As an alum from UBC I can tell you about the reason behind abolishing Theme Parties. Yes it was partly about the expense, some chapters were spending hundreds of dollars to change their rooms from "Sitting Rooms" to jungle paradise or "under the sea." But it was more about the time and energy. We should be spending our time preparing for RUSH by focusing on conversation skills, body language, etc.
We found that, with the Theme Parties, girls would spend weeks preparing the room/etc. and then, when the RUshees came in, we would all stand around smiling and saying, "isn't this great?" We forgot to talk to the girls! We forgot that our goal is to get to know THEM.
Now that we no longer have meeting rooms and have to have rush in classrooms, it would be nice to have something of a theme back. However, I believe in the principles behind that decision and believe that we have a stronger rush because of it. If you ask anyone who was around at that time, I believe they will agree with that assessment. ALL of our rush prep time was being spent painting murals, designing cute outfits, organizing theme appetizer trays, coming up with skits and songs and all the paraphernalia that goes along with that... Rush today is much more focused on CONVERSATION and WHO WE ARE.
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