[pearlbubbles]

First, I just wanted to say that I agree about all the points made about the "tier" system and the educational program. I think anything official that uses "tier" will give people the wrong impression. And, most importantly, may have incoming freshmen end up in houses that aren't right for them because either the fraternities' push for the higher GPA guys or that the incoming freshmen may misinterpret the point of the "tier." And I have this feeling that the national organizations would be less than pleased that some fraternities were getting recruiting leg-ups. No one wants more Greek organizations closing, after all.

Also, I think it's terrible to put this on the NPC community right before the end of school. It doesn't sound like a terribly put-together plan at all, and I feel like that will be one of the biggest issues with it. And I don't even want to think about suddenly letting people know to get recs in for PNMs.

With all that said, I can give a little bit of insight into this. My school, CU Boulder, used Formal Fall until a risk management issue (ighly publicized, no need to re-mention) in Fall 2004. The University created a document called the "Registered Fraternal Organizations Agreement" (RFOA) and asked all the Greeks to sign it; one of its major stipulations was deferred recuitment. All 10 NPCs and all eleven (I think?) multi-cultural Greek organizations signed it. The fraternities decided not to, so they are no longer recognized members of our Greek system--basically meaning they don't get any specific sort of help from the university, like the Greek Advisor or school sponsored webpages. They can still advertise their recruitment though--they do quite a bit of chalking on campus.

Between the years 2006 and 2008, the sororities did deffered recruitment. We lost one of the NPCs during that time due to low numbers. But in Spring 2008, the community approved a new agreement called "The Standards of Excellence." I'm not quite sure of the specific details, but the ones I do remember are as follows:

1. Two New Member education classes. One the day following Bid Day that's a sort of "So Now You're Greek..." type of thing. The second is a alcohol education class.

2. Completion of the online Greeklife.edu Or, whatever it's called now. When I went through, it was just alcohol.edu.

3. A forty-day new member period where the sororites are suposed to promote sisterhood. Any social events can either be: Sisters only (21+ allowed to drink) or sisters and a fraternity (no alcohol). (I won't go into this any more, but I'm sure you all can insinuate the "barrel of fun" nature of it.)

Now, with that background, on to the specific answers to the questions. I will try to provide fraternity informaton as well, where I know it.

1.) In general, how would you describe Greek life on your campus?

I'd say it's pretty competitive. In the two years I was around for formal spring, around 600 girls went through recruitment. This past fall, about 900 went through. We currently have around 1500 women in the Greek system.

2.) Did your school have deferred recruitment?

As I mentioned above, we were deferred for a three-year period due to risk management control.

3.) What was total? Or if you didn't reach total (or didn't follow this system at all) what was your average chapter size while at school? What were average new member class sizes for your chapter?
I'm not quite sure on total the year I was a new member, but the new member classes were between thirty and forty women. The next year the new member class sizes were the same and total was 130 or so. This year, our total was about 170, and new member classes were between sixty and seventy women.

4.) On average, how many freshmen dropped out during the new member program? ... or provide more specific numbers if you have them and want to disclose that information.

This is the thing that bothers me about deferred versus formal fall. If formal recruitment is deferred, less girls go through recruitment, but more of them stay. In formal fall, more go through, but more drop out. The difference, though, is that even with the higher number of girls dropping out, the number retained through formal fall is higher than the number received through deferred. Sorry about the tangent.

I think in the two years I was there for deferred, about 1-5 women dropped, but they were necessarily all new members. The fall numbers, I can't say specifically what the numbers for the other chapters were, but we ended up initiating 54 out of the 74 who originally received bids. From what I heard from friends, the other houses were about the same.

5.) If a significant number of them dropped, for the most part, what were the reasons? (In trouble academically, too time consuming, money issues, etc.)

I think a majority of the formal fall drops were because the women decided that Greek life didn't end up being what they expected it to be. Although, I know that quite a few were due to financial reasons.


I hope this has helped. And I apologize for being so long-winded.


ETA: I forgot to write information about the fraternities. They do both Formal Fall and Formal Spring. I'm not sure about drop numbers, but I know a few of my friends have left for finances and it just not being their thing. The guys don't have total, but the chapter numbers range from 20 men to 120 men. It just varies from fraternity to fraternity. We currently have fifteen active fraternities.