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I don’t know where your campus is, but at this time our whole country is in a time of mourning for the victims of Katrina. Formal recruitment may be seen as a frivolous undertaking at a time of such sorrow.
I think that if you do decide to defer your formal recruitment this semester as was suggested in some responses, that you use the time to work together with your entire Greek System in developing a week of service events to benefit the Hurricane Katrina victims. My feeling is that most people are feeling impotent and extremely sad; helping in some way might invigorate your entire campus community. It would take creativity and time, but I think it might be very healing.
Question; have the numbers for formal recruitment been declining in recent years? If you have been using the same methods for advertising year after year and the numbers are not increasing it is time to try something else. Try an evite or other direct email tool to reach undergrad women before you next recruitment period. Place a strong emphasis on a well-designed easy to navigate Greek Life/Panhellenic website. The web is the first place that young women look when they want information on any topic so you it is extremely important that you can market recruitment through this channel. If these are things you are already doing, then I apologize for the repetition.
Again if you do decide to defer FR, I also suggest that during the end of November and beginning of December that your Panhellenic sponsors’ events the undergraduate women would appreciate. A safety class, time-management/study tips seminar, financial aid tips, health and wellness speakers…have all the chapters in your system put a call out to their alumnae to see if there is a local “expert” on a certain topic who would be willing to donate their time. If you do this a few times, undergrad women will enter second semester with a positive view of the contributions of sororities.
Then there is the all important word-of-mouth (we totally forget how powerful a tool a personal invitation is). If you have each of your sophomores and juniors committed to asking at least 5 women each to recruitment you will certainly have more women excited about Recruitment.
Good luck, let us know what you decide to do.
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