[Kevin]

University of Central Oklahoma -- a DII school with an enrollment around 16K. There are six fraternities: Sigma Nu, Pi Kappa Alpha, ACACIA, Sigma Tau Gamma, Tau Kappe Epsilon and Alpha Tau Omega. There are 4 Sororities -- their quota is at 60 and there's only one group that's struggling to hit that, the other 3 hit it every year.

Anyhow.. this semester, from what I saw, around 200 men went through Rush. They changed it up this year a little bit. The first night, we all went to the University Center and were each given a classroom. We were only allowed 10 men from our group in each classroom. We gave 10 minute presentations to each group.

After night 1, the kids going through were issued their University bid cards. The bid cards look like a normal bid card on the front containing all the legal crap about joining. On the back are six squares, each containing the name of one of the 6 fraternities on campus. The idea is that for a bid card to be "legal", they must be stamped by each house. This makes everyone go around to each house and obtain a stamp. They have 4 days of "formal" rush to do this and houses are required to be "open" from around 8-11PM every night. Usually, every house throws a huge afterparty every single night. Chapters can continue signing guys (and they need to still arrange to get their stamps) the next week, but houses don't keep hours.

The unfortunate part of our system is that all the power of selection is really transferred to the guy going through Rush. It creates a situation where most houses that depend on formal rush have a policy of signing anyone and then weeding them out later. In my opinion, that's bad for the system. Particularly the small houses, one of which I was told only had 3 guys sign this Fall.

My chapter and the other chapters that are successful with Rush don't really bother too much with the formal system. We make a good showing, but about 90% of our Rush happens months before formal rush even begins. We don't pay a rush chairman over the summer. That' just his job like any other office. He and his team recruit guys all summer long. Our chapter is fairly new, but we alums give fairly generously to help out with this process. This gives us the opportunity to meet guys, see what they're all about and only bid the guys that we want. Otherwise, we just let 'em know that the Greek System is great and that they should definitely look into it.

I had the opportunity to speak with some members of IFC this year and they tell me that they're attempting to move to a more formal system, but they're using baby steps. My feeling is that the campus needs new life. It seems that the newest chapters are excelling while the older ones are falling behind. It could be due to their alums wanting to continue their old ways (I know this is the case with one house) or any myriad of things.

Our house signed 28 guys this semester. I think we were 2nd or 3rd. I was told that PKA got 36. One fraternity as I said earlier got only 3 so there are definitely things that could be done to the system to even things out. The best thing to grow a system is to have all of the houses at about the same size. Healthy competition leads to a healthier overall system.