Hi folks, I'm fairly new to this BB. I found it while doing an internet search looking for something else and I'm so happy I did. So much info and fun too!
Anyways, I'm a sorority Chapter Advisor at the University of Alabama (a large SEC school with a strong Greek system) and I'd like to share our experience. It all boils down to this, it depends on the school and the strength of the Greek system on that campus as to whether a Spring Formal Recruitment can be successful.
A few years back our previous University President (who I might add was very anti-Greek) wanted to change women's Recruitment to either a deferred (Spring) or delayed (later in the Fall) from the traditional pre-fall semester dates. The administration's logic was that they wanted the incoming freshman to have to opportunity to bond with the University before committing themselves to a sorority. They also felt that allowing the PNMs more time on campus before Recuitment would give them a chance to learn more about each organization ahead of time. Finally but most importantly, they strongly felt that deferring or delaying Recruitment would lead to more cultural and racial diversity within the Greek system.
This proposal was met with a great deal of resistance from both the actives as well as the alums. Of course there was the whole "tradition" thing that is deeply imbedded here. But there were tangible arguments against it as well with the biggest one being financial.
There is a local accounting firm (owned by a Pike) that specializes in Greek organizations and handles around 75% of the sororities and fraternities on campus. They estimated that deferring Recruitment until Spring would cost the sorority system around $750,000 in lost revenue in that fall becaue quota at the time was around 45 with 17 houses on campus. All but a few houses usually make quota without any trouble, so all these chapters would have to go a full semester without those dues. Sure each house would eventually "catch up", but that first year might put several houses into bankruptcy. Keep in mind that all sororities on this campus have (aging) physical houses and alot of those maintenance costs are fixed regardless of how many members you have.
There was a lot of protesting. Each GLO contacted their Nationals asking for help to prevent this from happening. Letters and phone calls poured in to the Admin from Grand President's around the country, but I personally don't think that held much sway. What finally got the Admin to back off was pressure from local Greek alums, many of which were on the Board of Trustees and big benefactors. Again that's my personal opinion because no one ever came out and actual verbalized a reason. But if you look over a list of most University alums with strong Greek systems, the biggest donaters tend to be Greek.
So Admin moved Recruitment from the week before school (mid-August) to prior to and on Labor Day weekend with Bid Day being on Monday, Labor Day. That proved to be a disaster for alot of reasons. First, the faculty (which is also tends to be anti-Greek) didn't cooperate at all. Recruitment parties were held in the evenings and the faculty wouldn't excuse PNM's or actives from evening classes. I swear some purposely scheduled tests, quizzes or papers during that time too. So you saw girls grabbing their books to study whenever they could.
Second, most girls were very unhappy because they couldn't go home. Labor Day is usually the first time, especially freshmen get a chance to return home and recharge their batteries from the craziness that is college. With football games every other weekend, most didn't get home until Thanksgiving. By that time, they were pretty stressed out and overwhelmed.
Last, it didn't do a thing to increase diversity. Frankly I never understood that argument anyway. How could changing Recruitment dates increase diversity? You need to change mindsets first.
Well we suffered through this for a few years, then we got a new University President who was not only pro-Greek, he was Greek himself. He realized that since the Greeks make up on average 20% of the population, you need to have a strong system to have a strong University.
Coincidently, the previous Admin had hired a big time consulting firm to study why the University had such problems with freshman retention. Seems there was a surprisingly large number that didn't return their sophomore year. The results were made available soon after the new Pres came on board. Guess what they found? It seems the biggest reason for students leaving was that they felt lost in the shuffle and overwhelmed by the big University. It said that freshmen needed to find small groups to associate with in order to feel like they belonged, were wanted and were a person, not just a SSN, a GPA or a statistic. Gee, that sounds alot like the Greek system now doesn't it?
So we were able to move Recruitment back before the fall semester. Women were able to concentrate on Recruitment, then when it was over concentrate on school. (at least in theory
) We did however make one very good change by adopting an "upperclassmen" quota specifically for sophmores and junior. Before this if you didn't pledge as a freshmen you were pretty much out of luck. Your only hopes of being Greek were to COR with one of the smallest chapters that hadn't made quota or were still below Chapter Total. Basically, your options were very limited. Now you can wait a year to go through or even if you dropped out of Recruitment your freshman year, you can go through again the next. No big deal.
I'm not saying pre-fall Recruitment is the only way to go. Rather, this was our experience and like I said earlier it all depends on your campus and your Greek system. The biggest benefit I can see for Spring Recruitment would be that you have a semesters grades from PNMs. With the short pledge period we have now, that's a real drawback.