Deferred Rush Under Discussion at UNC-Chapel Hill

[LuvUTrulyKKG]

Well...
I am a sophomore at Furman University in Greenville, SC, and we have deferred recruitment for both sororities and fraternities in January. I do not have a definite opinion supporting either side, so I will give you some thoughts:

"BOT members expressed concerns about fall rush because of the numerous commitments required for new members in various Greek organizations and the difficulty in becoming acclimated to the University."

- Isn't a greek organization's time committment what you put into it? I know that there are a ton of mixers with every other group, but you can choose to attend... This isn't only during the fall semester, but it also happens after accepting a bid after deferred recruitment! The time committment is still a change from before accepting a bid, so really this can't be used as an argument for pro-deffered. And how can you say that a student is "acclimated" to college after only 1 semester? I know for me, as well as many people I know, it took an entire year.

- Doesn't a Greek Organization help you adjust better? You have a support system that has been through the same experiences that you are going through...

"Jim Tatum, chairman of IFC's Fraternity Alumni Advisory Committee, said 40 percent to 50 percent of UNC fraternities have minor problems involving pledges being forced to do inappropriate personal errands for fraternity members. He said, such problems are significant in 5 percent to 7 percent of fraternities."

- Do they think moving to deferred will help this? Because pledges will still be asked to do "inappropriate personal errands" no matter when recruitment occurs...

"They determined that deferred rush created a semester-long "dirty rush" that hindered the intellectual climate and also caused Greek organizations to suffer financially."

- "Dirty rushing" does occur with deferred, some organizations know exactly what their bid list will look like - even before recruitment has occured...

I'm sure there is a lot more to their argument for deferred, but it just seems to me that the arguments that they are using are applicable to either recruitment style.