Changes suggested by Greek Affairs Review will come in the spring

With sorority recruitment coming to an end, fraternities soon may start taking cues from sororities about how to add more structure to the recruitment process.

One of the objectives listed in the Greek Affairs Review Report, which was released by the Center for Student Involvement this semester, was to develop strategies for recruitment process improvements and assistance by revising the fraternity recruitment process.

Teniell Trolian, assistant director for Greek Affairs, said fraternities currently do not have a structured system set up for recruitment, so fraternities must use their own devices to recruit prospective members.

“It’s a very informal process,” Trolian said. “If you were interested, the fraternity would invite you to some of their events. They’d meet you, they’d get to know you, they’d offer you an invitation to join, you’d join and that would be the end of it.

“They don’t have a rush formal process, and that is what they are hoping to implement.”

Shawn Mullins, member of Delta Tau Delta, said most of his fraternity’s recruitment is informal and mainly involves members simply talking to people they know on campus.

“The way I joined was a buddy of mine who was in this fraternity that I knew from work over the summer and he talked to me about joining, and that is kind of how I got initiated,” Mullins said. “My pledge brothers were all the same way; it was people they had classes with or people they ate with at the Hub.”

Trolian said most of the organized structure changes to fraternity recruitment will happen throughout this semester and will be implemented in the spring.

Center for Student Involvement attempted to implement a formal recruitment process in January 2006, but it was voluntary, and fraternities returned to an informal process Fall 2006.

In mid-September, fraternities took the first step toward reform by setting up information tables one afternoon in Risman Plaza.

Trolian said each individual fraternity has adapted its own recruitment schedule and is doing its own recruitment events, such as playing basketball or watching Monday Night Football. Most of the fraternities are handing out hot cards with their recruitment schedules on them.

Even so, mixed feelings exist in the fraternal community about a reform in the Greek system.

“I think that it’s a really good idea,” president of Interfraternity Council Anthony Griffin said. “Maybe not to have so much a formal recruitment like what sororities have, but a structured recruitment – where you actually have a set structure of what each fraternity does or what events all fraternities partake in. Right now, there really isn’t anything.”

Griffin said eventually the way fraternities recruit now would have to be completely redone.

“The way recruitment is supposed to be set up now, there is to be no alcohol or anything like that and no parties or anything really, and that is where a lot of fraternities rush people – at house parties with alcohol and everything,” Griffin said.

Zach Hill, member of Phi Sigma Kappa, said a formal structure may work for sororities, but there is no need for it in the fraternities.

“There are a lot of rules for sororities, and I think that it is a little too structured,” he said. “I think it’s a bigger process than it should be, or what it really needs to be. I feel you can do a lot of the same things you can do for a sorority with not being as formal.

“Guys aren’t really as structured, guys don’t think like girls do, and we have different mindsets, I feel.”

Griffin said the Interfraternity Council would not start a formal recruitment structure until spring because its biggest focus this semester is rewriting its constitution. The council is also setting up an actual judicial board to make sure it holds all fraternities accountable for their actions.

Contact Greek life reporter Samantha Donegan at [email protected].