2011 recruitment bits and pieces

[SWTXBelle]

Originally Posted by Low C Sharp

Isn't this true of a Greek system, and an individual chapter, as well? Hundreds of chapters have gone under due to unpopularity with their target audience. It behooves them just as much to be careful how the actions of one member may alienate another group of students.

At any rate, I wasn't arguing that the paper shouldn't have seen it coming, nor that the Greeks at UIUC didn't have a right to boycott the paper if they wanted to. I'm arguing that if they exercised that right based on one editorial, that was an ugly decision and reflects poorly on the system.

No - it is not true of the Greek system. "Hundreds of chapters" have not gone under because of the actions of ONE member. A few dozen have lost charters because of the stupid actions of members which had legal/moral consequences. Other chapters have gone under due to campus culture, and some have because of an inability to effectively recruit which you may call "unpopularity". But to make an analogy between a newspaper's need to not tick off its readership and the fact that a chapter might not be popular with every possible pnm is ridiculous. Chapters' popularity is much more nuanced than the situation with an overtly hostile editorial.

"Reflects poorly on the system"? Really? Choosing not to support a business which is obviously biased against you reflects poorly on you?

HYPERBOLE IS THE BEST THING EVER!

[33girl]

Both of these editorials could have been edited in a way that would have made them less offensive. Leaving out the names of the "Bible beating" etc sororities in the first editorial, for one. It was completely unnecessary for those groups to be named. It did NOTHING other than upset women who should be happy and enjoying their new sisters.

[MTSUHopeful]

Originally Posted by 33girl

Both of these editorials could have been edited in a way that would have made them less offensive. Leaving out the names of the "Bible beating" etc sororities in the first editorial, for one. It was completely unnecessary for those groups to be named. It did NOTHING other than upset women who should be happy and enjoying their new sisters.

This might seem random and a bit out of line as I am not a Greek (yet, hopefully), but it's articles like these that really screw with future PNM's. It gets wrong ideas in our heads about which sororities are "bad".

[UGAalum94]

Originally Posted by Low C Sharp

Isn't this true of a Greek system, and an individual chapter, as well? Hundreds of chapters have gone under due to unpopularity with their target audience. It behooves them just as much to be careful how the actions of one member may alienate another group of students.

At any rate, I wasn't arguing that the paper shouldn't have seen it coming, nor that the Greeks at UIUC didn't have a right to boycott the paper if they wanted to. I'm arguing that if they exercised that right based on one editorial, that was an ugly decision and reflects poorly on the system.

The actions of GLO members alienate people all the time. Just the idea of exclusive groups winds a lot of people up, with no particular actions ever required. I think the best that most of us can hope for is that the positive things that GLO members do outweighs the negative.

It's been my experience that the students drawn to campus papers seem to enjoy reporting on the foibles of the Greek system, and with reporting on more serious GLO issues, a sense of schadenfreude can creep in to the coverage. Once that adversarial dynamic gets started, I'm not sure why Greeks would have much interest in supporting the paper.

And on some level, this kind of issue might be one of the most important for a young journalist to face. How do you effectively cover misdeeds of the affluent or powerful* without alienating the people who keep you in business?

*Greeks didn't have that much influence the general campus community at my school at the time I attended, and never could have taken down the Red and Black, but if a Greek boycott put the paper out of business, that's a pretty influential group.

[ComradesTrue]

A more neutral/positive look at recruitment by a campus newspaper:

Sorority Recruitment has Record Numbers (TCU Daily Skiff)

I am confused by the writer's comments about the "optional parties." I think that she misunderstood the idea of having extra parties added to the day to spread out the number of PNMs in each one.

[jenidallas]

Originally Posted by Blondie93

A more neutral/positive look at recruitment by a campus newspaper:

Sorority Recruitment has Record Numbers (TCU Daily Skiff)

I am confused by the writer's comments about the "optional parties." I think that she misunderstood the idea of having extra parties added to the day to spread out the number of PNMs in each one.

The TCU schedule this year had one optional party at the end of days 2, 3, and 4. The sororities were able to choose whether or not they wanted to add their optional party each day based on their returns so that they could space the PNMs out more evenly.

From my observation, some houses used theirs and some didn't - and some used them one day but not others. I know we used ours all three days!

(I don't have exact numbers - sorry - but I arrived at hour house each evening right as the last party was starting so I saw which houses had members pouring out to go to dinner during that last time and which ones had PNMs standing in the tents outside. The way that TCU is set up, you can't see all the tents from one vantage point, so I didn't get to count houses....)

[AGDLynn]

Alpha Gamma (Kappa Delta chapter) - Westminster College, MO achieved quota +7 (21)

KKG and KAT also made quota but I don't have the exact numbers.

[ShadeTree]

Zeta Tau Alpha at the University of South Carolina has 108 new members!

I think quota was 108.

[kbelle]

I got Kappa at South Carolina today! They were who I went in wanting, so I'm excited.

[shirley1929]

Originally Posted by Blondie93

A more neutral/positive look at recruitment by a campus newspaper:

Sorority Recruitment has Record Numbers (TCU Daily Skiff)

I am confused by the writer's comments about the "optional parties." I think that she misunderstood the idea of having extra parties added to the day to spread out the number of PNMs in each one.

Much better article.

What is "pre-major"? Is that the new PC term for "undeclared"?

I agree, I think the writer was confused about the optional parties, but then the chapter president used the same term in her quote? That's where I got further confused...

[ComradesTrue]

Originally Posted by shirley1929

Much better article.

What is "pre-major"? Is that the new PC term for "undeclared"?

I agree, I think the writer was confused about the optional parties, but then the chapter president used the same term in her quote? That's where I got further confused...

Yes, pre-major is TCU's term for undecided, and it dates back to at least 1991.

I noted the president used the term too, but was wondering if the writer mixed up the quote? That would then have led to her mixed up explantion in the article? Who knows?

[shirley1929]

Originally Posted by Blondie93

Yes, pre-major is TCU's term for undecided, and it dates back to at least 1991.

Gotcha...just sounds like the writer left out a word (ie: was supposed to be "Pre-Med" or something).

Originally Posted by Blondie93

I noted the president used the term too, but was wondering if the writer mixed up the quote? That would then have led to her mixed up explantion in the article? Who knows?

I'm guessing that TCU Panhellenic had some "optional" time slots for parties in case they needed them due to large numbers. They ended up needing them, so that's probably what she's referring to & it just came out wrong. I know other schools do that "hold this time slot" plan, so that's why I'm guessing that. Either that, or she was flat-out misquoted.

[HQWest]

Originally Posted by shirley1929

Much better article.

What is "pre-major"? Is that the new PC term for "undeclared"?

Pre-major is an undeclared major usually within a defined college or program. Someone could be pre-major health professions or pre-major College of Communications if they were accepted into that college but had not selected a specific program.

Schools do this because students change their majors a lot the first two years, and a lot of majors within a college might have the same course requirements at least for the freshman year. The college can have a counselor advise freshmen and then parcel them out to advising by faculty once they have a better idea of what they want to do.

[SydneyK]

Originally Posted by HQWest

The college can have a counselor advise freshmen and then parcel them out to advising by faculty once they have a better idea of what they want to do.

This seems like a great advising model.

Students usually end up with an adviser-change with each major-change. Depending on the number of changes a student goes through, that could lead to seriously inconsistent and, at times, non-existent advising. With the system you've described, students receive consistent counseling with smooth transitions between the two advisers.

/random advising tangent

[DubaiSis]

Could you imagine the chaos if you had open parties after that whole day? You'd never get the girls outta there! I've got nightmare visions going through my head just thinking of how that might go.