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Deferred isn't necessarily anything new, but it is gaining traction - from my experience working at a fraternity HQ on expansion.
It's mostly a responsive effort. If a fraternity/sorority community's grades drop or if there are risk management concerns, the standard among Greek Life professionals is to recommend deferred recruitment as a potential antidote.
My issue with doing so is two-fold:
- Deferred recruitment doesn't necessarily address the problem that students don't actually sell the real fraternity experience. There is too little clarity on the financial and time cost of membership, and without clear "pricing" (referring to time commitments as well) chapters can either overwork new members or find that many drop off shortly after initiation or their junior year because they never actually agreed to what was required.
- Deferred recruitment is another case of treating Greek Life different from other student organizations. Consider the Red Cross, an international organization. If they establish a chapter on a college campus, that Red Cross club basically has the liberty to do what they wish. Deferred recruitment makes the case that fraternities and sororities inhibit people, rather than that they help people excel (which goes hand in hand with the previous point).
So I think you'll see more deferred recruitment in the coming years because campus professionals switch schools every year or two and many just carry deferred recruitment policies with them. That said, it's always good to challenge the process, and deferred recruitment without appropriate recruitment training is not as effective as it is in theory.
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