formal recruitment?
 

Hey all-
I go to UMass Amherst. Our fraternity recruitment is informal in the extreme- there's no coordination of it at all. Everyone just has huge open parties, and recruits whomever. It's informal informal. The problem is, it's killing us. Average chapter size ten years ago was 90 men, now it's 25. 5 chapters have no new members this semester.

The sororities are doing fine, by comparison, with 40 or 50 in each house on average. They do what I believe is a pretty standard Panhel formal rush.

My chapter's point of view is unique- we're only a year old. We've got 10 actives and 1 new member, and no house, which means no huge rush parties for us.

I want the IFC to switch to a more formal rush, but I'm not sure what will work. I need advice from people at schools who do it now. I need to present it very carefully, because the words 'formal rush' cause a lot of screaming about houses' rights- nobody wants to change how things are done, because "they've always been this way".

Basically, if you could just lay out how rush works at your campus, it'd be a big help. The more examples I have, the easier it'll be to piece together a strategy for us.

Thanks all!

I don't know if this will help alot or not ... but here is the link to the online combined rush/recruitment/intake booklet sent out by the University of Arizona greek life to all new incomming students.

http://www.union.arizona.edu/csil/gr...kLifeGuide.pdf

The fraternity section might give you some ideas ...

Our schol was thinking about doing this year as well, but there was a huge outcry from the fraternities. They didn't want to do it that way. While the numbers this spring were not as extreme as yours, they were still quite different, with fraternities getting 13, 10, 9, and 4 members. Another fraternity is colonizing right now so I don't know what their numbers are. Still, the fraternity getting 4??? I felt bad for them. They ar the only fraternity that lives in a dorm, so having parties is difficult to recruit new members. Since the fraternity formal rush was put down, I suggested that there be a huge Greek Fair at the beginning of the year that students could come to and meet all the groups. Then, if someone hit it off with a couple groups, they could hang out with them during the year to get a feel for what they're like before rushing.

I was a Rho Chi this year and had a guy walk up to our recruitment table at lunch and wanting to sign up.....there is obviously a need for some kind or formal structure!! To my knowledge he didn't rush anywhere because he had no way of really getting to meet the fraternity members.

Don't call it formal rush, that will scare the guys to death! :eek: Try calling it "structured rush" or "open house rounds." What I think would be good to try is to begin rush with an open house night where every rushee has to go to every house. After that, they can go where they want. The key is for the rushees to see every fraternity, not just "oh, Joe Bob the XYZ is in my class, I'll go to XYZ." Plus there are some guys who are shyer, and might be a little scared to just walk into a party. If they had the structure to start out with, more people might be encouraged to get involved.

If people are worried about their house being crappy or whatever, propose having this in the rec center or other neutral territory. The point is that guys will see fraternities they probably would have never taken a look at otherwise. That can only be beneficial for everyone.