It's like hazing for the actives, and totally pandering to the non-greek community

ETA: I think that girls who haven't yet been through recruitment on the actives side will have a different opinion--I know all the newest members were soooooooooooo excited for recruitment, then after going through it once, their opinions are different. You're still excited, but you also realize how brutal of an experience it is

IU is open for expansion. Any NPC chapter interested will have to submit an interest packet and go from there. There are only 5 groups not represented at IU already.

One just decided not to colonize at IU, so there are only 4 possible NPC groups left to colonize/ re-colonize.... right?

Right, but they could always re-submit. It's IU...stranger things have happened.

Since we don't have a "like" button, I'll just quote this and say DITTO!

I know there's lots of back and forth about the non/virtues of deferred recruitment, but I really think with this number of chapters represented, there's going to have to be a serious change in process. Maybe 2 rounds (and I still think round 1 should be 3 days at this school, and round 2 should be at least 2 days) happen in first semester and the final rounds after. Or Rounds 1 and 2 before school starts and the next rounds happening over the next 1 or 2 weekends. The first 2 rounds are the most brutal, so at least that would help.

Technically, this is what they are doing. They have 21 party on a Thursday and Friday before school starts. Then 14 party is that Saturday and Sunday. Then school starts on Monday, and the following Saturday is 8 party and 3 party (preference) is Sunday. The problem is the Thursday-Friday-Saturday-Sunday part. That is 35 parties over 4 days. That's more parties than most schools have for all of recruitment.

With a complete re-decorate tear-down and set up somehow occurring between 6pm on Friday and 8 am Saturday. Not to mention membership selection somewhere in there. 14 party is skit round- which means a stage, lighting, etc. has to be set up on Friday night. After a day of 10-11 parties.

Could they change skits to 8 party instead of 14? Then there would be less set up and tear down. If they did house tours on 14, the house would just require a good cleaning but no stage or lighting.

Or get rid of skits altogether. They really serve no good purpose and the time is better spent talking to and getting to know the new members. You have so little time to talk to get to know these young women (and for them to get to know you!), it would make sense to just spend events talking rather than having the PNMs watch a skit that doesn't tell them anything about who you really are as people.

I thought big deal skits went away with no frills. Back when I rushed (before electricity) we had 5 rounds of rush, 1 of which was called Panorama, or skit round, in the middle of the process. But I agree that they should be dumped, especially with as crammed in as rush seems to continue to be. They're really time consuming and puts too much focus on shallow things. If they wanted a "talent" portion, they could have a song moment or a slide show, both of which allow for part of the chapter to do other things during the party.

Amen!!

I went to a school that didn't do "bed" rush, so the concept is a bit weird to me. I have a couple of questions.

1. How many girls sign up for recruitment? How many girls receive bids and how many go bidless?

If so many girls are going bidless, instead of adding another chapter, why don't they do away with bed rush and use the quota system. This way more girls will receive bids.

Simply put, IU is not going to be going away from bed rush and towards quota any time soon. Read the countless number of threads on IU and you will quickly see that this is how the actives/alums want IU to be. Most chapters require members live in all years that you are able to (3 if you are initiated as a freshman, 2 if as a sophomore), and only a select few offer live-out options for senior year based on the overall chapter size.

We actually have a skit round AND a slideshow round. Skit round is 14 party, and slideshow/philanthropy round is 8 party. That being said, every active who is recruiting is in the room during the whole skit (for songs) and during the whole slideshow.

In case anyone is truly curious about how grueling of a schedule this is going to be, here's a quick map of the timing based on my experiences (which are pretty average, based on conversations with actives from other chapters) if we compress down to all in 1 week

-Days leading up to 21 party: recruitment workshops, recruitment practice, mock recruitment (if we're going to have that now)
-Day 1 21 Party: 10 am-9 pm rounds, practice for 14 party

-Day 2 21 Party: 10 am-9 pm rounds, MSS, tear down house from 21 Party, set up skit room (walls, stage, floor, staging, ceiling, chairs/tables/decorations, rest of house), set up recruitment format in rest of house, continue 14 party practice--Normally this night will end around 3-4 am

-Day 1 14 Party: wakeups around 7 am, 10 am-8:30 pm rounds, practice for 8 party--normally this night will end around 12-1 am

-Day 2 14 party: wakeups around 7 am, 10 am- 6 pm rounds, MSS, tear down house from 14 party (deconstructing stage, walls, staging, ceiling), set up slideshow room (walls, screen, floor, chairs/tables/decorations, rest of house), 8 party run through, pref practice--normally this night will end around 3-4 am

-8 party: wakeups around 6 am, 9 am-9:30 pm rounds, MSS, tear down house from 8 party (deconstructing walls, screen, floor, ceiling, chairs/tables/decorations, rest of house), set up pref round (room, chair/tables/decorations, rest of house), multiple pref round run throughs--normally this night will end around 3-4 am

-Pref round: wakeups around 8 am, pref round run throughs, matching, rounds 1 pm-5 pm, MSS, tear down pref round, get house back in 1 piece and tentatively laid out for Bid Day--normally this night ends around 9 pm, with classes beginning the next morning

LOL. That's kind of like saying "I thought there was no Mafia since they don't have a web page."

The only thing "no frills" has really accomplished is created another way for chapters to rat on each other and get infractions. Chapters still have matching outfits, door chants, decorations...if I was an NPC delegate at the time this resolution was passed I would want back the hours of my life I wasted discussing it.

Until individual GLOs ban their groups from having frills at rush and make them do nothing but all talking all the time, none of this stuff is going to go away...and I seriously doubt anyone is going to do that.

Sounds about right. Just add in after the 9pm, that I then input the bid list into the computer, print out two copies of said bid list and take one to the Union. Then I get in my car and drive home. I am usually home by 1am.

My husband wonders why I get sick the week after recruitment every year. I chalk it up to spending too much time in a sorority house in January when I'm not used to it plus a complete lack of sleep. Yet I keep on doing it.:rolleyes:

Works the same way at Ole Miss, and we do Formal Recruitment in mid-September to early October depending on when the Football team has bye weeks and away games. We just do it from Sunday through Saturday while classes are going on and the professors are giving midterms exams and projects, so naturally we ALL get sick the next week.

We could make a choice to do it another way, we just are afraid of rocking the boat. Some people are allergic to change.

Except when they moved rush to October from before school started. ;)

Prezactly.

The houses are already beautifully decorated inside. Google some of the chapter houses and look at the photos. Some of them don't need much accessorizing other than adding flowers, photos, etc. It's the stage set up and clearing out things to accommodate all the PNMs and sisters that's the pain. We always had to break down all of our dining tables and chairs and lug them to the basement for the open house round and then again in January.

As far as no frills, it's not like there are balloons and ice sculptures galore. It is already is pretty basic, and the matching outfits are usually the same tee shirt ordered for the party and then skinny jeans with boots, which most of the sorority girls have already. It's not like they are buying the same Lilly dress or Vineyard Vines polo. It's a $15 tee shirt with screen printed letters on it.

Part of the problem is that, at a school with a TON of chapters, some level of frill is needed just to keep them apart. I think skits are dumb, personally, but door chants and matching t-shirts don't take away from time getting to know the PNM's, and IMO, are really helpful on the PNM side to think back to "oh, the chapter with the purple shirts".

Yes! This! As a PNM who had to visit 20 chapters, the skits and shirts were ways to keep the chapters straight in my mind.

I still remember some of the more memorable ones after nearly 5 years--you can't keep them straight without it! Between that and remembering the house 'with the green shag carpet' or the house that 'smelled like pie', it keeps things straight in your head. Girls with the blue shirts go with the house with the airline skit and the white pillars

I agree. And if the expense of matching clothes (especially if it's only t-shirts) is the extent of frills, I'd be all in. Time is the thing, and matching clothing costs no time. But how do they fix the TIME problem?

By giving all the actives time turners, obviously :D

Well yes, there's that.

I think the only resolution is adding days to the process. And I'd suck it up and move rush to the fall. Illinois and Iowa have gone to a system where the first (and worst) part of rush happens before school starts and the end of rush happens the next weekend. While that sounded really bad to me, they seem to have found great success from that system so I've been forced to (perish the thought) change my opinion. It can happen!

Illinois has stopped doing that. Recruitment used to be before school started. Now it is right after school starts - split over 2 weekends.

I completely agree. I'm saying that even trying to initiate "no frills" was a stupid idea to begin with - as with many things, it attacked a symptom instead of a real problem.