Quote:
Originally Posted by 33girl
This point is moot for NPC groups. It's also moot at schools where non-fraternity members are actually allowed to attend fraternity parties (which has been stamped out in many places - necessary evil per whack ass insurance policies, but one which only fosters the Greek vs. non-Greek animosity).
This point is incorrect for NPC and NIC groups if deferred rush leads to greater member satisfaction and greater member retention (i.e. it does no good to have the biggest pledge class every year if 1/2 of them are gone by the time they're seniors).
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Kind of... I mean I understand what you're saying and I do want to agree with you, but there's two sides to every coin.
NPC groups in that enviro (from my experience) do still spend money. Not on big social events like a fraternity wouls, but more on a lot of little philanthropy &/or ice cream social kind of things in order to keep their name out there and create contact opportunities. It becomes like low-key rush all fall, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but is a lot of work & some expense.
Enforcement on a given campus is a different topic, but as far as insurance... open-parties are for sure not allowed by any national's policy I know of. Which is fine. I didn't like paying for randoms anyway. There are supposed to be guest restrictions - other org (mixers) or 1-2 guests per member. Nothing says all those guests have to be the opposite sex though. You should still be able to invite prospects by name. If there's a school saying otherwise, I'd like to get a look at that policy.
I really really do appreciate the view about satisfaction/retention. I believe values based recruiting leads to pledges who matched up closely with the org philosophy/mission prior to showing up on campus. That produces greater satisfaction, dedication, and retention. I absolutely do thing deferred has the most potential to accomplish that, but there's also a lot of problems with it in practice from a business perspective.
Fall vs Spring pledges don't directly impact house occupancy. It may have a slight impact on parlor fees & meal plans. Dues is a bigger debate. For sure you're giving up the JI semester for two-thirds plus of your members. You can make an argument that if you slide that to the end and you retain more in the last semester of their senior year that it'll end up even. I don't necessarily disagree with that, but there's just so much else that far into a greek experience that can impact satisfaction/retention. I feel like if retention is that big an issue than there's a laundry list of other things you can do before you get to deferred.
The biggest impact though is the rush pool. Admittedly this is more an issue for fraternities, but the net effect is the same.
There's people that don't make grades or get in trouble first semester. So they want to rush but can't. For sure there is an argument that you don't want those folks anyway, cause they're likely to have grade/behavior problems later as an active. There's some truth to that, but I'd like to give the benefit of the doubt given it's first semester away from home and w/o the org structure forcing them to get their stuff done.
There's also the new guy factor. A lot of people rush cause they're new to campus and don't know many or anyone else. If you give them a semester to settle in, a lot of those people will make their own friends and not see the need for a greek org by the time the chance to rush comes around.
The net effect is the rush pool drops. That does translate to chapter total/avg, and does effect occupancy/finances.
There's a debate to be had if it's worth it or not. I've seen it work okay in a few places. Those were mostly smaller schools with a very high greek percentage in towns where there isn't a lot else to do unless you're greek. The majority of campuses though, I just don't know if it's the best move. Like the example I gave, there's a lot potential negative side-effects too. That's just got to be a really individual decision for each campus.
I do really hate the way sorority rush works though (no offense). I would be a lot more supportive of deferred for them than for fraternities.
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