Advisor's Recruitment Story

KDMafia · #1 12-12-2009, 02:36 PM

Quote:

Are there rules set by Panhellenic that prevent PR events in the fall? My campus has deferred recruitment and no big fall upprclassmen recruitment, but we rarely have trouble getting freshmen to sign up for recruitment (though I have no idea how many students are at your school, so I don't know how significant 64 is compared to the freshman class as a whole).

There are no real rules in regards to how we can advertise for recruitment. The issue comes when most chapters only have 1-5 spots to fill due to almost being at total. The campus is small enough that current members will often just invite girls that they know and who they believe are interested and would be an asset. Rather than having big signs and having to have 20 girls come and only be able to pick one or two, it almost feels like false advertisement.

We do wear letters and are very involved. I think our biggest PR problem is that sororities do not have houses (they are relatively new, only 10 years old, although the locals we organized from go far back). They are housed in dorms that are the equivalent of our freshman dorms which are, obviously, the least nice on campus. That's a big turn off for freshman on a campus where other dorms are much nicer and where the fraternities have houses. They will see philantrophy events and our presence at other campus events but people who are not in sororities can still attend and participate in these. All socials and mixers are usually held off campus.

There is also a pretty strong anti-greek contingent on our campus. One of the sisters heard a girl who was hosting potential students trashing greek life to her two hosts. Luckily she spoke up to contradict a lot of the stereotypes but those are things that are pretty prevalent on campus. Also, very few girls come onto campus with any true desire to join a sorority. Unlike in more greek heavy areas most of the students dont know many people in sororities and have no idea what they are all about.

I would love to have part of their orientation in the first two days have an introduction to greek life but that has yet to be developed.

littleowl33 · #2 12-12-2009, 06:53 PM

I can see where you're coming from on the anti-Greek sentiment - that's hard to combat. But in terms of housing, none of our chapters are housed, and we don't even have our own dorms or anything, so I think that's something that can be overcome.

Anyway, good luck to you! I'm excited to see how things turn out!