Canadian Recruitment numbers down
 

I received an email from one of our very active Alpha Gams in Toronto who is very active Panhellenically and very insightful as to trends in Canada. She is comparing quota this year to the last couple years (not just last year when two years of high school students graduated simultaneously) She is wondering if we are seeing the same trends in the U.S. or in certain regions of the US:


"UBC – 15 down from usually mid-20s

U of Calgary – 4 down from usually low teens

U of Alberta – 11 down from 17 last year

U of Manitoba – 3 down from usually ~10

U of Western Ontario - 17 down from usually mid to high 20s (historically mid 30s)

U of Toronto – 6 down from 7 last two years

Dalhousie – 5 bids accepted (this campus does not use a quota system)

I am still collecting the quota results from other Canadian campuses where AGD does not have a chapter (there are 8 such campuses)."

Quota was about the same at the one Michigan chapter that reports to me, and the other chapter I work with in Michigan is just about to start Recruitment, so I'm not sure how are our trends are yet...

Any thoughts?

Dee

Other than at U of T, all other schools seem to be down significantly. Do they have any information on the number of girls who signed up?

Waterloo (only Kappa Kappa Gamma) pledged 11 girls, which is up from our "typical" fall NM class of 6-8.

UBC
 

At UBC, NPC quota has been in 20s only once or twice in past 7 years (since 1997) ~ generally hovers in mid to high teens.

AGD Alumna ~ UBC
Delta Zeta chapter '97

U of T has been going up for the last few years. I believe quota has been 4,5,5,7,6 over the last 5 years.
I wonder why #'s everywhere else are going down?

I had dinner with one of our Leadership Consultants tonight (travelling consultants) and she said the trend has been down everywhere. U of Michigan was way down too with a lot of women dropping halfway through. There are many factors that can lead to lower numbers, financial, generational trends, bad portrayal of sororities on TV, in books, etc. It's hard to tell exactly why...

Dee

Actually, it has been 5,5,7,7,6 with several plus 1's as well - primarily the change was due to change of repeating rd 1 twice, visiting all houses one night or the other as opposed to visitng 4 houses one night, then 3 the next PNM couldn't make it to both, so less actually completed rd 1. Last year, quota would have been 10 if pref hadn't been on a Monday night(13 PNM missed pref because of class).

Chantal (the AGD alum AGDee refers to) and I have been tracking numbers for the past 5 years, and after steady years of increases, this has been a year of what economists would probably refer to 'correction'. But it's not to say it won't bounce back up again and stablize again.

:)

Shala

U of T Panhellenic Adviser 2002,2003, 2004
Canadian Infraternal Association President - 2000-03

NeonPi, do you think having Round 1 over a weekend might have been an issue this year? When I was making calls to PNMs, a few said that they were going home for the weekend and were therefore unable to make it. Would it have helped if Round 1a was on Thursday night, Round 1b on Saturday afternoon, Round 2 on Monday evening and Pref on Tuesday?

Somewhat - our best rd last year for attendance was rd1b on a Friday night and Rd 2 on a Saturday, but it started at 5pm. The issue was this year was it was weekend after Rosh Hashanah, and many folks went home. The Panhellenic made a decision to go for that time as opposed to Sept 30-Oct 3, but it wasn't much different in terms of results, but retention could have been way better.

It clearly works best with Thursday night/Friday night rd 1, Sat Rd 2 late afternnon/evening- but do pref Sunday night or if need be Monday night - this avoids the big 1st year classes of Sociology or Psych on T/W, but there is one Monday's now too.

*Sigh* there is no exact perfect time - and it comes to what the chapters and Panhellenic feel will work best for their campus.

The University of Guelph does not have a quota system. This semester we pledged 16 girls. That's way up from the 4-6 that usually pledge. The number of girls attending our recruitment parties went way up too. This is also the semester where a new local has started.

Hey us too (re new local)! Maybe the whole competition thing does help with numbers...

Quota at Bishop's this year was 5, which is the same as it was last year. I think it's been 5 (if not less!) for a few years now.

Speaking for Western, the University Students' Council doesn't recognize the greek system and gave us hell trying to promote sorority recruitment. We were given an obscure booth on campus that not too many people could pick out from a distance and we were't allowed to hand out flyers or anything b/c apparantly last year students complained about it. I think that at UWO possibly a lot of students just didn't really hear about recruitment b/c we couldn't advertise it really.

But why was recruitment more successful before? Better word of mouth? I thought most people knew that UWO has a Greek system. I knew that UWO did long before I knew other schools in Canada.

Is anyone finding it harder with the double cohert to deal with underage pledgers? I know some pledges take it hard that we impose strict anti-underagers drinking... some people just want to stick with their own age group in rez...

But the double cohort thing is really an Ontario issue. Dal and UBC (for example) have always had underage NMs and PNMs and McGill, U of C and U of A don't really have to worry because their drinking age is 18.

UBC has only had those high numbers for the last couple of years and as already mentioned with the addition of a new sorority on campus, quota is lower because it is now divided by 8 not 7, so UBC had roughly the same numbers go through this year as in the past couple of years, the numbers didn't go, but the addition of a new sorority makes them appear that they did.

Windsor was down too.
our quota is set by national (12) - we bid 6, 4 accepted. not sure how DZ did.

I hate being at UWO - always fighting the image - my friends started taking to calling me "hosebag" last week when i wore my Archon's key. at least they had the courtesy to ask me why i joned ands then listened to my answer...but still. it's just frustrating!

I am surprised how low the numbers are at UWO. I heard that 4 did well and 1 not so well. How do get the sororities' names and Panhel out to the female population at UWO?

I'm not sure how they do it at Western. I know recruitment was always formal in September - but they were only out front of the student centre for 2 or 3 days. last septmeber I didn't see them at all. they don't poster at all. (although i did see once an ad for an Alpha Phi event). and they don't wear letters often. I was a TA last semester for a large class. Only once did i see a young woman with a sweatshirt and one guy wore his a couple times. I'd thought I'd see some in the cafeteria - but never.
I think publicizing sorority life is a must since most students either have no clue what it is, or believe all the stereotypes.

Back home now. winter recruitment is going slow. I hate winter recruitment, but we have no choice.
I hope the semester is going well for everyone else.