This Greek house may look empty now, but during Recruitment Week the joint, among others on campus, will be jumping.
Interested in meeting new people, going to dances and raising money for charities? Then think about participating in Recruitment Week with the University Greek System.
Recruitment offers the opportunity for students to become familiar with the different Greek houses during “rounds,” a time for students to tour the different houses and meet their members.
Each day of Recruitment Week has a theme — for example, Activities Day provides skits and slide shows, while Philanthropy Day highlights the importance of charity work, and each house showcases its specific charity.
Sororities and fraternities also stress the social issues they are involved in — each house has an educational program once every term that focuses on social change. Past events have included sexual assault awareness, promoting diversity and helping to sponsor “Take Back the Night.”
Amanda McCulloch, a journalism major and the vice president of recruitment for sororities’ Panhellenic Council, said that Recruitment Week is designed “to make it as fun and easy to adjust to Greek life as possible.”
This year, fraternities are shooting for 350 students to participate in recruitment and sororities are hoping for 450. Recruitment efforts started with mailings to incoming freshmen and the Greek Telephone Project, in which Greek members phone prospective new members to pass on information about Recruitment Week.
New tactics are being used to attract members this fall. For example, McCulloch said, sororities have postponed their Recruitment Week in order to “give the women time to adjust to school” and make the whole process more comfortable.
Alison Peabody, a junior member of Alpha Chi Omega has experienced both sides of sorority recruitment.
“I was more nervous rushing people than I was going through rush,” she said. “I felt like if I didn’t get a full sense of who someone was, it would affect my house for a long time. It’s a lot of pressure. I had no idea how much work went into everything. We practice for almost two weeks before rush starts.”
The fraternities are trying to have potential members “spend more time with the individual chapters,” so that everyone gets a better feel for the recruitment process, said Marcus Pope, a journalism major and the Interfraternity Council’s vice president for recruitment.
In addition, fraternity and sorority leaders are trying to emphasize the idea that living in a Greek house is comparable to living in an apartment. The average yearly cost of living in a Greek house is $4,300, which is less than the dorms. There are no utility bills to pay, which further helps with the cost of living. There are also scholarship opportunities for members in a house to help defray costs.
McCulloch and Pope both said they want to stress to potential members that the Greek system no longer fulfills the “Animal House/Revenge of the Nerds” stereotypes, referring to two popular movies about college and Greek life.
People who want to join a sorority or fraternity need to have a minimum 3.0 GPA out of high school and once they are accepted, members have a minimum GPA they must maintain to remain in the system.
“Things are changing because of Select 2000,” Pope said.
Select 2000 is a contract that individual sororities and fraternities sign, guaranteeing they will be dry — serve no alcohol at the houses — and that they will try to uphold the positive values that the Greek system has to offer. Currently, all sororities and five of the 16 fraternities are dry houses.
McCulloch and Pope said that Select 2000 is not responsible for a lack of membership that caused one sorority and two fraternities to close last year. Both pointed out that the defunct houses all had their own “individual problems” unrelated to going dry.
The pair stressed that Greeks emphasize non-alcoholic fun during Recruitment Week, and throughout the year there are dances, charity events, sports events and skiing retreats, among other outings.
Once a potential member has gone through the week of Recruitment activities, there is a mutual selection process of choosing a house. Each pledge lists his or her top choices and then each house chooses its top pledges. The process is anonymous.
Pope said the selection process is to help ensure that the new members are happy in their chosen homes.
“Greek life is, most importantly, a great way to meet new people,” he said.
Alison Peabody said, “I loved it when I went through rush, but I like it even better now. When else am I going to have the chance to live with 60 other girls? It’s like a family — there’s always someone to talk to. There’s always a moment of fun and entertainment in the day. I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
The sororities hold their Recruitment Week from Sept. 28 through Oct. 3, and the fraternities have theirs from Sept. 20 through Sept. 24.
For more information about Recruitment Week and Greek Life, students can contact the Greek Life Office in the EMU or check out the Greek Life Web site at www.greeklife.uoregon.edu.