Recruit more girls to think about pledging
 

My school is a very small school people refer to as a suitcase college. People come on mondays with their suitcases and leave on fridays. In the past couple of years our numbers have been going down.
This upcoming fall semester we will only have four active sisters.
We are looking for ideas to recruit girls to look into the greek system.

We are looking for number but we also want quality girls.
please help!!!!
-Sister of Delta Chi Omega:rolleyes:

there is an entire forum devoted to recruitment. just down the block a bit, make a right at link. can't miss it.:)

Ditto on the checking out the Recruitment Forums for ideas. There are several threads that give advice on recruitment to improve quality and quantity.

You mentioned that in the past couple of years the numbers have been going down. Do you know why? Has your organization done anything new in recent years that might have led to the decline in members?

And please define "suitcase college". Is it like a commuter campus where people just go to class, not get involved, and then go home?

Providing a little bit more info about your sorority and your campus might help as well. :)

"Suitcase" school is when nobody hangs around for the weekend. They all hightail it back home to hang with their high school buddies.

Yes, and I think for a lot of schools it's getting worse and worse since people can keep in touch w/ their HS friends more easily. I know that sounds like a contradiction, but when you can text & IM your HS friends all week to find out what's going on that weekend, basically only being apart from them physically, it makes you less likely to "have" to get involved at college.

Hopefully the high gas prices will help slow it.

To the OP - are the other sororities having the same problem w/ membership?

My alma mater is sometimes considered a "suitcase" college. However, it never really effected membership. I think this was because Chapter was on Sunday nights for all the GLOs on campus! It made people stick around!

I was actually going to say something similar-give the sisters a reason to stick around on weekends. I'm not suggesting mandatory events on a Saturday, but if you ladies had a tradition of breakfast together or a fun service project on Saturday afternoons...

Talking about lame! LOL :D When I was a freshman in college, I didn't go back home and hang out with highschool buddies. The point of college is to meet new people and broaden your horizons.

^^Every college campus is different. Suitcase colleges are also often called commuter colleges because a large percentage of the student body commutes to campus and therefore, does not live in oncampus housing. This may be the case here. Students also leave campus because the activities or town is lacking...

No, these are two different things.

Commuter colleges are meant to be that way....there is not enough housing available to accomodate the majority of the student body. The majority of students go home at the end of the day, they don't live in dorms or apartments near the college.

Suitcase colleges have ample housing on and off campus (near the school) for students to live there during the week. They just go to their hometowns on weekends because (in their perception) there is nothing to keep them around.

"Suitcase college" has a negative connotation. "Commuter college" does not and should not.

Aren't suitcase colleges and commuter colleges somewhat different? As in, commuter colleges are often in urban areas, have no student housing, and everyone drives in every day to school and leaves to go to their own home/housing in the evenings. Suitcase college implies that people go to school during the week and live on campus, but vamoose on Friday at 5 PM. Suitcase colleges are often in rural areas where there isn't much to do in the community on the weekends, thus your high school social life seems more appealing.

To the OP, if you go to a suitcase school, it seems like you have a great opportunity to sell your sorority as something to do on the weekends and an awesome social opportunity.

I don't think of "suitcase colleges" as strictly rural. My school, a commuter school, could also be considered a "suitcase college" for those that lived on campus. The school was a ghost town on weekends. A large part of the population is from L.A. so it's pretty easy to jump on the freeway and head north.

Yeah, well I said "often rural." But point taken. I still think there is a difference in "commuter college" and "suitcase college" though.

I guess in some ways, Otterbein was a "suitcase college" because so so so so many people came from these wee towns in Ohio and went home on the weekend. It was almost creepy. Us rare but hardy out of staters enjoyed the weekends. But OC also has this weird family thing, meaning we get lots of 3rd and 4th generation Cardinals going to school there, and most of those have some Greek affiliation in their history. Plus people tend to be freakishly involved in campus life (for better or worse).

So I guess what keeps people around is the "tradition" aspect of it, but thats not going to help you just starting out. How many other groups are there on campus (both Greek and non-Greek)? Maybe since you're a bit down on man-power at the moment (but use those alums!) you could pair up or bunch up with another group and hold a larger event. But also keep in mind that your most likely pool of candidates are people you already know on campus. By diversifying your pool by looking at all class standings and not just freshmen, you can find some girls who already have the skills to be successful sisters.

and check out the recruitment board ;)

I agree they're different, but was trying to point out that a school could still be both. :)