Ole Miss Recruitment?

[irishpipes]

Originally Posted by futurecolmom

Does anyone agree that Ole Miss has really made things difficult by moving rush after school starts? I attended Ole Miss Homecoming this weekend, and the sororities and fraternities were EXHAUSTED between midterms, rush, and Homecoming! This is going to not only hurt rush but also the university's enrollment if they don't move the date for rush. I really think it needs to be MOVED BACK...before school starts. Thoughts/comments?

I know that at Arkansas, they moved rush into September to increase/retain enrollment. They used to have it before school started, and if some PNMs didn't get the sorority they wanted, they actually transferred schools, costing the University enrollment. It happened often enough that the chancellor demanded that recruitment be moved after classes started.

I am NOT a fan of large recruitments after school starts, but I wanted to point out that there apparently is an argument that delaying recruitment actually helps enrollment.

[OleMissGlitter]

My recruitment was the last year they held it before school started. Then in Fall of 1997 they moved it to like 6 weeks into the fall semester. I believe it was either that year or the year after that when rush was over two weekends, talk about exhausting! Rush dates are usually based on now when there is an away football game weekend that is about 4-6 weeks into the first semester. Last year it happened that Homecoming was the weekend before rush, so I can assure that active members were not that interested in decorating homecoming floats. But they endured and all of the sororities and fraternities had floats.

I am afraid that they are not going to move rush to the way it use to be or to later on in the semester or even January. The Administration had many reasons to move it, one was retention rates and another was when they secured the first Phi Beta Kappa chapter at a public university in the State of Mississippi. I helped write a proposal two years ago with other sorority advisors on campus about why it should be moved to before school starts. However, that did not help to persuade anyone at all.

So the point is, that Ole Miss rush will stay the way it is. I don't see the Administration moving it at this point. I think finally after ten years of having deferred recruitment, the Ole Miss Greeks are finally adapting.

[SECMom]

The Administration had many reasons to move it, one was retention rates and another was when they secured the first Phi Beta Kappa chapter at a public university in the State of Mississippi.

Wait.... I understand the retention rate issue but what does Phi Beta Kappa have to do with it?

[LXA SE285]

Wait.... I understand the retention rate issue but what does Phi Beta Kappa have to do with it?

My guess is that the steering committee at the time Ole Miss was trying to charter a chapter didn't want PBK's national officers to see something that might be construed as frivolous and an indication that the school didn't take academics seriously.

[OleMissGlitter]

Originally Posted by LXA SE285

My guess is that the steering committee at the time Ole Miss was trying to charter a chapter didn't want PBK's national officers to see something that might be construed as frivolous and an indication that the school didn't take academics seriously.

Exactly. Totally agree with you LXA SE285.

[olemisstransfer]

Alright, I am a freshman at a community college and will be transferring to Ole Miss in the spring. I was accepted for the fall, but situations prevented me from going. I am so so worried about rush, though. Since Ole Miss doesn't do spring rush I'll have to wait until the fall and then I'll be a sophomore, and houses rarely bid non-freshman. My town isn't well represented at Ole Miss and I only know one person from my town and it's a boy. I know a few freshman, but I'm just not sure what the chances of me getting a big would be with all these factors kind-of against me. Any advice?

[33girl]

You're transferring in the spring. Use that semester to get as involved on campus and meet as many people as you can.

Also, you're not a member so you can't really say what the chapters (that is the correct term, not "houses." Houses are inanimate structures made of brick, cement and wood. Chapters are made of people.) do or don't do. Something may appear to be so looking in from the outside but until you're on the inside you really don't know if your assumptions are true.

[OleMissGlitter]

Originally Posted by 33girl

You're transferring in the spring. Use that semester to get as involved on campus and meet as many people as you can.

Also, you're not a member so you can't really say what the chapters (that is the correct term, not "houses." Houses are inanimate structures made of brick, cement and wood. Chapters are made of people.) do or don't do. Something may appear to be so looking in from the outside but until you're on the inside you really don't know if your assumptions are true.

33girl said it right!

[Low C Sharp]

OleMissGlitter, your pictures of the Bama houses and the DGs' thread about returning to Bama raised a question for me. The conventional wisdom about expansion at Ole Miss, I believe, has been that ADPi and ZTA aren't realistic options because they were previously on campus and closed, and PNMs would hold that history against a recolonized chapter of those groups.

But DG closed at Bama, and apparently there's multistate excitement about their return, students thinking about transferring, a DG tailgate and presence at Homecoming, etc.

So what makes the difference between these two campuses that have a similar Panhellenic reputation? Is it simply because the ADPi and ZTA departures from Ole Miss were more recent than the DG departure from Bama? Does the conventional wisdom about recolonizing at Ole Miss need to be re-thought? Or is there a real difference in the institutional memory, if you will, of PNMs at the two campuses?
________
Cannabis seeds

[33girl]

DG left UA in 1978. The ADPi and ZTA chapters at UM closed in the late 1990s. WORLD of difference. Not only is it 20 years apart, but the UM chapters closed recently enough ago that you can probably still find info (newspaper articles, etc) on it online.

That's just touching on things that would be true of ANY school.

[OleMissGlitter]

Originally Posted by 33girl

DG left UA in 1978. The ADPi and ZTA chapters at UM closed in the late 1990s. WORLD of difference. Not only is it 20 years apart, but the UM chapters closed recently enough ago that you can probably still find info (newspaper articles, etc) on it online.

That's just touching on things that would be true of ANY school.

Exactly what 33girl said.

Side note: However, I will say ZTA has a very strong North MS Alumnae Chapter. They are a co-sponsor of Ole Miss Panhellenic's Care Walk. They are also strong at Mississippi State. Delta Zeta was here from '28-'53 so they might be a good choice, although I'm not sure what their alumnae numbers are like in North Mississippi. Alpha Xi Delta was here shortly from '71-'76. I believe they have a good number of alumnae in Memphis. The biggest challenge no matter which chapter was picked,(and this is all IF Panhellenic ever votes to open for extension) is going to be housing. Money for a competitive house is a must. Ole Miss is not the type of campus where a new sorority could say, "Well we won't have housing because we want to be different and PNMs will like us better because our dues won't be as high. It simple won't work." You could say that while the chapter is being established but a competitive house must be in the plans.
End side note!

[VandalSquirrel]

Originally Posted by OleMissGlitter

Exactly what 33girl said.

Side note: However, I will say ZTA has a very strong North MS Alumnae Chapter. They are a co-sponsor of Ole Miss Panhellenic's Care Walk. They are also strong at Mississippi State. Delta Zeta was here from '28-'53 so they might be a good choice, although I'm not sure what their alumnae numbers are like in North Mississippi. Alpha Xi Delta was here shortly from '71-'76. I believe they have a good number of alumnae in Memphis. The biggest challenge no matter which chapter was picked,(and this is all IF Panhellenic ever votes to open for extension) is going to be housing. Money for a competitive house is a must. Ole Miss is not the type of campus where a new sorority could say, "Well we won't have housing because we want to be different and PNMs will like us better because our dues won't be as high. It simple won't work." You could say that while the chapter is being established but a competitive house must be in the plans.
End side note!

The housing issue was what I have been led to believe was one of the reasons Delta Zeta was chosen to come to campus this next year. They have their own housing corporation and have guaranteed they will build a house (suitable land being found of course), and that may not have been financially possible for other groups who had expressed interest in coming to Idaho.

[DubaiSis]

I think the housing (=money) issue plays a much bigger role in expansion than a lot of us would otherwise guess. With boatloads of cash even the most crowded campus could be cracked. But this is why we let (what I fondly call, and have lately become) the old broads make the decisions. They, hopefully, are more practical.

[Low C Sharp]

Thanks for the info. It sounds like it could be possible for these groups to return to Ole Miss in the long run, but not for another 20 years or so. Good luck to all of this year's PNMs!
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Ocean View Condo Pattaya

[MaggieNolia]

Any news on how recruitment is going so far at Ole Miss? Bid Day is Sunday, yes?