Fraternity recruitment, what works and what doesn't?

[Duckles]

Hey all,

I'm a first time poster to these board, but a long time lurker. I'm thinking about making a run for our campus's IFC Recruitment Chair, and wanted to get some ideas from everyone here for a potential platform to run on that could help our Greek community.

To say a little bit on our situation, our IFC recruitment typically happens the first week or two of the Fall semester. It consists some typical events such as BBQs, free game night in the student center game room, volleyball, and a fraternity forum where all of the chapters can set up an information table in one of the ballrooms that the student center has available for usage. The PR effort has been pretty abysmal, the only way most anyone in my chapter or the system for that matter has known about these events is due to the fact that we are Greek and know where to look. Individual chapters aren't allowed to bring back PNMs to their houses, hold their own events, or pass out bids during the first week or two of IFC events.

Overall, year after year IFC tries this same method of recruitment, and year after year it fails horribly. Two years ago, we had 10 guys go through house tours on a mainly commuter campus of 24,000 and a 10 chapter IFC. Last year there were 2, and this year had 3.

How does everyone else do their formal fraternity recruitment if they have one? What are its strengths and weaknesses, and what kind of results do you usually see out of it? Thanks for the help!

[AChiOhSnap]

Originally posted by Duckles
Individual chapters aren't allowed to bring back PNMs to their houses, hold their own events, or pass out bids during the first week or two of IFC events.

The chapters aren't allowed to have individual events? Wow... that's how most of the fraternities at my school get the word out about their chapters. Then again, we have deferred rush (second semester) so that's probably an important reason that they have the "BBQ with XYZ" or "Beach Volleyball with ABC" type recruitment events.

Forgive my ignorance (I'm in a sorority and thus know squat about the IFC) but have you ever thought about deferring rush until second semester? That way you have all the fall semester to have events and get a lot of men out to your houses just to see what they're like. And I'm not even talking about recruitment type events... you could have events like "XYZ for Hurricane Katrina Relief" or anything for the chapters' individual philanthropy. The brothers naturally meet people in classes, sports, or whatever and have more than a week or two to get men to come out for rush.

I feel like at a commuter school especially it's important to have a LOT of time to advertise the greek system. Greek systems at residential universities have the advantage of everyone staying in one place after classes end and people are more likely to investigate the greek system on their own. At a commuter school, people go home to their apartments or their parents' houses after classes (or jobs!) and may not even consider the possibility of greek life being something they would want to do. Anyway I hope this advice helps!

[gpb1874]

i think your fraternities need to have a sit down and talk about what they should do, both from IFC and the chapters. IFC exists to serve the best interests of the chapters. Tell them you want to start all over with recruitment and figure out something that makes sense for your campus.

a no bid period is pretty standard. here, it's from when school starts to official bid day. no summer restrictions b/c chapters usually have that themselves.

tell them you want to work together to devise a recruitment PR plan and work with the other officer(s) that do PR to look at all your options. you need their help....a few officers cannot do all the advertising for 10 chapters. the other officers could include those from IFC and the chapters.

you already know what doesn't work. tell them you want to stop and make changes. you can't do anything worse.

It's hard to give specific examples b/c there is so much variation between campuses. I think if you brainstorm with your chapters and see what guys their like and don't like, what will and won't draw their attention, what they like or don't like about fraternities (so you can do something to change their mind if there are lots of negative images or "maybe joiners" that you can draw in), then you will get great information and it will be easier to set your direction.

good luck!

[FSUZeta]

on the campus where i serve as an alumna advisor, there is little advertising of formal recruitment. i feel that if greek life created a recruitment booklet explaining ifc and panhellenic recruitment and pan-hellenic intake, the costs, the dates, times and places and some information about each chapter on campus and included it in the enrollment packets the university sends to accepted students, more kids would give it a try. then they should allow the kids to enroll in recruitment during the summer.

i also wish that the admin. would allow greek life and other organizations to speak at new student orientations. right now they do not.

perhaps these suggestions would help on your campus too.

[KSUViolet06]

We have open fraternity recruitment beginning the 1st day of school. IFC sponsors 2 "Go Greek" nights at the beginning of the year. Every fraternity has a table at this event and interested guys can walk around and ask questions.

After that, each chapter posts flyers and does chalking to advertise their rush events. It's pretty much every chapter for itself. It does really well. There are 17 or so IFC fraternities and they all take in 10-20 new guys each fall.

[Rudey]

Fraternity rush is specific to your school. You should have a good idea of what kids at your school like. Do they want a party or to play cards? Do they want a barbecue in the yard or a black tie dinner? The one thing that won't change (unless they are gay) is an interest in girls.

I don't understand this whole communist approach to fraternity rush. It's too sorority-like for my tastes, but I'm probably too competitive.

-Rudey