A Different Kind of Live Recruitment Story

[ASTalumna06]

A different kind of recruitment story.

As many of you know, I am the recruitment advisor for my chapter of AST. Our chapter, and all of the sororities in general, on my campus, usually find it a struggle to recruit a large number of girls, but our sorority has always seemed to have the largest problem. We only do COB, but in the past 3 years, Panhellenic has slowly attempted to become removed from the thought, “please join our sorority,” and more toward, “please join a sorority”. Deferred recruitment is something that the Greek community is attempting to do away with, as it is well-known that the fraternities “work around” this rule anyway, and the sororities, who follow this guideline, tend to lose out on a good portion of girls, because while we can bid girls who are sophomores, juniors, and seniors, we can’t bid freshmen (first semester freshmen, anyway). The “’01 rule” as we like to call it, calls dirty rushing into question more frequently, and people are extremely paranoid about it (even if it isn’t occurring at all). It also creates difficulty for all of the sorority chapters in gaining large new member classes during the fall.

This story is about recruitment from the other side of the fence, and the hope of drawing more attention to our chapter, and to Greek life in general.

Some background stats:

Current chapter size: 12
Total: 40
Most girls in the chapter in the past 7 years (and possibly longer): 18
Number of New Members per semester in the past 5 years:
Spring 04: 5
Fall 04: 4
Spring 05: 9
Fall 05: 0
Spring 06: 2
Fall 06: 2
Spring 07: 5
Fall 07: 3
Spring 08: 4
Average for Spring semesters: 5
Average for Fall semesters: 2


Now on to the story.

On Sunday, August 24, the day before classes started, the Greeks held an event to celebrate the school’s 60th anniversary. The event was extremely successful (free food always draws a crowd), and I was happy to see my girls talking to a lot of PNMs.

One of the sisters actually took it upon herself to stand by the long table of food being served, and handed out plates to people as they approached. She said hi and made small talk while they waited in line. Two or three of the sisters sat down at a table with a few PNMs and started up a conversation. A few others offered to get refills of drinks for people sitting down.

One of the sisters was on top of her game, and somehow managed to get (and remember) the first and last names, and contact info for three or four different PNMs.

Needless to say, I was extremely thrilled to see them interacting with other people, and not just amongst themselves (as has been the case in the past).

The following day, classes started. None of the sororities were to have recruitment events during the first week of class, and I almost think that this was better. At no time in the past few years had recruitment parties in the first week produced large results for any of the three chapters.

The girls had a Facebook event set up to provide advertising their recruitment parties, in which they had a few confirmed guests, and some “maybes”. They also had recruitment posters all around campus. But instead of the usual “join AST” and silly little quotes and lists of recruitment dates, they made some that were really cute and functional. They had them printed (and they looked professional) with “Alpha Sigma Tau” written out, a picture of all of the sisters (different pictures on each poster), and a short, typed saying underneath. Things like, “Alpha Sigma Tau provides thousands of dollars in donations each year to projects such as Habitat for Humanity, Pine Mountain Settlement School, and the Junior Diabetes Research Foundation,” were written on them. In the past two weeks, I have heard several compliments from other Greeks, as well as PNMs, about the posters. Always a good thing.

This past Tuesday, Sept 2, the girls had their first recruitment party. The first one is always a little rough, and it is expected that the numbers of PNMs will be low. While we tell PNMs to meet a couple sisters at a certain location in our student union before the party (a location even new freshmen would be familiar with), some girls came directly to the room we were having the event in. It started with one girl, and then three more. Two of those three were girls that the sisters were talking to at the Greek event the week before.

So then another girl walks in. She looked a little lost, but we all said hi to her, and before long she was talking to everyone. The sisters who met people in that central location in the student union then came in with five or six more girls. While I was having a conversation with two PNMs, I suddenly realized that the room was filling with them… and fast.

The Recruitment Director had a few things planned, but at one point she turned to me and said “should we even do the activities we were going to do?” I told her I didn’t think so. There were just so many people, and we weren’t really ready for it! But the girls were so involved in their conversations that it didn’t much matter. Questions were being asked by both the active sisters and the PNMs, packets of information were handed out, and an information board along with paddles, t-shirts, and tons of items with “AST” on them provided PNMs with things to look at.

The other two sororities had events at the same time we did, in two adjacent rooms. This only occurred due to scheduling conflicts and confusion because of the now limited time (compared to previous years) for recruitment events before bid day. But while the other two sorority’s events ended, ours was still going on, and as the other chapters walked by they looked into our room surprised that we had so many people. I’ll be honest, it kind of felt good… because we’ve been the ones struggling and looking at their larger numbers in amazement for so long.

At the end of the event (2 hours later!), with only 2 PNMs left talking to sisters, the Recruitment Director and I looked at the list of names that all of the PNMs signed with their email addresses.

There were 16 names! For people who went to larger schools with much larger chapters, that must seem like a really small number to you, but we were outnumbered at our own party, and it was pretty sweet. (And yes, I did just say ‘pretty sweet’). I’ve honestly never even seen half that amount of PNMs at a recruitment event. And while a good portion of them were first semester freshmen, I'm predicting large new member classes for this semester and next.

Keep your fingers crossed!

The girls had a second event on Wednesday, but I’ll tell you about that later.

Tonight the sisters are going to see “The House Bunny” and they’ve invited all of the PNMs to go with them. Hopefully a lot of them go!

[Benzgirl]

Wow! Sounds like your chapter is making a huge effort. Hope it is a success for the girls!

[Zillini]

What a fabulous idea for a Recruitment Story thread! Thank you ASTalumna06! I can't wait to hear more.

[justabostongirl]

Wow, you all clearly put a lot of work into that! My school always had smaller numbers and chapters, so I definitely understand the excitement of having 16 girls attend a COB event. I hope everything works out well for you!

[srmom]

Good luck to you!!

[GPhiBLtColonel]

What great news - keep us posted!

[Katmandu]

Truly inspiring, and how wonderful to be outnumbered by PNMs. Please do let us know how it continues to go throught the year! Good luck!

[Buttonz]

That sounds great! I can't wait to hear more!

My chapter would have had no idea what to do with 16PNM! We were lucky to get that many going through rush!

[fantASTic]

Good luck, sister!

[CuriousWildcat]

Exciting!

[ASTalumna06]

First of all, thank you for all of the warm words and encouraging statements. I am very excited about this recruitment period.

So as I mentioned, the girls had a second recruitment party on Wednesday. This is a popular day for late classes, and a lot of the PNMs from Tuesday’s party indicated to us that they would not be able to attend that night. But there were still 6 PNMs that attended. All but one of them had been there the night before. I think it was almost better that there were only 6 girls, because it allowed all of the sisters to get to know them a little better.

At that event, the girls decorated and ate cookies. It was nice and relaxing, gave them something to do, and something to eat! These 6 PNMs seemed really interested, and everyone seemed to get along really well. That night I could overhear conversations a little better than the night before and they were talking about everything from how their day went, to the professors they like, to what made them come to the recruitment parties, etc., etc.

I actually talked to one girl a little more than the others, and she was really cute and fun. We talked about the most random stuff, but it was a good conversation, and it was rather interesting.

Overall, the PNMs who are attending their recruitment events seem to be interested for all of the right reasons, and they are asking A LOT of questions. The funny thing is, quite a few of them have asked about hazing. Understanding that it’s probably a concern among most PNMs, we’ve answered their questions and clearly stated that we don’t haze at all. Some of them still seem a little worried about it, but I don’t think it will turn them away entirely. And the PNMs who have really been getting to know the sisters have seemed to completely put it out of their minds. But I think the fact that they’re speaking up and voicing their concerns is a good thing.

On Friday night, the girls went to the movies. Once again, 6 PNMs showed up. A few of them were the ones who attended the event on Wednesday night, and then there were a few new girls. (I still don’t know where they’re all coming from!) But I’ve heard it was successful, and the sisters told me that they all really enjoyed themselves… and the movie!

Afterward, they decided to go back to one of the sisters’ apartments, and they ate, talked, and played charades, I believe. All of the PNMs from that night said they planned to attend the next recruitment event.

…Which is tonight! So I’ll be sure to update you all on what happens!

[Benzgirl]

So when will bids be extended?

[ASTalumna06]

Bid day is Tuesday, September 16th. So you still have to wait another week!

Oh, and a few more girls confirmed invitations to their events on Facebook, so hopefully we'll see some more new faces tonight!

[OPhiAGinger]

I was a founding mother of an OPA chapter and we were in your same situation when we held our first recruitment event. We were delighted, but overwhelmed, to discover the interested PNMs outnumbered the active members.

So, if that continues to be the case (and it looks likely so far), how will you decide how many new members to take? Theoretically you could accept 28 to get your chapter up to total, right? But do you think you could integrate that many into your chapter all at once?

[ASTalumna06]

Originally Posted by OPhiAGinger

I was a founding mother of an OPA chapter and we were in your same situation when we held our first recruitment event. We were delighted, but overwhelmed, to discover the interested PNMs outnumbered the active members.

So, if that continues to be the case (and it looks likely so far), how will you decide how many new members to take? Theoretically you could accept 28 to get your chapter up to total, right? But do you think you could integrate that many into your chapter all at once?

Well, that's what we were thinking. How many is too many? With so few sisters, and each one already holding at least 2 positions (on top of school, work, and any other activities), it would be hard for everyone to constantly be involved in new member education and activities. And when new members outnumber actives, the learning process after initiation becomes difficult also. And while it would be great to have a large number of girls come in, to alleviate some of the work put on the shoulders of the sisters, there's also only so much you can do as a small chapter. Handing things off isn't that easy when there's so much to teach to such a large number of people. But... in a little while, I will update my story, and you'll see how things are panning out for us this semester...