University of Illinois Rush
 

Some of ya'll expressed interest, and seeing as how this is the largest Panhellenic in the country, I am giving my alma mater its own thread.

There will be no specific chapter info, because doing so could give away things like affiliations of RX's and Panhellenic officers, and though this board appears Illini-free, I will not risk it.

1. One of the groups here, XYZ, decided to recolonize. Every member of their chapter took alum status in the spring, and they are recolonizing this fall. They will not participate in formal recruitment. They asked Panhellenic for a moratorium on COB from the other chapters all semester, but only got it for three weeks (per the green book) beginning one week after bid day. There are other chapters on campus that will not be at total even if they get quota in formal recruitment. XYZ had a speaker at orientation, and I believe they will be participating in the first round of recruitment.

2. As of the first day of classes, registration was very low. Only about 750 women were signed up. We usually have around 1100 women participate. The sororities went on a massive push to improve numbers, and by orientation, there were 1200 girls.

Other random facts about my school's rush:

We use PRUSH, having switched from SORUSH three years ago.

The website, www.illinigreeks.com, lets you register on-line with a credit card and find your group number/ID number.

We have:

AChiO
ADPi
AEPhi
AGD
AOPi
APhi
ChiO
Tri-Delt
DG
DZ
GPhiB
Theta
KD
KKG
Phi Mu
Phi Sig
Pi Phi
SDT
SK

Quota has been:

2002-49
2001-43
2000-48
1999-50

Penn State has more groups, but we have more women.

PRUSH means the PNM's rank the chapters before seeing invites, SORUSH means they see all invites and choose.

Okay, 95 women dropped out after the first round. This means that they did not rank their houses at the end of open houses. This is BEFORE they see any type of invites, which is a bit upsetting. I have no idea how many dropped when they picked up their schedules for round 2.

Do you know how many women normally drop out after first round? That seems like a HUGE number!

It Boggles My Mind
 

It boggles my mind to think of how Rush would be for a campus with this many GLOs would be on both sides of the rush coin. Tell me,b/c I am from the sticks, lol, the rushees rate which houses they would like to see before going on round #1 and then from their ratings, their round #1 isdetermined? And, how many days of round #1 parties do they have then?

It has been so long since I have thought about Rush and Pahnellenic and quota and total...

Losing 95 after first round is really nothing. It is typical at U of I to start with about 1200 and match about. It may seem like a lot, but chapters that are getting classes close to 50 don't really care.

On a side note, I just noticed that 3 different Panhellenic officers still have letters in their AIM profiles.

wow, another phi sig chapter


with number like 95 dropping
i would think you guys needed another sorority on campus

Not necessarily. The women who dropped out might just have not liked the rush process in general, decided they don't have the time or money, realized it would take too much time with their class load, or decided they are going to transfer at the end of the semester.

We get at least 100 girls that drop out of rush, sometimes closer to 200 -- but the majority of those drop out before first round is even over. They realize it's not for them, that rush is too much of a time commitment, that they can't afford it or that they'd rather wait to rush as a sophomore or in the spring. I imagine the same factors are at play at Illinois.

A lot of girls who drop rush again their sophomore year, from what I heard...I have a friend who was in the aforementioned XYZ chapter.

Well, as I mentioned, there is one group that is not participating in formal recruitment this year, so I don't know if some of the women will go that direction.

In my opinion, that group should leave and we should think about something brand new*** instead of that group trying to come back this year.

(***By brand new, I mean gone at least 5 years, but preferably with earlier history on our campus.)

I'm curious--what are your reservations about that group coming back this year? Without ID'ing details or names, of course! Sometimes, a sorority just needs reorganization time to come back active and involved on campus. It can be a very positive thing, and I hope it'll be that way for Illinois.

Christin
(of course, now I'm off to find out who's coming back there this year...may as well be honest about that!)

The problem is that you can not shake a reputation by "reorganizing."

I agree with you - especially because so many girls from XYZ are left on that campus and I think the reorganizing is going to offend/hurt them.

DeltaBeta--

I know the group you're talking about, and I'm just curious... I know it's tough to reorganize, but do you think there is any way that can be successful?

What would you recommend for that particular group? Or do you feel like they are just, i dont know, SOL?

Feel free to PM me... I would love to talk about this.

Seven years ago, they were having problems, and they did a similar type of recolonization. It obviously did not work. All the groups are fairly healthy, and I think we could really do well with a new colonization, but as long as this group is there, we can't.

has any of the other sororities on campus offered to help this group?
on our campus, there was a sorority that was the 2nd one founded ran into trouble with their nationals
they had to start over with 7 girls left in the sorority
even though our groups have never gotten along with this sorority, we rallied around them
we realized that it's not just this sorority suffering
it is Greek Life as a whole
and yes, the sorority had an awful reputation and there are tons of diaffliated members of this sorority on campus
but college is a time for us to grow up and rise above petty stuff like name-calling and degrading
right now, we are showing them how to COB girls, spread the word that the sorority was rebuilding, and basically helped them(we made flyers for them, gave them ideas for interest parties, etc)


if you would have asked us last year, we would have laughed in your face
but since we've been at the bottom once. . .we know how support is needed to keep a group thriving

another thing we realized and asked ourselves, 'what would you do if that was your sorority?'

I'm quite impressed by such a response. It shows the strength of your sisterhood to think of such a question, actually answer it, and then apply it to help another sorority in need. If such actions occurred in every Greek system, it would be beautiful.

Believe me, I do NOT want to lose a chapter. However, even the girls who were wonderful members had to go alum, and that will not change.

Now let's say you are the second smallest chapter, or third smallest chapter. You may still be struggling to keep your house full or to meet total. Are you really going to send girls to the struggling chapter instead of COBing them yourself?

This chapter recolonized seven years ago, and has NEVER had a good year. They have had less than 50% of quota every time. If this did not work last time, I do not know why it would work this time.

I would hate to see this chapter close; but I am just not very optimistic.

If you are the second smallest chapter, or the third smallest and the smallest chapter closes, where does that leave you? If a new kid comes to the block, they will NOT take the place as low man on the totem pole because there will be more interest in a new chapter than old ones. I don't know enough about this situation to say whether or not you are correct, Delta, that the only solution is for that chapter to fold, but sororities should do everything they can to prevent that whenever possible. Someone always takes the (last) place of the one that leaves.

Okay, my point is not that the only solution is for the chapter to fold. My point is that the chapter has ALREADY folded, and HQ is trying to bring it back too soon.

I wanna know the chapter...what is the point of not telling us. I think we all have chapters that struggle and ones that excell. If it's Alpha Chi then that's sad but hey, it's life. The fact that this chapter hasn't done well on your campus isn't any secret apparently, so why make it one?

<<<Okay, my point is not that the only solution is for the chapter to fold>>>

In your attempt to re-state your position (which is clear) you seem to have missed MY point. Sororities at any given campus stand together or fall.
White Chocolate made some very good points. It is apparently too late to help the chapter that closed, but your Panhellenic would do well to foster some unity in assuring that it doesnt happen to another one of you - and any one of you could be next. No one is accusing you of being happy about the chapter closing. However, you seem to think that the answer to the problem is immediate expansion of any chapter other than that one. I just don't agree.

This is not the same as the situation WC described. There are not a few dedicated, outstanding women trying to keep their chapter alive with the help of nationals. Even the dedicated, outstanding women (and I knew many in this chapter) have been given alum status.

After formal recruitment, if every group makes quota, there will still be at least two groups not at total. Most likely, a few groups will miss quota by a few girls as well.

Now, these groups are not able to COB because the chapter that is recolonizing has gotten a three-week moratorium during the most critical time.

The moratorium was requested at the last panhellenic meeting of the year, and a special session was held for the reps to cast votes. There was no time for other chapters to propose other ideas or make revisions to the original proposal.

Okay, those are the facts, you can't argue anything thus far. Now here come my opinions:

Who stands to gain/lose?

1. Panhellenic community: Loses, because the other small chapters can not COB if they are not at quota/total.

2. Women from the struggling chapter: Lose, because they have been told by their HQ that they can not be part of the recolonization.

3. National organization: Gains, because they will get to continue having a chapter on a prestigious campus.

4. Campus women who do not formal rush: Neither, because they have the opportunity to be part of a colonization, but they can not join another chapter that may want them through COB.

I thought I would add the following...

FR was really bad in '01. Quota was only 43, and SEVEN groups got fewer than that. Some of the smaller chapters felt that policies in place heavily favored larger chapters. When those chapters got together to try to initiate some changes, the chapter that is now in trouble (and had only matched 20 that year) did not jump on board.

I have no idea what their reasons were.

Question - you mention the women who were given Alum status. Are you positive they were told that once the recolonization or restructuring process is done that they will not be able to petition for active status again? I know this may depend on the GLO but I was told at our conclave this year that the women at U of Penn that chose to go alum will have the option to petition back to active status once the colony is established there this academic year. Perhaps the same will be true for this GLO.

I don't necessarily agree that the campus women who do not participate in formal rush are penalized just because they want to wait for the colonization option or that it's stopping the other groups from COBing these women. Because there is the opportunity to start something from the ground up you may be bringing women in to the greek system that wouldn't have ever joined otherwise. So in essence the other groups on campus wouldn't have had a chance to COB them anyway. I was a founding sister of my chapter and never would have gone through formal rush if we had it at my school, i may not even have gone through formal rush. But the opportunity presented itself for me to leave a mark on my campus by becoming a member of a colony. My ego couldn't let me pass up that opportunity.

Also, my thinking is for those women who went through formal recruitment and didn't join a house was it because they didn't get a bid from the only house they wanted and that house is at total/qouta so they know they can't be COB'd by that house. Maybe they weren't impressed with the other houses or for whatever reason they want to be a part of a new colony. Why not let them have that chance. For those women who really want a specific house they're not going to go through the process of finding out about the colony - they'll wait to see if they are COB'd by the house they really want.

And as for the other chapters that can't COB that isn't for the entire semester is it. I thought you said the moratorium is only three weeks. Who knows maybe with this GLO restructuring and possibly getting more women interested in greek life this will help the other groups with their COB too.

My two cents on this whole thing

Carolyn

I have a friend who was in the XYZ chapter. Many of the sisters were not even given the option of going alum - they were told to resign. Those who didn't get forced into resigning are alumnae and will have nothing to do with the whole chapter. She flat out said to me "I wish I never would have joined because now I'm going to have an awful image of sorority life." This is a girl who held some offices and was always very excited about the XYZ events.

No, I am not positive that the girls have no chance of re-petitioning for membership. I have never heard of anyone who experienced that.

My point about campus women is that it will generally be positive to have the chance at colonization. However, there will be a few who are affected negatively because they do not have their choice of COB chapters.

The moratorium is three weeks, starting next Sunday, AFAIK. Bid day is tomorrow. Hopefully, every group under total or quota can COB everyone before Sunday. After the moratorium would really be too late, when you consider 6-8 week pledge periods.

BID DAY
 

Quota was 54. I do not have numbers for the groups, but they did not all make quota.

best of luck to whatever chapter it is that has the 3 weeks
i hope they reach their goal

So the chapter in trouble has left campus, AFAIK. I hope we get a new group soon.

oh, that's poopy. :(

I think a lot of groups have been nixing immediate recolonizations...it was one thing 10-15 years ago when people were chomping at the bit to be Greek, but things are different now. Did they just not get enough women to recolonize?

What's AFAIK?

And which chapter closed?

AFAIK = as far as I know

as for your other question:

yeah but all that is over with. RXs should be known by now and knowing will have no affect on the outcomes of anything.

Hey DeltaBetaBaby.... just wanted to say hello to a fellow Illini.

hey there,
this is a random post, but HBAdpi and I actually stopped at UI on bid day and spent the night at the adpi house there on our way to california this past september.

Your campus is gorgeous! We walked down to the bookstore, had a bite to eat, walked all over campus (totally got lost! UI is like 50 times bigger than Allegheny!) and to the library and around... we took pictures at the fountain and of the gates... the weather was perfect, and it was a nice relaxing evening on our trip.

We *really* enjoyed our time on campus and at the chapter house. The girls in the house were so excited about bid day, the house was all decorated, and they even gave us left over rush shirts that they had.

I know ADPi made quota, how did the rest of the houses do?

~sweetie