Penn State Recruitment
 

I recently replaced an disliked (and ineffective) recruitment chair last semester, so Fall 2008 is my first shot at Rush.

Any suggestions for...
Rush Shirts ideas
Summer Rush retention
and general competitive Rush tactics (we have over 50 fraternties to pick from at PSU)

Thanks

is that even possible: 50+ frats to choose from?
i call BS.

52 Fraternities and 30 Sororities at Penn State. (See chapter listing below)

http://www.sa.psu.edu/greeks/chapters.asp

I think I know my own Greek System...

But all 52 aren't competing against each other really.

Ok I stand corrected. But stili, 52 frats is ridic. I just feel like if you replaced someone who was "ineffective and disliked" then you must have had some ideas on how to be liked and effective.

Otherwise, damn what did you get yourself into? Esp against 52 other orgs.

Second largest greek system in the country, baby. :) When I was there, there were 56 fraternities.

Looking at that list of 52 made my head hurt.

Who has the largest Greek system?

Good luck to the OP. I have no advice to offer. I do recommend reading some other threads that may shed light.

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (69 fraternities & 36 sororities, according to Wikipedia)

That sounds claustrophobic. :eek:

Oh God that many? my school only has 15 and alot of them are small.

Since you're AGR you're only competing for men who are enrolled in degree programs for ag, natural resources, and so on? I mean yes there are 52 fraternities, but isn't your pool of potential men limited by a membership requirement?

Other than hitting up 4-H and FFA, can you hit up your professors and departments for names of men, or volunteer to be mentors and orientation leaders within the college of ag and what not?

Whatever you do, please don't do a John Deere shirt and have any sayings about "pullin' hoes since 1904" or anything tacky like that. Something like "growing your food and good brotherhood" is cheesy but at least it isn't offensive.

Excellent point.

AGR isn't agriculture specific, though that's what they focus on.

Lot of business majors in the one at Arkansas.

That's what I thought. And even if it was ag specific, there are oodles of ag majors at Penn State.

Depending on the composition of your chapter, I would play up the ag angle but don't make it seem like everything you do is related to it. Some of these guys are coming from towns/situations where that's been their whole life since birth and they want a change - don't lose them before you even get started. I know that's a hard line to walk though.

But are they Ag business majors as opposed to regular business majors? It isn't that they have to actually be studying crop science or animal husbandry to be eligible for membership, but my understanding was that it is any major related to such (ag education, ag. economics, forestry, etc.). My school has a Department of Education for teachers, but the students who are studying to be FFA teachers and what not fall under Agricultural Education and therefore it is under a different heading. I'm just assuming there is a distinction at your school as well?

Hew PennState-Gamma, is that still the case or is it like Farmhouse now where that isn't a membership requirement?

Seriously, the t-shirts people associate with their letters (men and women) to either entice or announce membership are just so tacky. Degrading women or having some catty remark on a t-shirt is low class and pretty immature. Also copyright and trademark infringement is really not in vogue.

We dont have a Agr requirement. There are 4 other "Ag Frats" at Penn State, 2 of which are Ag only. But AGR isn't. We haven't ever had an Ag requirement, and our chapter, historically, and currently, tends to stray from Ag roots (we're talking 75% non Ag majors in the past 10 years). We tend to embrace the social part of AGR, so we have very few "Ag Brothers"

Wow, you guys are like Farmhouse at Idaho. One of them told me the week before last that they didn't have one Ag or Natural Resource major in the currently in the chapter. I guess the AGR guys I've met out west are much more into that part of your history/background than at Penn State.

Penn State is Gamma Chapter... we don't have to be into our history, we are the history, ha. AGR is social-professional. Not that we don't follow Ag. tendencies (exp. I'm a Political Science major, but my internship, and possible career, thanks to AGR is in Agricultural Lobbying in Washington). We like our history, but AGR nation wide is very diverse. Look at AGR's in the North East as compared to Mid-West, or South east to West coast. Every area has its type of goal, you know?

The way your brothers I know have presented and explained it was that it was a requirement, which may be how they operate here and the other chapters out west I've met members from have had the same attitude. They made it seem like that was a national standard, and well obviously it isn't. Honestly you're the only chapter I've heard of who didn't seek out people with particular majors or backgrounds, but some of those members I know are far far out of school now and perhaps that has changed.

Check out chapters like Auburn, Florida, Cornell, New Hampshire, etc.
Maybe its East coast to be less Ag Ag and more Ag specfic (business, finance, engineering, communications, etc.)
Who knows, we run Penn State

Well....


and...
From http://www.alphagammarho.org

Sooo..... I dunno.

So are you trying to tell me my chapter is doing it wrong? I just explained what our connection is to Ag. I'm not saying we are disaffiliated with Ag., i just said our version of it.
And that quote is 9 of 9 listed. and it says "support of", not def. career in

LOL I hope you don't think that the people posting actually care. If anything we're talking around you and to each other. :)

whoops.

nice

Okay, so they sort of totally ignored your question.

To start with, you're getting started sort of late. Actually really late. When does school start for you? We've already had three regional rush parties (Dallas, Memphis, Little Rock).

I don't know what you mean by retention? You mean...the guys who you rushed in the summer, you want them to take your bids in the fall...or?

what is a regional rush party?
penn state has an unstructured rush set up, being that we are given 3 weeks and told to have at it. so we have 1000 potential rush through the system, and mostly based on drinking they pick a house.
i'm talking about keeping the 7-12 guys we have as summer rush that seem interested.
we can't give summer bids, so all we can do is tell them we want them in the fall, and then hope they don't look anywhere else all fall while every other house is doing their things.

We have regional rush parties, that is parties in cities that we draw heavily from at bars. Free liqour whole nine yards.

I'll tell you something UofA fraternities do to keep people. Have kids sign fake bid cards that look real. Play them as real and tell them no differently. They feel psychologically tied to you but have no real official connection. Rip the bid cards up shortly after. Make sure they sign it with a few of their buddies so they're psychologically tied to each other with the fraternity.*


*disregard all this if it's somehow against Penn St. rules