Frats plan rush, despite ban
Exposure difficult without use of CU campus facilities
By Elizabeth Mattern Clark, Camera Staff Writer
July 18, 2005
Boulder fraternities used to fill the University of Colorado's Farrand Field each fall with an "open house," drawing hundreds of potential members from their dorm rooms.
Now the groups are scrambling to find an off-campus place, perhaps the Boulder Theater, for the introductory event that leads into rush week.
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Also banned from the campus beginning this summer are fraternity booths at orientation sessions, Greek Week football games and any other fraternity functions.
Insisting on a fall rush, or recruitment period, has cost the off-campus fraternities their affiliation with CU. After a freshman Chi Psi pledge died of alcohol poisoning last fall, university leaders demanded that Greek groups delay their recruitment until the spring or lose all ties to the school.
The banishment from campus offices, fields and, eventually, CU's Web site, will make it tougher for the groups to get the attention of new members, said Ryan Lynch, a student vice president for the Inter-Fraternity Council.
University officials also are planning to send letters to parents of freshmen, encouraging them to keep their teenagers from joining fraternities until their second semester.
Whether the lack of recognition by CU will affect membership "remains to be seen," Lynch said. "It just means we have to push harder to get the information out."
Fraternities say they aren't budging from their regular fall rush, Sept. 11-17.
"We're working really hard to overcome the situation the university has put us in," said Austin Rial, president of the Theta Xi house in Boulder. "But most of the exposure we get is in the fall anyway, come rush time, by wearing our shirts and talking to kids in class and word-of-mouth."
Sororities, which agreed to the spring rush and are allowed to use campus spaces, have been setting up tables at orientation sessions. They reported that most freshmen stopping to talk to them this summer aren't even women — but men interested in joining fraternities, Lynch said.
"We're optimistic, considering that response," he said. "It shows the interest is still there."
Brandon Ricks, a freshman from Colorado Springs who attended orientation last week, said he didn't hear anything about fraternities and wouldn't be interested anyway.
"If it wasn't so expensive, I'd think about it," he said.
The Inter-Fraternity Council has moved out of the campus Greek Affairs Office and into the Theta Xi house. The campus office now represents sororities only.
And CU officials have removed some of their Web references to fraternities, though the main site for Boulder chapters and rush schedules —
www.coloradogreeks.com — was still linked Friday from the school's Greek Affairs Office page.
Ron Stump, vice chancellor for student affairs at CU, said the link was an oversight and will be removed.
University officials say the Greek groups need to give freshmen more time to adjust to college life before introducing the social pressures of joining a house. Chapter leaders say deferring their recruitment would cut their fee-paying memberships and make it more difficult to develop future leaders.
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