Formal Recruitment Help
 

I am the panhel recruitment chair on my campus and I am looking for some help. I guess this is obvious by my thread I started.

The greek life on our campus has been struggling in the recent years to recruit girls to go greek. Our total which was once 65 is now down to 45, which was lowered about 4 years ago, and at least half of our 11 chapters are not at total.

I have set my formal recruitment goal to have one pnm for every greek sister by the start of formal recruitment. Obviously we are going to have some pnms drop out but even if we make it through with 50% of the girls that sign up; we will have increased our size our size by 50% and total would be twice that of what its been since I started school here.

Any ideas on how I can help implement this plan would be great. I would like to start making a recruitment booklet to send home to incoming freshmen, but don't know what I should include in it. Also is there a certian company other colleges use.

I would also like to have members possible the executive board of each chapter to setup a table and talk to girls during orientation weekend, but I am worried the President of the University won't allow it because he is very anti-greek.

Any help or advice you can give would be great! Thank you!

Would you mind sharing your university/location?

Virginia Tech has a gorgeous, glossy full color, 60+ page Greek life booklet that they send to all incoming freshmen. Perhaps you could contact their Panhellenic president and she could send you a copy to give you ideas for a booklet for your school.

Regarding your recruitment booklets--

Use the women in the different chapters as resources. Utilize the art/graphic design majors. My sister did the Panhellenic recruitment booklet for her campus Panhel this past year. She did it digitally, gave the digital file to the Greek Life Advisor and she printed up the copies and such.

Each NIC/NPC org got two pages--one with basic info and one with pictures and such. There was a letter from the CPH president and a little note from each chapter president in the booklet.

The back of the booklet included the recruitment schedule (went no-frills this year), how invites, pref day, etc would work.

As far as I know, you just have to ask the people at orientation to give you the space cos they usually reserve the resources they need at that time. Also, why don't you try a GO Team (Greek Orientation Team) with IFC and NPHC members as well. They have their own time during orientation presentation to explain why they went greek and how greek life can help them. We also have CLOT which is Campus Leadership Orientation Team which includes greeks and non greek campus leaders. All of these people have open affiliation unless they are Rho Gamma/Rho Chis and are chosen by application and interview process by the recruitment chairs from the councils and their advisers. Methods such as these are amazing and can lead to improved greek life all around. You don't necessarily have to have the approval of the president to have this included in orientation either, so go and talk to them now so you can find out what you can get, and bring your advisors and council counterparts with you!

ETA: we were going to do those fancy flyer books, but the cost was so great that we just made a pdf file for them to view online at the greek website.

As obvious as it may be, the content of your booklet doesn't matter unless incoming freshmen and/or their families open it up and read it, so the cover needs to be inviting. Maybe something like "Just when you thought you knew everything about being Greek..." or something simpler to that extent.

I think among other obvious things that may come up, there should be a section about hazing, definition, how it is not tolerated, programs in place to prevent it, etc.

I don't know how long your site has been down, but getting that up and available might be helpful. People are so technology focused anymore that they love to be able to visit a website and get information. The address below is the website for my undergrad school's Greek Life, in the lower left is a quick web presentation of sorts. It goes along with all of their slicks that get sent out to all incoming freshman and transfer students in the spring. They also have a mailing that is sent to parents that fields general concerns and promotes Greek life - i.e. Greek students have a better grad rate. They were using a company based in Ames that some other midwest schools were using, but I don't know if that's still the case.

http://www.greek.iastate.edu/

Does your Orientation have a fair of sorts where people can walk through and check out the different student organizations? That's when a lot of women and men interested in going through talk to someone about Greek Life and sign up for house tours.

Geez, I was so focused on the idea of a booklet that i neglected to mention that IUP doesn't have a current, functioning Greek Life website. That should take priority over a booklet, IMO.

Also, have you read "I Heart Recruitment" by Gendron and Coffey? It may be just what your campus needs.

I think another thing that would help is to get good Rho Chis (or whatever they are called now). I think sometimes these women are the ones that don't want to participate in their chapter's recruitiment parties and are often times not the best rushers. If you can find outgoing and enthusiastic women to be the Rho Chis, ones that will actively recruit women to sign up for rush instead of sitting behind a table waiting for women to come to them, you could end up with a lot more PNMs.

definately work with the college on getting that greek website up and running.

see if someone from greeklife can give a quick presentation during orientations-at my daughters school, greek life gives a presentation right after the required orientation events take place. it is optional, but was well attended when my daughter was an incoming freshman. some of the ifc and college panhellenic officers spoke about recruitment and opportunities that being greek provided, and while they were talking other ifc and npc officers were setting up a table in the foyer of the building where the presentation was being held .from there they distributed water bottles that were labeled "go greek" and had the recruitment dates and handed out the recruitment booklets. of course, the officers were disaffiliated from their chapters and represented either the ifc or cpc.

ifc and cpc had different recruitment booklets. cpc had one page dedicated to each of the sororities(including the nphc sororities, which hold a separate intake). each sorority provided a photo, and information such as sorority colors, mascots, philanthrophy(national and local), chapter name and estimated costs-badge, pledge fee, dues, etc. an enrollment form and a list of what each pnm needed to send to the cpc in order to enroll in recruitment(fee, resume, photo,etc.) was in the back of the book.

i think that a powerpoint showing different activites from each group would have been intereresting.

a good way to promote greek life in general and recruitment in particular would be to have the cpc and ifc officers as well as the recruitment counselors passing out more water bottles with a "go greek" label and the recruitment dates and how to register for recruitment on the label during move in day.

clarion alum here :)
 

If other recognized student orgs are allowed to have tables during orientation (College Republicans, newspaper staff, Dungeons & Dragons club, what have you) you should be allowed to have tables as well - if not for each group individually then for Panhellenic as a whole.

If the pres is still a dick about it even if you point out to him he's discriminating, make a facebook group (again, for Panhellenic as a whole so there's no favortism or dirty rushing) for incoming freshmen.

Have you guys gotten any sort of a new space since the suites were torn down?

Your books should be maybe 2 pages for each group (make sure to specify the type of photos you want and what you do and don't want in them - no drinking photos, no hoochie mama looking photos etc) and then an overview of how the rounds go and answer questions about what to wear, etc. Don't make it so fancy that it'll scare people into thinking they can't afford it. :)

As a note to everyone who mentioned the website, the student orgs site (which the Greek Life site would fall under) has a note that they are rebuilding their site. NPC can't "override" anything that Student Orgs is doing.

Outside of formal recruitment - remember that no matter the letter, we're all Greek together. If there are problems with trash talking, dirty rushing or inter chapter rivalries - they need to be handled and stopped. Women aren't going to join when they hear everyone saying "we love being Greek!" at rush and then hear someone saying "I hate those XYZs, they are bigger hos than Paris Hilton!" at a party on the weekend. If you absolutely must vent, do it behind closed doors.

My campus did something similar by creating a Greek Booklet that includes everyone, IFC, NPC, and NPHC. Each GLO had their own page which listed information about that GLO and a few pictures of the chapter. The booklet also listed the different recruitment calenders and polices in the booklet.

I believe the title was "Find Yourself"

The whole idea was to reach out to potential new members and to educate the on all the different GLOs.

Thanks for your ideas and help so far.

I believe they are currently working on the greek life website (IUP just converted to a whole new website and alot of the pages still aren't up and running yet.)

I will definitly find out about getting a copy of VA Tech's recruitment booklet.


...We do have problems with dirty rushing, but surprisingly it is usually the larger chapters, although Fall 2006 all but one CPC chapter got caught for dirty rushing and no action was taken. The CPC executive board always threatens to do something, but in the end nothing happens, so basically the girls know its a hollow threat. I would like to educate each of the chapters on how dirty rushing actually hurts chapters more than helps chapters.

33girl - Yes we did find new housing actually my nationals found it we are in suites above the greek store, but we each have to share a suite with another sorority except for Tri-Sigs, who recolonized last semester because they only had 6 girls, they share with the CPC.