Recruitment Disasters
 

The sorority for which I work is experiencing some difficulties leading up to recruitment not of their doing but affecting the house's appearance. The problems are no one's fault; sometimes s@#% just happens. In the end it will all probably all work out well and if it doesn't, it will not be for lack of an Herculean effort on the part of all involved.

Has anyone experienced a major hurdle that had to be cleared before recruitment. I don't mean that the shoes didn't match or the punch was the wrong color, but things like the roof blew off of the sorority house or all the grass and landscaping died in a drought or all the power was lost and House tours took place with flashlights. I'm exagerating a bit but that type of thing.

I rushed at a house that had a disaster - their house was sliding down a hill and had to be closed indefinitely. They held rush in a tent. The problem was not the tent but the fact they kept talking about the tent and the house sliding down the hill, so we all thought of them as the tent chapter. If you have a chance to reassure your actives, just tell them NOT to focus on whatever house disaster is at hand but just offhandedly remark that renovation of houses/lawns/whatever is part of keeping a sorority house a great chapter home. Then they talk about something else and they make sure that whatever the problem is, it does not interfere with the PNMs ability to concentrate on conversation.

Well, I think everyone understands natural disasters. A comment or two to explain should be adequate.

I've known of a few houses that caught fire during recruitment. Candles, maybe?

I've seen projectors for slide shows almost catch fire and begin to melt tablecloths. I'll leave it there!

Yes! Oh dear - had two of them while I was doing housing...windows/doors open, a draft ensues, sheers float over candles and there you go!

Heard it happened to the AXO house at SDSU during preference years ago. SDSU was one of the first campuses to ban candles after that. I don't know about other sororities, but KD will no longer allow candles for this very reason.

DaffyKD

Last year I seem to recall that at least one of our chapters held recruitment in the midst of massive flooding that affected some of the campus houses - it was in the Midwest, I believe - and recruitment was successful.

Greekchef did you check out the 2011 Recruitment Bits & Pieces? U of L had some weather related problems this year.

Iowa State University in Ames had some serious flooding right around campus (where many of the Greek chapters are located) last year right before recruitment started. Some houses had water damage in the basement (mostly minor, IIRC, but almost all the basements are used in some capacity with either dining, lounge or study areas so living areas were affected), the city was on water conservation rules during work week, I think even some of the dorms had issues with water damage that affected how/where the PNMs going through ate their meals.

By the time recruitment actually rolled around, the city was back on normal water use, the houses had [mostly] cleaned the issues up and, as far as I know, none were adversely affected with lower numbers because of any damage sustained by the flooding.

a few years ago, a hurricane came up i the gulf and took a right turn toward orlando and several sorority houses at UCF were damaged-during recruitment!

My sophomore year, on the afternoon of Preference, two young men from my pretty-small university were in a motorcycle accident on a road close to campus. One of them was killed. He was good friends with many women from two chapters in particular, mine and my roommate's. My roommate was one of his best friends, and I knew that her feelings for him had moved beyond friendship. We all found out about the accident less than an hour before Preference parties were set to start, and several of the women from the two chapters were so upset by it that they couldn't participate in the parties. I was a recruitment counselor that year, and I had to bail on my group so I could take care of my roommate. Naturally, Panhellenic knew the PNMs would know something was up at those two sororities, so they gathered the PNMs before the parties to tell them that there had been an accident off campus that required the attention of several chapter members, and that the parties might be a little smaller than they had earlier in the week. They also gave them the head's up that the mood may be very somber. Still, that was a very rough night for the two chapters, and for the PNMs whose nosiness got the best of them and couldn't resist asking the sorority women what had happened - lots of hysteric crying and pref parties that really didn't revolve around the sorority at all.

While I would never wish a recruitment disaster on any chapter, and certainly not the kind of tragedy Peppy posted about, I will say that seeing how a chapter handles these sorts of things would give you a real glimpse into their sisterhood. It's just like any other relationship - stress brings out the best and worst in people, and can give you insight into their true natures.

I've written before about the coldness shown me by a legacy chapter during my recruitment when I broke down because I had just been told my aunt had died at the age of 32. I saw a side of those women that no one else did; it wasn't pretty. I knew then that they would never be my sisters because in the face of genuine grief they were unsympathetic. I guess that's my recruitment disaster - but in a way, Bev's death helped me find a true sisterhood.

I can't recall the details (which sorority and what year), but didn't a PNM going through recruitment collapse and die outside one of the sororities at UT Austin in the late 80's? I don't think this is actually urban legand, because I remember reading about this and wondering how they handled the situation.

Also concur with SWTXBelle: This can bring out the best OR the worst in sisters. I don't know all of the details on your recruitment, but to show lack of sympathy to a NPM (...or anyone else) who had just lost a family member is reprehensible.

We had a near disaster last year during recruitment. A small black racer snake got into our house through the elevator shaft hallway (the door was proped open to the outside..this hallway connects us with KD next door) and was slithering around the foyer! The only people that saw it was our ELC and our chapter advisor (it was in between parties thank goodness lol!) Dont remember how they got it out..I think maybe a security guard just so happen to be walking around greek village at the time. Imagine how bad that could have been if the actives were walking the PNMs out while this snake was in the foyer!:eek: