AGDee's Retro aka How NOT to do recruitment

[Leslie Anne]

Yes! Another Retro story. I'm a little confused though, were you at EMU too?

[AGDee]

Originally Posted by Leslie Anne

Yes! Another Retro story. I'm a little confused though, were you at EMU too?

Oh, yes, I was at EMU too, a year after the guys had started there.

[susan314]

I was so hoping that you would eventually join the retro recruitment bandwagon!

(Think I mentioned to you before that my cousin was in a sorority at EMU - Alpha Sigma Tau, but she would have been a few years after you. Don't know exactly what year she went through rush, but she graduated HS in 1987. She lives in Texas now, but I'll be seeing her next weekend for a family cookout. I should ask her about her rush experience...we've never really talked about it, and she's the only other person in my family who initiated into a sorority.)

[AGDee]

The ASTs came back to campus when I was almost graduated (graduated in '87). I'm pretty sure they were the Lambda Chi Crescents and when the little sis groups were banned, they petitioned for expansion and re-colonized AST. Everybody was really excited because it was their Alpha chapter. Shortly after that, another group of women formed an interest group and I *think* they became Delta Zeta, but I was moving onward and upward by then. They now have a lot more.. DPhiE, Phi Sigma Sigma, and.. I don't remember them all now!

I should say, when I went through recruitment, the four there were

Alpha Xi Delta
Sigma Kappa
Sigma Sigma Sigma
Alpha Gamma Delta

ETA: I was going to start this before my mom went in the hospital but then the last couple weeks became insane and I barely even had time to read GC, let alone post this.


And then, Sigma Nu Phi, the local, who has been there over 100 years, which I think is pretty darn impressive.

[MaggieXi]

My dad is a TKE too and I never knew that until I went through Recruitment either!!

[AGDee]

I didn’t take any notes and this is all from memory from 23 years ago, so bear with me! I have been thinking about it a lot and I think I remember most of the details. Keep in mind, this was January in Michigan. Nobody was wearing any sundresses. We were wearing boots, bringing shoes to change into, wearing parkas, scarves, gloves, etc. Sometimes you even wore a pair of jeans under your skirt so you didn’t freeze your legs.

All events were held in the student union because nobody had official houses. Tri Sigma had an unofficial house as did the Alpha Gams (which the TKEs ended up leasing after Rich burned their house down, but that’s another story).

I am using old terms because I am old and those are the terms we used.

There was some sort of informational session during which we filled out a form and were organized into groups. We met our Rush Counselors and I can’t remember AT ALL who mine was or what role she played, if any, during rush. In my group was a gal named Renee who lived on my dorm floor and a gal named Kirsten who I just took to very quickly. I had really liked Renee from the first time I met her too. She was bubbly and enthusiastic and just a pleasure to be around because her positive attitude was contagious. Kirsten was more quiet, but very very nice and I liked being around her because she was so serene. My sort of friend, Nancy, was also going through recruitment and she really wanted to be a Labrador, but she wasn’t in my group. One of the sophomores from the Ambassador Society was also going through rush. Her name was Libby and she was this hyper spaz enthusiastic gal who I really liked from the first time I met her.

They introduced all the Panhellenic officers who had disaffiliated and they told us things about Greek Life. I knew a couple of them from the Ambassador’s Society so the disaffiliation didn’t make a lot of sense to me. I understand it better now, but people didn’t make a huge deal out of it. Nobody tried to guess what group women were in or anything. They gave us the basic Go Greek pep talk and told us what to wear. We got an info booklet with symbols, colors, flowers,and financial information on all the groups. We were told that we would be receiving invitations to the first parties in the next day and that we would be invited to all the first parties and go with our rush groups. I still really had no idea that cuts could happen and that some women wouldn’t get bids, etc. I thought you just went, saw which group you liked and then joined them.

I was wrong!

[AOE2AlphaPhi]

I'm so excited about this thread!

[TSteven]

Originally Posted by AGDee

All events were held in the student union because nobody had official houses. Tri Sigma had an unofficial house as did the Alpha Gams (which the TKEs ended up leasing after Rich burned their house down, but that’s another story).

If you are able to do so, please elaborate.