Otterbein SPRING recruitment...
 

OK, so for the first time in...well a long time, Otterbein sororities will be taking spring pledge classes. Not all chapters are, but several have expressed preliminary interest in doing so.

Now, this leads to a couple big problems. We don't have a formal informal (irony?) structure. We have no idea how to do parties like this. Some chapters aren't going to do any parties. There were mistakes with the off quota lists of juniors/seniors during winter, so some of these women are already familiar with the chapter. Women who have not participated in formal recruitment are permitted to be recruited/pledged.

Now, this is where I get a bit miffed. Quota during formal was 20. 3 of 6 took quota and then some. 2 of those remaining chapters were close to quota, and my chapter is the last one, which took quite a bit less than quota (by design, we had 18 actives, couldn't handle a pledge class of 20 girls!). Now, the other chapters have rather large sisterhoods. They take quota (and plus) every year.

I, me, personally, feel that this spring class is not going to bring parity between my chapter and the other smaller chapters, especially because the other chapters are taking EVEN MORE girls next quarter. Big get bigger, small get smaller. This isn't a dig against them, more power to them, I just feel that it won't help bring everyone to level ground.

I also worry what this will do for the single-intention-preference (suicide signing) rates. They're already ridiculously high. There's no "penalty" for it (7 out of 9 in my pledge class did it!). But I worry that this will bring about the mentality of "Oh, I'll sign XYZ and nothing else. If I don't get a bid, I'll just wait till spring". I worry that girls won't give other chapters a chance because they hedge their bets that the chapter will want them in spring, which may or may not be true.

I wish we had a ceiling in place. Apparently there used to be one, but it hasn't been in place for several years. I dont say this because I want to restrict the other chapters, I just wish there was more parity. I feel like we've dug ourselves in a hole as a campus.

I'm not sure how this is going to work out. BUT! I am confident that it will be for the better for my chapter in terms of girls and numbers. We are going to have a spring pledge class. We've decided to have a couple of little events this quarter (ahhh! during week10! Stress!) and begin pledging next quarter. I'm excited to be doing something new as a chapter, and I'm ridiculously excited about some of the girls who have expressed interest in our event. I think we're going to get some girls who were intimidated by rush or didn't have time to commit to rush/pledging in winter (it is a notoriously stressful quarter).

Hooray for even more new Deltas :).

if there is no ceiling(what npc calls total) in place on your campus, you are right-the big get bigger and the smaller may grow, but have a heck of a time catching up with the larger chapters.

on an npc campus, only those chapters who are not at total(or did not pledge quota during formal rec.) may participate in informal. that way, the smaller chapters have the opportunity to pledge more members and "catch up" to the larger chapters. they chapters under total may pledge enough girls to reach the total figure, and then their informal recruitment recruitment is over.

do you have a governing council over all the sororities? i think that a meeting should be called where a discussion of limiting the amount of members(total/ceiling) a chapter may have is held. doesn't sounds like the governing body/sorority council has the best interest of ALL the sororities in mind.

Yes, we have a campus Panhellenic. I think that this might be the result of a pretty disasterous recruitment...lots of girls were not matched or invites were lost (happened to my PX group)...all of the craziness that happens during rush. Only this gets magnified because we do everything by hand (more hands, more potential for error). I think that a total/ceiling will be re-instituted, but not before chapters take on spring classes. I just worry because the number of chapters that would theoretically benefit from the lack of a ceiling far outweigh the chapters that would benefit from it being in place, and if those chapters cannot sway or get one or two to agree in a Panhel vote, it won't happen.

sort of a sticky situation. This is definitely an area where I wish we had some of the NPC regulations in place, if for nothing else, guidelines.

could you round up the other sororities in the same situation as yours, and approach the greek life administrator and explain your concerns(which seem justified)? does the administrator have any experience on an npc campus?

it seems to me that if the best interest of the whole of greek life is considered, then there should be ceiling in place and only those chapters under ceiling should be allowed to recruit informally. the smaller chapters will never catch up otherwise.

you are such an eloquent writer-surely you can represent the group and persuade the greek life administrator to your point of view.stand firm!!

We've had 3 Greek life advisers in as many years. One was promoted within the university, the second one left to take a job at a university closer to home, and now we have a new one. Oddly enough, all three have been NPC women (of 3 different organizations).

Chapters have expressed concerns about the "big getting bigger", but few if any know about what a ceiling is, what it does, why its there, how its calculated, etc. The reason my chapter knows that one has been used at Otterbein in the past is because the student life director (another NPC woman) mentioned it to us in an exercise we did with her during our pledge period. The first step would probably be education, simply because not all the chapters know about it.

I feel that at least one chapter would be on board with this. The others, I'm not sure how they'd vote. It sort of feels like it wouldn't be in their interest to have one, but at the same time, I know there are girls within the larger groups that don't *want* to have a 100 woman chapter (right now, I believe our largest group is around 80, give or take).

The thing is, it isn't like we have a hard time filling our houses. The largest houses 16 I think, but the chapter is also huge. My chapter house houses only 5, and it is filled. Others house between 7 and 10 girls. So a huge chapter is not needed to fill a huge house. Some chapters own their houses, others rent from the college, including mine. All have relatively equal housing.

And to add even more confusion to all this, it has been said that this spring class thing might be a once off. It's been suggested that we move to pledging our off quota girls (independent sophomores (have gone through rush and either not matched or signed independent), juniors and seniors) to fall quarter, and then have winter quarter remain formal recruitment (as it has been since the dawn of time). I've got no real qualms with this, except that if it were to happen next year, that will me 3 straight quarters of recruitment and pledging for my chapter!

I've got a rho chi debriefing later tonight, I may talk to the adviser about this. I just don't want to stick my foot where it doesn't belong because it isn't my position in the sorority to do so.

i think that you have every right as a concerned sorority member to voice those concerns to the greek life advisor. add to that your two years of experience as a rho chi, and i think you have a more "global" insight into your greek system .

if the largest group in near 80, then perhaps total could be in the 70 to 80 range. it would give those under total a target number to shoot for, yet the large could still continue to grow during formal recruitment. as you may know, total only comes into play during informal recruitment. those at or above total do not participate in informal recruitment, but may pledge quota during formal recruitment.

i would urge you to speak with this woman and ask her opinion and advice on the whole total/ceiling subject.

please come back and let us know.

oops.

just realized that i totally skipped over how to do an informal party.

when the chapter i advised was a colony, they had to do a few informal recruitment parties. they would do a movie night, or a grey's anatomy(or other favorite tv show) and serve popcorn and soft drinks. they had a cook out one time, invited girls out to dinner, invited girls to be their guest at a campus sporting event, bowling, ice skating, had a beach party , played mini golf,grabbed a coffee,etc.

they have done parties as an entire chapter and at other times the recruitment v.p. divided the chapter up into smaller rush groups-say between 5 and 6 people. each group has to decide what their group is going to do and between the 6 of them, they have to come up with 2 or 3 pnms. when the group settles on what activity they are going to do and who they want to invite they tell the recruitment vp so that she can keep a master list, and so that no two groups are rushing the same girls. it is suggested that each group start by asking friends or classmates who they think would enjoy meeting the sorority members and might be a good fit with the chapter.

after the first group activity, they may decide to invite their interested pnms to another activity, and then in a week or two the whole chapter would hold a party or get-together so that the entire chapter could meet the pnms.

I live in Westerville and would love to help! PM me.

Just a quick update before I turn in for the night:

we had an informal meet and greet tonight with prospective girls who have expressed interest in joining. We had a couple show up and they were all FANTASTIC prospectives for our chapter. I think we also learned tonight that our chapter's strength may lie in informal recruitment! It just felt much more relaxed, much more natural, much more "like my sorority" than it did during formal recruitment (I was a PX). Apparently, the rumor mill says that we will be doing a fall informal recruitment for upperclass women/ independents...which while I'm excited, that means 4 straight quarters of recruitment for certain chapters. Winter this year, spring this year, fall next year, winter next year. That's a LOT of recruitment, and a LOT of pledging.

I can't wait to see if any of the prospectives become pledges :):).

so glad it went well. good luck to your sorority!!

So now that we've gone through all the appropriate panhel steps, we have 3 brand new Tau Delta pledges who will begin their pledge period right after spring break. They're all wonderful :).