U Mich recruiting up

[hoosier]

Greek pledges up despite low-key recruiting at U-M
Raucous parties, hazing not the norm this year, some say
Monday, November 7, 2005

BY DAVE GERSHMAN
News Staff Reporter




This was a banner fall for fraternities and sororities at the University of Michigan, which saw big jumps in the number of freshmen who decided to join.

The largest council of fraternities, called the Interfraternity Council, said it had recruited 452 new members - which is 38 more than last fall and the biggest crop of recruits in at least 16 years. Sororities in the Panhellenic Association also recruited 620 new members, about 65 more women than last fall.

The strong recruitment comes after the fraternities changed their social policy to make their parties safer and decrease their legal liability.
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Big parties had served as a way to introduce fraternities to freshmen. It was an Ann Arbor tradition that freshmen would spend their first weeks on campus moving from one fraternity party to another. But those parties attracted criticism as noisy, beer-bashes that could invite trouble.

So starting last fall, fraternities stopped providing alcohol; parties were on a bring-your-own-alcohol basis. Big parties were made largely exclusive to students who were already members of a Greek group. Some fraternity members had been worried that recruitment would suffer as a result.

"One school of thought is the numbers possibly went up because of the policy, and this actually motivated prospective Greek members to rush,'' said Jonathan Krasnov, vice president for public relations at the fraternity council.

Krasnov said fraternity members also may have made more of an effort to talk to prospective members in classes. This year's U-M freshman class is also the biggest in the university's history, at 6,115 students. Last year's 6,040-student class was the second largest.

Erin Taylor, president of the sorority council, said the Greek groups stepped up their outreach. For the second year, the groups sponsored a movie night at Palmer Field early in September. They also put more emphasis on discouraging hazing, which was a problem last year.

Mary Beth Seiler, the director of the university's Office of Greek Life, said she was pleased with how the students conducted recruiting this year.

"I think they were just doing a good job,'' she said. "We didn't have as high a drop(out) rate as we normally do.''