Advisor's Recruitment Story

[KDMafia]

Hey guys,

I have been debating doing a recruitment thread from my perspective as an advisor and decided why not. There are not as many Spring recruitment threads and I know how sad I am when this forum starts to get slow. I figure at the very least it gives us something to read and may generate a different type of discussion than the usual type of thread.

I'm an advisor at a midwest school which as deferred recruitment in January. There are six NPC sororities and one other who does recruitment at the same time but is not a part of formal recruitment. Our recruitment lasts from Tuesday to Saturday with bid day on Sunday. The first day is an open house where all PNMS go to every house. Philanthropy night is broken up between Wednesday and Thursday and again all girls go to all five houses. The first round of cuts happen after Philanthropy. Friday is Skit night with a max of four parties and Saturday is Preference night with a max of 2 parties. Bids are given out Sunday. The recruitment is more no-frills than not. there is a strict budget that usually allows for some decorations and usually one type of snack and drink. There are no houses but instead all of the sororities are housed in the same dormitory with each one having a chapter room on the first floor. The PNMS visit the chapter rooms for all of the parties.

The chapter I advise has gone from a chapter that struggled to make quota to one that, within the last 4-5 years generally usually makes quota with one-four quota additions. Quota is usually set somewhere between 12-15. Retainment during recruitment has improved since moving to the new RFM and most chapters make quota or only miss by one-two and can quickly COB. Total is 42 and has recently been dropped from 51 after a concern by Panhellenic board that many girls felt it was easier to drop out during Spring and get the sorority you wanted during Fall informal. Fall is now COB events and is a lot less structured and obvious than it has been. The chapter I advise will be one under total at the start of recruitment due to a senior graduating at semester.

There have been a lot of activites leading up to recruitment this past month. The sororites have paired up to do different events. One was a slide show, one a "fall festival" with games and such and the final was a Bingo night (bingo is big on this campus). They also do a sorority showcase and a chapter open house. At this point in time there is some concern that numbers might be low so the Panhell is encouraging sorority members to work on registering girls with a small prize for the sorority that registers the most members. Some are concerned this could lead to dirty rushing but for the most part, that is not a real problem on this campus with the exception of one group.

The chapter I advise is working hard right now for outreach and are doing skit and preference night practices so as to not feel so stressed during recruitment week.

I think that's enough for now but if anyone has any questions feel free to ask.

[groovypq]

As another advisor at a deferred recruitment school, I am looking forward to your story! Good luck!

[KDMafia]

Well we are less than a month from recruitment and I just wanted to give an update on the atmosphere on campus right now. Our panhellenic advisor has been concerned numbers were going to be low as she felt this class of incoming freshman were not as interested in greek life. As of the first date of turning in applications there are only 64 women signed up. More will probably trickle in but this is a slow start as we are looking at a quota of only about 12 if ALL of the girls stay in without dropping out which is very rare. Most of the time quota is around 15-16.

The chapter I advise is a little frustrated as they feel the recent drop in total by ten and the elimination of any type of organized fall recruitment may have helped diminish interest. We used to have a more organized fall recruitment with a week of informal events where upper class women could choose where to go but still with a set bid day. There was concern by our Panhellenic advisor that girls who saw this as freshman would get the idea that they could drop out of spring recruitment and join where they wanted in the fall. However, now, without any type of fall recruitment there is little PR for sororities until the month before recruitment. No other real big greek welcoming events, no PR in the newspaper.

The other concern is that a larger majority of this year's applicants are sophmores. With total so low and not many freshman to choose from many chapters are worried that their freshman class is going to be much smaller and with lower total will only be able to COB 1 or 2 more in the fall. There is a concern that this cycle will continue with all the upper classmen that change their mind in the fall but unable to get bids either not trying again or going through spring and creating the same situation.

The girls in the chapter are working hard to get freshman they know interested in recruitment but with finals week coming up most individuals are stuck in the library or finishing big projects and are already incredibly stressed out or are not having as much contact with lower classmen.

Hopefully the numbers will jump in this last week and they usually do dorm storming the day before recruitment to find girls willing to do it because their friends are or just because it's something to try but would never go out of their way to find an application and fill it out. Meanwhile my girls are working hard on being prepared for spring and I am brainstorming ways in the fall to help them get their name out more to increase PR and interest on campus.

Any suggestions on how to do that would be great!

[littleowl33]

Originally Posted by KDMafia

The chapter I advise is a little frustrated as they feel the recent drop in total by ten and the elimination of any type of organized fall recruitment may have helped diminish interest. We used to have a more organized fall recruitment with a week of informal events where upper class women could choose where to go but still with a set bid day. There was concern by our Panhellenic advisor that girls who saw this as freshman would get the idea that they could drop out of spring recruitment and join where they wanted in the fall. However, now, without any type of fall recruitment there is little PR for sororities until the month before recruitment. No other real big greek welcoming events, no PR in the newspaper.

Are there rules set by Panhellenic that prevent PR events in the fall? My campus has deferred recruitment and no big fall upprclassmen recruitment, but we rarely have trouble getting freshmen to sign up for recruitment (though I have no idea how many students are at your school, so I don't know how significant 64 is compared to the freshman class as a whole).

I think a lot of that is due to the HEAVY PR the groups do on campus. Panhellenic limits each group to a certain number of freshman-directed events per month, and has restrictions on what can be given out (essentially no gifts, only snack foods) and when they can be (each group hands in a schedule to Panhel and they make sure that no one is holding events at the same time). Other than that, they encourage everyone to be creative! Groups have decorated and eaten caramel apples, painted pumpkins for nursing home patients, done movie nights, baked cookies, etc. Lots of freshmen come out and get excited about Greek life.

Panhel holds a few group events where members of all sororities send temporarily disaffiliated reps, and we recently held a "recruitment drive" in the freshman cafeteria where members of all three groups brought their laptops and encouraged PNMs to register online. However, the main responsibility of PR is on the groups themselves, and the (mostly friendly) competition to have the best events or get the most girls interested has made everyone step up their game. I think it would be impossible for a freshman girl to get through her first semester here without seeing at least a few ads or events. It also helps dispel the rumors that come along with deferred recruitment - it's easy to disparage a group you've never met, but if you see the sisters at their events it's easier to see that so much of the stuf that gets circulated is untrue. Panhel's party line is, "Don't listen to what people say about a group, go to one of their (many) events and see for yourself!"

This might be a good thing to introduce on your campus, if you haven't already. It benefits all groups and keeps the idea of recruitment fresh in PNM's minds.

ETA: If Panhel does prohibit these events and doesn't seem to want to change, there are other ways to do PR. A few we've done are:
- Wearing letters to everything! We all have matching lettered tote bags that most of us use every day.
- Helping with freshman move-in (while wearing letters).
- Making sure to invite freshmen to other events you do, like big philanthropy events.
- Having sisters make a real effort to befriend and recruit freshmen. Having girls "see you around" isn't enough sometimes!

[KDMafia]

Are there rules set by Panhellenic that prevent PR events in the fall? My campus has deferred recruitment and no big fall upprclassmen recruitment, but we rarely have trouble getting freshmen to sign up for recruitment (though I have no idea how many students are at your school, so I don't know how significant 64 is compared to the freshman class as a whole).

There are no real rules in regards to how we can advertise for recruitment. The issue comes when most chapters only have 1-5 spots to fill due to almost being at total. The campus is small enough that current members will often just invite girls that they know and who they believe are interested and would be an asset. Rather than having big signs and having to have 20 girls come and only be able to pick one or two, it almost feels like false advertisement.

We do wear letters and are very involved. I think our biggest PR problem is that sororities do not have houses (they are relatively new, only 10 years old, although the locals we organized from go far back). They are housed in dorms that are the equivalent of our freshman dorms which are, obviously, the least nice on campus. That's a big turn off for freshman on a campus where other dorms are much nicer and where the fraternities have houses. They will see philantrophy events and our presence at other campus events but people who are not in sororities can still attend and participate in these. All socials and mixers are usually held off campus.

There is also a pretty strong anti-greek contingent on our campus. One of the sisters heard a girl who was hosting potential students trashing greek life to her two hosts. Luckily she spoke up to contradict a lot of the stereotypes but those are things that are pretty prevalent on campus. Also, very few girls come onto campus with any true desire to join a sorority. Unlike in more greek heavy areas most of the students dont know many people in sororities and have no idea what they are all about.

I would love to have part of their orientation in the first two days have an introduction to greek life but that has yet to be developed.

[littleowl33]

I can see where you're coming from on the anti-Greek sentiment - that's hard to combat. But in terms of housing, none of our chapters are housed, and we don't even have our own dorms or anything, so I think that's something that can be overcome.

Anyway, good luck to you! I'm excited to see how things turn out!

[KDMafia]

I am too. I don't mean to come off sounding like there's nothing the chapters can do. There definitely is, they just need guidance which is what I'm hoping to give to them. After spring recruitment I have many plans to meet with the newly elected recruitment chair and our PR chair to help them work on their presence on campus in order to get more girls in recruitment. We are working on more activities that don't involve leaving campus in the spring where they can work on inviting freshman girls. Also, as KDS we have national women's friendship day & the new confidence coalition which is geared to reach out toward women and I don't think they capitalize on that enough.

[33girl]

As far as the low numbers, I'm sure the economy plays a part, especially since so many companies are doing that lovely thing of canning people right around the holidays.

What percentage of the chapter lives in the dorm housing?

How big are the pledge classes in the fall?

[KDMafia]

What percentage of the chapter lives in the dorm housing?

How big are the pledge classes in the fall?

Sister's have to live in the dorm sophmore and junior year, so they effectively spend 3 of their four college years living in a freshman dorm. Pledge classes this past fall were different. This is my first year fully advising although I know the previous fall we couldn't take anyone because we were at total but the previous years, before total was lowered allowed people to have fall pledge classes up to 10-11. There is one chapter who is struggling due to an issue of members deactivating. My chapter had a large graduating senior class so was able to pledge 7. We were the largest, the rest were only 1-4. Even us, with pledging 7, we struggled because we had way more girls coming than even we had spots for, which is usually a good thing but sucks when normally in the fall, with the higher total we could usually replace way more.

The economy might have something to do with it but the PanHellenic advisor seems to believe it's due to lack of interest of the freshman women. It seems that many girls realize their sophmore year that greek life is more appealing. A combination of seeing their friends that go greek and also seeing more of greek life after out combination of greek week and spring week events.

[33girl]

Originally Posted by KDMafia

the previous years, before total was lowered allowed people to have fall pledge classes up to 10-11. There is one chapter who is struggling due to an issue of members deactivating. My chapter had a large graduating senior class so was able to pledge 7. We were the largest, the rest were only 1-4. Even us, with pledging 7, we struggled because we had way more girls coming than even we had spots for, which is usually a good thing but sucks when normally in the fall, with the higher total we could usually replace way more.

Sooooooooo let me get this straight (if I've inferred too much, let me know). The reason total was lowered was theoretically because girls were dropping out of formal and going through informal, to enable the smaller chapters to catch up; however, all the groups have been actually pledging similar numbers during formal and informal, but one group has been struggling because the girls keep self-terminating.

MMMMMMMMMMMMMkay.

It sounds to me like the group with the disaffiliation problem needs to work on their own problems instead of asking Panhel to lower total, and get their @#$% together, because if there's a bunch of disaffiliated women running around a small campus, it doesn't do anything good for Greek life in general.

Like I said - if that wasn't exactly the situation, let me know. I'm all for lowering total when it needs to be done, but this doesn't sound like a good case for it.

[KDMafia]

Actually the recent deactivating problem was earlier this year. Basically our numbers weren't as good as they wanted for formal recruitment and total was at approximately 52. The Pan Hel advisor had heard that some girls were saying that if they got cut from a house that they wanted they could just wait until fall and get in because they knew that fall recruitment occurs. obviously this is false sentiment as I don't really know of many individuals that were cut by a chapter during formal and then extended a bid in the fall. Most people that drop out in the spring never return to greek life. I think the fall reasoning was just an excuse to drop out and save face.

So, our advisor wanted to eliminate fall recruitment as much as possible and part of that was lowering total so there wouldn't be as big of pledge classes in the fall.

The status of the chapters at that time were: out of 6 all were eitehr at total or usually only a few behind going into spring and then, with the graduating class would have around 10 spots in the fall. There was one chapter that was struggling more than others but it wasn't like 1/2 the chapter size of the others but they lost a senior class that effectively cut their chapter in half right before total was lowered so they were having a harder time refilling.

I'll admit that I am getting some of this information for the sisters as some of this happened when I wasn't there. I know our nationals wasn't happy with the lowering of total and didn't think it was beneficial to the chapters. I just fill that lowering total should only be done if there is a large amount of chapters struggling or after you have expanded as many efforts has possible to try to raise numbers, not as a first choice and not because you want to eliminate fall recruitment as much as possible. Chapter total was dropped by nine so it is now 42.

[33girl]

Originally Posted by KDMafia

I just fill that lowering total should only be done if there is a large amount of chapters struggling or after you have expanded as many efforts has possible to try to raise numbers, not as a first choice and not because you want to eliminate fall recruitment as much as possible. Chapter total was dropped by nine so it is now 42.

Absolutely agree. I mean yes, there are some schools where the dropping or suiciding in formal rush so you can get who you want in informal has gotten really bad, but it doesn't sound like that is the case at all. It almost sounds like the GA is trying to weaken Greek life instead of strengthen it by doing this. Is she an alum of the school and/or any of the chapters?

[KDMafia]

Is she an alum of the school and/or any of the chapters?

No she is not from the school and her sorority does not have a chapter there. To be fair, the higher up administration is not overly supportive of greek life so she may have been up against a wall but I also think she can get an idea in her head and go with that.

I don't want to go into any more detail to avoid repercussions for my chapter but there was other stuff going on. PM if you're interested

[FSUZeta]

does panhellenic set up tables in high traffic areas of campus fall semester?

do the chapters hold any philanthrophy or fundraising events that would involve students not affiliated with their chapter? are any of these held in the fall?

are there any high profile events held that would show non-affiliated women what membership in a sorority could offer for them? not your standard snack parties, but something more substantial, like the above mentioned philanthrophy event.

[MaggieXi]

Does the school have something like an organizational fair in the fall or a meet the greeks? If not, this may something that could be considered.

The organizational fair could include all the greek organizations as well as any other organization that wants to get in front of incoming freshman.

If there is a high anti-greek population, you may want to consider doing something that doesn't include other non-greek organizations. The mix of the two could create animosity.