AGDee's Retro aka How NOT to do recruitment

[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!

[AGDee]

I received my invitations the next day. I only remember what one of them was like (and this probably makes it very obvious which group this one was) but it was in the shape of a record (yeah, we had records back then, it was post 8 tracks and cassettes were getting popular, but we still had records) with the invite information as the record label. It was very cute. It was from the Airedale Terriers. All were handmade invitations from construction paper and they all looked like they took a lot of time to make (and they did, as I found when I was Rush Chair the next semester)

Since I knew I didn’t want to be a Poodle or a Russian Toy Terrier, I didn’t go to their first parties. Nobody had told me that this could impede any chances of getting a bid or that I had to go to their parties and, to be honest, I don’t think anybody cared back then. Almost everybody wanted to be a Poodle, except me.

I knew we had to dress up a little, so I wore basic black pleated dress pants, black pumps and a silvery/gray silky blouse. I wore the ever-present gold herringbone chain and some simple gold hoop earrings. Nothing too fancy. I had (cringe) a bi-level cut with big permed hair. If you don’t know what a bi-level is, I’m not telling, cuz they call it something else now and I don’t want to admit it.. BUT, it was VERY in then, I swear it.

I caught up with Renee outside the Airedale Terrier room in the student union and we waited outside together. She had already been to the other two parties. I had no idea what to expect. We walked into the room and there were two lines of women dressed in 50’s clothes.. poodle skirts, sweaters or blouses, with pony tails and saddle shoes! How adorable! They were singing some catchy song with their letters in it. As we each walked in, one of the girls stepped out of the line and escorted us to a table where they gave us a nametag and we wrote our names on them. They were homemade nametags and these were like the outline of a ’57 Chevy. They took us over to a table where there was punchbowl of root beer floats and platters of cheese and crackers and helped us get some food and a root beer float. Yum! I liked this rush thing. I enjoyed talking to the girl I was with a lot. She took me over to meet some other sisters. The room was all decorated like a 50’s diner. I chatted for a while with several different sisters and then they sat us down for a skit. It was a Grease skit and ALL the words to the songs were adapted to fit the sorority! How clever these women were! I was so impressed. I had no idea what to expect coming into this and I was really enjoying it. The skit was touching as Rizzo decided to become a member of this great sorority and all the sisters sang “We go together” and looked like they really loved hanging out with each other. Wow! I wanted to be part of that! Then, we had to leave and I was bummed out.

Renee and I headed to the next party, the Labradors and waited outside again for the party to start. We talked about how much fun the Airedale Terrier party was but Renee wasn’t quite as impressed as I was. Maybe because she’d been to two parties already?

We walked into the Labrador party together and stopped at the nametag table to fill out a nametag. Then, one of the sisters took Renee into the crowd but nobody picked me up. I kind of stood there, not knowing what to do. Nobody came and talked to me. I felt like a Martian. What was up with this??? I went to the refreshment table and they had assorted candies.. m&m’s, mints, etc. and a punch. I helped myself to those and tried to kind of hang out near a group of girls who were talking, but was too intimidated to just join in with a group. When the skit was going to start, I found Renee and sat by her. I don’t remember this skit at all. I think I was just shell shocked because nobody had spoken to me.

I left that party knowing that I wouldn’t be going back to them.

[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.

[AGDee]

Our unofficial houses were just campus rental houses so they changed frequently. A group of girls would all lease a house together and we'd call it "The House". The summer after I pledged, Rich was living in the TKE house during the summer and taking summer classes. I tried to call him one day (from a payphone, with a bag full of quarters to talk to him.. the good old days) and kept getting a busy signal. I tried over and over and thought "that's weird, nobody uses the phone in that house for THIS long". Later that evening, I got a call from Rich. He had been making breakfast in a toaster oven and left an oven mitt on top of the toaster. The oven mitt caught on fire. He tossed it in the sink, ran water over it and tossed it in the garbage. But, apparently, it was still burning inside and it ended up burning down their house while he was at class. Nobody else was in the house at the time either. So, they ended up renting the house we had just moved out of for the next couple years. I don't know if they ended up buying a new one or not. A lot of the houses, even the Fraternity houses, are long term rentals there.