The start of another semester means that hundreds of students are looking to start their lives as members of fraternities and sororities. However, as it currently stands, the process of doing so in the spring is much more limited than the process sponsored by the university in the fall.
Both the Fraternity and Sorority Life (FSL) councils and prospective members of the organizations would greatly benefit from the university hosting a similar process in the spring.
Unlike the fall however, FSL does not offer a formal recruitment process that is sponsored by them. In a process known as informal rush, students must seek out the fraternities and sororities they would like to rush. Normally, the potential new members of these organizations find out about informal rush events through word of mouth, or advertisements made by the fraternities and sororities. The spring rush applicant pool could be much larger if the university were to host a process much like the one in the fall.
The advantages of hosting a formal rush process for the spring semester are plentiful. The first, and perhaps most obvious benefit, is the inclusion of many more potential new members in the rush process. With the current layout, most potential new members will already be students who are familiar with the FSL system. This potential omission of a wide array of people unfamiliar with the FSL recruitment process can continue to keep these organizations in their current exclusive state.
Another advantage of hosting a formal process is that it takes the pressure off of a first-year student to immediately rush in the fall. The formal rush process sets it up so that students participating in formal rush must meet every fraternity or sorority of the council holding the event at least once in the process. This means that students participating in the IFC rush must meet all fraternities in the council at least once, and the same goes for the Pan-Hellenic Council. Many students believe that this format is the best way to meet the Greek organization that they sync with the most.
Allowing students to have this type of process in the spring would create less pressure for them to rush in the first semester of college. As students, it is our highest priority to maintain a high level of academic achievement. This becomes considerably more challenging to do when a student is also trying to integrate themselves into a fraternity or sorority during their first semester.
Duplicating the formal rush process for the spring would allow students to acclimate to their new environment before taking the leap into becoming a member of a fraternity or sorority.
For some institutions, this is the standard for completing the rush process. Our neighboring school in Durham has a requirement that freshmen must successfully complete one semester before being eligible to enter into the university’s formal recruitment process.
In addition to hosting a formal process in the spring, FSL should work to create a more inclusive rush process for all councils. As it currently stands, the Multicultural Greek Council and the National Panhellenic Council — both of which are predominantly minority run councils — have very little representation in spring recruitments. While these organizations are a part of FSL, the advertisements for these rush processes are incredibly low-key in comparison to the IFC and PHC.
FSL should attempt to host events in the spring where all councils are put on display for potential new members to join instead of just IFC and PHC. Putting these fraternities and sororities on display would allow for students to join who have no idea that Fraternity and Sorority Life is a vastly broad portion of student affairs.
