Formal Recruitment help!
 

Hello All!

I am the recruitment chair for panhel at a small school where greek life isn't very big. We are really trying to go all out this year and not only change the public's view of greek life, but really increase our numbers in women who come out for recruitment. I was wondering if anyone had any ideas about PR for recruitment. How can we get them to come out? What techniques does your panhellenic use to get girls to come out and to stay? I'd really appreciate ANY ideas or suggentions. Thanks in advance.

Fraternally,
Zeta_heart

At my alma mater, Rho Gammas are required to be at orientations to sign up and talk to women. Sorority women are invited to be present as well. The chapters each have posters that sum up whatever they would like to say about their chapters. We also have GO Team (Greek Orientation Team) which introduces greek life to students during a small portion of orientation. We also have sorority women and rho gammas attend any open house events the schools holds and they "table". If the school is having any events for new students you need to reserve a space and be there. Have women in letters serve as volunteers as well as rho gammas. Many of our campus leaders are greek and make sure to let new students know this in order to increase awareness. We have slide shows and summer events for new students to attend (we're a commuter school). Things like Ice Cream Socials, Parent/Student meetings with food that focus on the benefits of sorority life and academics, etc. If you do not have the resources to do this as a PC then include IFC and NPHC and if you have one, a MGC. Do whatever it takes to keep awareness out there.

is your school supportive of greek life? are they willing to let representatives of the different greek councils speak during orientation?

do you mail out recruitment information the all incoming students? do you make a recruitment booklet where each group has a page on which they post a few photos of members doing fun but appropriate(for anyone to view) activities along with info such as sorority/fraternity name, colors, symbol or mascot, major philanthropic event, financial info. the booklet would also have a recruitment enrollment form, dates of recruitment, proper recruitment attire, etc. can an interested student sign up on line?

Our school is actually pretty supportive of Greek life. There are some minor issues, but for the most part the administration is supportive of greeks. We do have Greek representation during our summer orientation. Members of Greek Life are a part of the Orientation team, we also have Greek ambassadors that serve on the student council (an open forum for incoming freshman to as questions about campus life with current students). Our Greek coordinator also does a presentation during part of the orientation.

We currently have a brochure we pass out during visits and orientation about greek life, and I am finish up a website at the moment with information about greek life in general and each individual sororities information. In addition, PNMs will be able to register from this site, find information on recruitment, and see example of what to wear each night.

We tend to lose people over the week, so we are creating activities like lunch, dinner, study hours, and ice cream socials during the week with other PNMs going through recruitment and the Rho Chis. We are hoping that this will enforce the sense of greek community.

We are a small state school, and generally only about 3-4% of the incoming freshman women come out to recruitment. We are having issues maintaing total within our chapters, which puts our housing in danger every year.

Any more ideas and suggestions would be so helpful, this is really a pivotal year for us. We really need to pull up all our numbers and get that positive idea of greek life out there so we can continue the trend. Thanks!

Get "I Heart Recruitment."
It tells you how to make your friends your sisters. It sounds like your Panhel does a good job advertising to the Joiners...it's time to advertise to everyone else!

This isn't something you can just whip up for rush week but it's very very important.

Get rid of any dirty rushing, backbiting, name calling or drama between the sororities. If you are at a party and some ABC is just being a total pain in the butt, wait till you get home to vent...don't tell everyone at the party how much you hate those slutty trashy ABC girls. Independents will hear and see things like this and be turned off to the Greek system...and tell their friends. IMO this is the main thing that kills overall numbers at a small school, and no amount of websites or presentations can fix it. Also, try to avoid or de-emphasize any informal "pairings" like "ABC sorority always hangs out with and dates XYZ fraternity." They only lead to drama and rushees (mistakenly) thinking that if they pledge this sorority they have to date a member of that fraternity.

If total has been unreachable for the majority of chapters for a number of years, consider lowering it by 5 or 10 women.

Don't just focus on the freshmen. Upperclassmen often have a better idea of what they want out of a sorority. (Don't go and pledge 20 juniors and no freshmen though, or you're going to be in deep doodoo in 2 years.)

have all the sororities help the freshman move into their dorms . everyone could wear their "i heart recruitment" shirts (list the dates of recruitment on the back with the names of the sororities on campus) and have iced down water bottles to hand out to the parents and freshmen. you could stress to each sorority that this is a panhellenic activity and they are representing panhellenic, so no mention should be made of their own sorority.

"If total has been unreachable for the majority of chapters for a number of years, consider lowering it by 5 or 10 women."

yes, yes, yes....great advice!

Thank you all for your help! I just ordered the I "heart" recruitment from amazon so hopefully that will get here soon. The water bottles are a FABULOUS idea, I will be adopting that thank you!

We have discussed down sizing the number for total. The problem remains that we have housing through the university, and they require a specific number to reside in the housing no matter what total is. So by lowering total we are end up having even less people to put in the housing. It is kind of a catch-22. So we really need to amp up our recruitment.

Inter Sorority issued have actually died down in the past couple of semesters, due to some big "trouble" makers leaving. Our panhellenic is VERY greek orientated and committed to uniting to make this an extremely successful recruitment for us all. Which make this a great opportunity for us to take it to another level.

Thanks again for the help, leave any other ideas if you have them. This thread has me very motivated for recruitment this fall! :D

Yes! Now if we can get the panhellenic at the school I advise at to do this! There are 2 NPCs and neither one of them are at total (nor have been for centuries) :rolleyes:

How is the housing set up? Can sororities split floors or have independents live there?

Your housing should fit what is happening in the Greek life scene, not the other way around. It's not fair to you guys to continually be getting crap from your HQs for not meeting total, and to continually feel like you are failing when you don't meet it, when the only reason it's up there is to keep the housing full. I'm guessing that there's a fear of if you give up a floor/suite/whatever now, you'll never get it back?

We currently split floors. The University housing has taken the stance that the residence hall is either all greek or it becomes a general residence hall. In addition, each of our sororities also has a suit or "lounge" on the floor that is locked that equipment and records are kept in in addition to other items. Losing this lounge and the hall would be devastating. We have tried negotiating with the residence life for the past couple years but to no avail. So you can see our difficulties, and why we are really pushing recritment.

Let me state up front I've never read the NPC rules, and it would not surprise me to learn this idea isn't allowed ....

Get a list of incoming freshman women, and have as many greek women as possible write PERSONAL letters and/or e-mails to the incoming women. Offer a pen-pal-type relationship, with the sorority women offering to answer questions, give the inside scoop, etc. They can talk up the benefits of rush. Doesn't even have to be the benefits of being greek, but of rush itself ... getting to know others on campus, learning about different philanthropies, etc. Interest them in the people, and their interest in rush will follow.

dgtess, i have heard of this being done, but it was years ago. maybe the panhellenic officers and the recruitment counselors could do this?

otherwise, i would think that the panhellenic officers would need to read over the letters before they were mailed, to make sure that they were sharing general panhellenic information and not information that was specific to the author's particular sorority.

My understanding is that GENERAL Greek information representing all groups can be sent out, but releasing names is against FERPA and privacy rules. If a student states they are interested names can be passed on, but en masse doesn't happen. Obviously self selecting would work, but those people want to join anyway, you have to get the people who don't know about it or are nonjoiners.

My school had a program last summer where various spots where new students lived, there was an info. session for parents and students, and I went to a few and since I am an alumna just spoke about general membership for men or women. The Greek advisor attended some as well, and local students attended, students is certain leadership positions came, and even general Vandal Alumni. I got some people to check into it, and even did some rec writing and passed along names of men and women to people I knew.