Can a school no longer allow rush?

lauralaylin · #1 09-06-2005, 09:49 PM

I work with a school with a small greek system, four sororities are on campus. Total is 55, and only one house was at total last spring. The other three come back to campus this fall with about 20 members. I just found out there is a meeting tomorrow where the Greek Council with the school's backing wants to not allow any greek chapter to rush this semester. School has already started, informal rush was going to start in less than two weeks, and now this is thrown at us. Since there are 3 sororities that are in great need of members, I don't see how this can be a good thing. I must admit, I don't know the situation for the fraternities.

I can't find anything in the green book about not allowing sororities to rush, but I thought that unless you are kicked off campus, that you are allowed to rush no matter what. Maybe if something bad had happened like a huge hazing or drinking incident last spring, I could understand the concern. But nothing is out of the ordinary.

This is a private school, and the chapters are all unhoused.

If anyone has any ideas or opinions about this, I'd love them.

TxGirl · #2 09-06-2005, 10:05 PM

Is this a campus that has formal spring recruitment? In other words first semester freshman cannot pledge? We need a little more info about the school to give an opinion.

Edited b/c i can't type tonight!

doubleblue&gold · #3 09-06-2005, 10:23 PM

If your school is really going to keep you from pledging new members, I think they're trying to kill off the greek system.

33girl · #4 09-06-2005, 10:59 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by lauralaylin
I work with a school with a small greek system, four sororities are on campus. Total is 55, and only one house was at total last spring. The other three come back to campus this fall with about 20 members. I just found out there is a meeting tomorrow where the Greek Council with the school's backing wants to not allow any greek chapter to rush this semester. School has already started, informal rush was going to start in less than two weeks, and now this is thrown at us. Since there are 3 sororities that are in great need of members, I don't see how this can be a good thing. I must admit, I don't know the situation for the fraternities.

I can't find anything in the green book about not allowing sororities to rush, but I thought that unless you are kicked off campus, that you are allowed to rush no matter what. Maybe if something bad had happened like a huge hazing or drinking incident last spring, I could understand the concern. But nothing is out of the ordinary.

This is a private school, and the chapters are all unhoused.

If anyone has any ideas or opinions about this, I'd love them.

They can disallow chapters from holding an organized formal rush or disallow individual chapters from participating in an organized formal rush. This is because it's an activity operated by a single student group (Panhel). I think.

However, unless the chapters are on a previously announced probation, they cannot prevent you from pledging new members. This was taken to court and shown that preventing groups from pledging new members is denying freedom of association.

What was the "informal" rush going to consist of? If everyone was just going to have COB parties on their own and there is no Meet The Greeks or bid day - i.e. no organized events outside of he individual chapters - I don't think the admin has a leg to stand on.

This goes without saying, byt notify your HQ IMMEDIATELY.

lauralaylin · #5 09-07-2005, 08:34 AM

I'm also wondering if I should contact our local NPC delegate. I can't see how this would help any of the chapters on campus. Now that I've had more time to think about it, formal rush in the spring would be a total mess. With 3 chapters having about 20 women, and 30 or more coming to each party, how would we adequately rush? And we need the money in our budgets, we've already planned in new members. We've already spent some money on rush as well.

In the spring, there is one day that is "formal" where the pnm's go to every sorority. After that, the sororities have 2 more parties that Panhel schedules but we have to deal with entirely on our own (including unlocking the door as we unfortunately learned last year). In the fall, everything is up for grabs. There used to be a Bid day for everyone, but this year the rules were changed a lot, and we should be able to give out bids whenever we want after Sept 19.

This campus also decided to get rid of quota last spring 3 days before rush started. I love the chapter I work with, but I hate the school so much. The meeting is at 12:45 today, hopefully I'll have more info after that. I'm really glad I decided not to get a new job or else I wouldn't be able to go.

PenguinTrax · #6 09-07-2005, 08:45 AM

Contact your NPC delegate immediately - changes like these require the NPC to be notified.

bruinaphi · #7 09-07-2005, 10:36 AM

Laura,

Please contact your CMC regarding the situation on your campus. If you need additional contact information for her PM me.

You should cc our NPC delegate on your email and Linda Schnetzer.

lauralaylin · #8 09-08-2005, 04:28 PM

Well, this is going to be decided somehow on Monday, which will still give us a week to plan before rush starts if this doesn't pass. Gamma Phi is totally for stopping rush, which I think it crazy since they need to more than double their membership to get to total, just like DPhiE and we do. Phi Sig is the only sorority that I can see that wouldn't be hurt by this. Even if they only do rush in the spring, they'll get to total in formal rush. But I'm sure they prefer to get to total so they can get above it in the spring.

Dirty rush is so bad at Bentley, and I think if this goes through it'll only get worse. Rules are broken every year and everyone gets away with it, so it'll probably be a free for all. I'll be 7 months pregnant dealing with it, I don't know what I'm going to do!