Small University Needs Help or Advice in Structuring RUSH

[Pike0828]

I am the IFC President at my University and We are looking to restructure our RUSH is there any Help or Advice that anyone could give? Our Greek Community is about 200 Undergraduates and we are wanting to reach 300 to 400 by next fall. Any ideas are appreciated.

Thank You for Your time.

[33girl]

Originally Posted by Pike0828

I am the IFC President at my University and We are looking to restructure our RUSH is there any Help or Advice that anyone could give? Our Greek Community is about 200 Undergraduates and we are wanting to reach 300 to 400 by next fall. Any ideas are appreciated.

Thank You for Your time.

Do you want the men's rush to have more structure like the women's rush? If so, ask them for help.

Send out information to incoming freshmen about the Greek community.

Impress upon members that not only first semester freshmen are good candidates for rush - upperclassmen can be great members also.

Be a united COMMUNITY. End any trash talking or petty fighting that's going on between groups. This is often one of the biggest reasons that people who don't pledge give for not doing so.

[Alumiyum]

We upped numbers on my campus (with a small greek system) by having Greeks do things like help with Move In Day, have booths during Freshmen Orientation Events, and other campus wide events both during the summer and at the beginning of the year. Encourage ALL fraternity men to wear jerseys during events like this and to be outgoing and greet incoming students. The guys have a smaller system than the girls, but they have been doing a better job of just being SEEN lately. That counts for a lot when the system is small.

Have chapters send out mailings in the summer, and have the IFC send one, too. The key is to make people THINK being Greek is a big deal on your campus, even if it isn't. Hit them over the head with signs around campus (Go Greek signs so that the girls are advertised, too).

I'm a girl, but most of my guys friends in fraternities say they believe that it's hard to recruit men because recruitment is so loosely structured on our campus. Maybe on yours you could have a meeting with your campus's NPC council to talk about recruitment and use some of the techniques the women use for the IFC. Obviously, you can't recruit men exactly like you recruit women, but some of the structure of womens' recruitment could be useful to you men.

[itb2a]

Work with all your IFC members on strengthening their Alumni ties. If you involve Alumni, they will help you recruit for their respective fraternities and then Greek Life in general. You have to ACTIVELY ask them for prospective new members AS WELL as legacy references.

[Pike0828]

Thank You all for replying. If anyone else has more advice or Information PLease Let Me know!

[TSteven]

You have been given some good advice. For more specific suggestions, would you mind answering the following questions? It may help us with the advice we give.

1. How many fraternity chapters?
2. How many chapters are housed and how many are un-housed?
3. What is the approximant average chapter size?
4. When does the current IFC Rush take place?
5. How is the current IFC Rush conducted?
6. What is the campus culture? Especially for Freshmen. Is it a commuter campus or do many/most of the students live on/near campus?
7. What parts - if any - of IFC Rush works well for the IFC as a whole?
8. What parts - if any - of IFC Rush does not work well for the IFC as a whole?
9. Any other specific items that you feel we might need to know?

[Gusteau]

If you want to have a more structured rush you might want to look at some other schools with structured rush and e-mail the campus IFC and your chapters there. Arkansas, South Carolina, Georgia Southern, and TCU are four that come to mind with structured rush.

Arkansas IFC Recruitment: http://uagreeks.uark.edu/1395.htm
South Carolina IFC Recruitment: http://www.sa.sc.edu/greeklife/recruitment.htm
GSU IFC Recruitment: http://students.georgiasouthern.edu/..._IFC_sched.htm
TCU IFC Recruitment: http://www.greeks.tcu.edu/ifc_recruitment-2.asp

[ScarletBlueGold]

Originally Posted by Gusteau

If you want to have a more structured rush you might want to look at some other schools with structured rush and e-mail the campus IFC and your chapters there. Arkansas, South Carolina, Georgia Southern, and TCU are four that come to mind with structured rush.

Arkansas IFC Recruitment: http://uagreeks.uark.edu/1395.htm
South Carolina IFC Recruitment: http://www.sa.sc.edu/greeklife/recruitment.htm
GSU IFC Recruitment: http://students.georgiasouthern.edu/..._IFC_sched.htm
TCU IFC Recruitment: http://www.greeks.tcu.edu/ifc_recruitment-2.asp

For a school his size, this might just be a wee bit too structured.

I know this might seem like some weird advice, but if you want your recruitment numbers to go up you should send out invitations to National Organizations to expand on your campus.

It might seem like it's something that's going to hurt your recruitment, but trust me, it won't. The first year that they announce a new Fraternity is coming everyone will ship into gear and have one of the best recruitments you've ever seen.

The year they actually expand you will see it get even better. This is the story I have gotten from virtually every IFC I've known. More competition means more motivation. On top of that, simply having more Greeks walking around campus makes the Greek system more visible altogether. Even the sororities saw a big improvement in their recruitment the year a new Fraternity expanded.

[lucgreek]

For a small school, strict formal recruitment is not the way to go. Fraternity life at my school is under 150 members total among 3 chapters. Our 'formal' rush consisted of having an introduction to greek life session for pnms. Then a few days later we had room visits (since our campus has no houses), where we each got 30 min. to talk to groups of PNMs and do an activity. All chapters had an individual night off campus as well. None of these events were required for PNMs, but it provided some structure (However, if you showed up to the room visits you were required to see all).

This format has its ups and downs, especially during the spring. Groups on campus would discourage their PNMs going to formal events, since no one wanted to risk losing PNMs they already knew to other groups. It might not have been the most IFC-friendly thing to do, but everyone did it.

Is your campus greek-friendly? Has your greek life advisor tried to increase numbers for rushing? Campus with involved greek life advisors who work with the administration tend to be very successful.

[33girl]

Originally Posted by ScarletBlueGold

I know this might seem like some weird advice, but if you want your recruitment numbers to go up you should send out invitations to National Organizations to expand on your campus.

It might seem like it's something that's going to hurt your recruitment, but trust me, it won't. The first year that they announce a new Fraternity is coming everyone will ship into gear and have one of the best recruitments you've ever seen.

The year they actually expand you will see it get even better. This is the story I have gotten from virtually every IFC I've known. More competition means more motivation. On top of that, simply having more Greeks walking around campus makes the Greek system more visible altogether. Even the sororities saw a big improvement in their recruitment the year a new Fraternity expanded.

If they really want to take this tack, I would absolutely say confine it to groups who have been there previously AND who have a strong alumni base supporting them and keeping a strong eye on who is joining.

The last thing you want is Random National Who'll Colonize At A Car Wash blowing in, creating a weak chapter with weak guys and no one to ride their asses, and blowing out 5 years later after they've downgraded the whole Greek system with their shitty practices.

[lucgreek]

Originally Posted by 33girl

The last thing you want is Random National Who'll Colonize At A Car Wash blowing in, creating a weak chapter with weak guys and no one to ride their asses, and blowing out 5 years later after they've downgraded the whole Greek system with their shitty practices.

Agreed on this 100%. The organization(s) that comes need a solid alumni base and other nearby chapters to support the recruitment efforts.

An interest group is trying to colonize at my school that is a very small national organization, has no nearby chapters, and has very few alumni in the area. The group has about 15-20 members, if I recall correctly, and is trying to petition the school to open up for fraternity expansion (something the school wants to do since ADG bit the dust last year).

I'm all for another group, since it will happen, but this specific group is not going to find much success here.

[LaneSig]

If he's at the school I think he goes to, they only started up their Greek system about 3-4 years ago.

If you want more members to join, one thing you have to do is make it welcoming. The members of your chapter and the other chapter need to be friendly; not just to the freshmen, but to sophomores and even juniors who are currently unaffiliated. You have to get these guys to look at your chapter and activities and think that they are missing out on something by not joining.

As the president of the IFC, get some officers together from both chapters and have a good, honest talk about why guys aren't joining your chapters. Ask some of your friends who are unaffiliated what their opinions are of Greek Life on your campus. When you get their views, it will help to guide you.

[Pike0828]

1. How many fraternity chapters? 4. 3 National and 1 Local
2. How many chapters are housed and how many are un-housed? School doesn't allow housing.
3. What is the approximant average chapter size? 20
4. When does the current IFC Rush take place? Our actual rush week is 2 weeks after school starts.
5. How is the current IFC Rush conducted? Its pretty much informal except on rush week each fraternity gets a lounge night.
6. What is the campus culture? Especially for Freshmen. Is it a commuter campus or do many/most of the students live on/near campus? We do have a large number of commuters but all freshman are required to live on campus.
7. What parts - if any - of IFC Rush works well for the IFC as a whole? I honestly dont think any part of our rush works well. The only guys we can get to join are the guys who want to party every night and never go to class
8. What parts - if any - of IFC Rush does not work well for the IFC as a whole?
9. Any other specific items that you feel we might need to know? We just need to learn how to target the "good guys" the main thing is at our school you are not considered elite by the faculty and administration like you are at most other schools.

[Elephant Walk]

Arkansas' numbers were lagging, but we brought in a consultant to change things and it vastly expanded our rushees. You oughta give Parice the Idiot a call at the University of Arkansas. She probably will actually sit down and explain what she did.

Or you can just go to her twitter:
WheresParice

(btw, it's a joke twitter account and is followed by wayyy too many people)

[Pike0828]

I've tried getting Pike consultants here to do what Pi Kappa Alpha calls the Renissance Project, but they say that we are ot a vital chapter so we will never get it. Last year I got them to send a recruiting team to help fire our guys up and show our guys how to recruit and they gave an hour presentation and that was it. We need some help big time or our whole greek community is going to die out. I do not want that happen.