It's all in a name.
Whether it's rho chis talking to rushees or recruitment counselors talking with potential members, sorority recruitment will begin again in January, and members of the Panhellenic Council have been meeting to discuss recruitment changes that will go into effect this year.
"We're still at the gathering-information stage," said Nicole Manley, the program coordinator for the Office of Fraternity and Sorority Life. "We're getting everyone's affirmative or negative votes."
Panhel has already decided to implement two significant changes in the recruitment process--rho chis have been replaced with recruitment counselors, and a recruitment rule orientation meeting is scheduled for all sophomore sorority members.
Manley said recruitment counselors will give additional support and guidance to the freshmen when they meet with the counselors before winter break. First-year students will know what to expect during recruitment when they return in January. Manley hopes new recruitment counselors will establish better relationships with their advisees than in the old system.
Kasey Miller, president of Alpha Omicron Pi, said recruitment officers will benefit potential members. "If the recruitment officers can make better connections with the girls they are advising, they can help relate to their advisees on a more personal level and be a bigger help to them during recruitment," she wrote in an e-mail.
But closer relationships between the recruitment officers and potential members could make the recruitment officer's job as an unbiased advisor more difficult, said senior Courtney Slagle, president of Kappa Kappa Gamma.
"The role of the recruitment counselor is to provide an objective view of greek life, and sometimes the best way to learn this information is from girls with whom one is not as close," Slagle wrote in an e-mail. "Also, if a close relationship is formed, it would make it harder for the counselor not to reveal the group with which she is affiliated."
Panhel leaders also hope the new sophomore recruitment orientation Oct. 7, which replaces rush previews as the method of assigning spaces for rush, will prevent "dirty rushing" this fall.
"The new members will be made aware of the [recruitment] process," Manley said. She said it will help these women understand what a recruitment violation is and how the violation is processed by a judicial committee. Sorority members have an incentive to attend this session, earning points to receive their top room preferences and themes during recruitment.
Miller explained rush previews were an ineffective way to gain "space points," which determine the order in which sororities choose the rooms in which they will conduct meetings for prospective members, and Panhel members needed to devise a new process. "Rush previews simply wasn't working in the way that it was intended to work, and a new system was needed," she wrote. "If the new meeting is done well, I think it can definitely be helpful to the chapters and the whole Panhellenic recruitment process."
Sorority leaders said the recruitment rule meeting will be an effective way to inform members of Panhel policies and procedures.
"I think the new recruitment workshop will educate all our members so that all chapters are starting out with the same expectations of each other," said senior Becky Abraham, president of Delta Gamma.
Panhel leaders have also supported a measure that will permit freshmen to pay the recruitment fee only if they decide to join a sorority. In the past, potential members had to pay a fee when they applied. Manley said she hopes this change will lead more women to rush.
"I probably wouldn't even have considered it if I had to pay," freshman Jen Martini said. "I definitely would've been more hesitant [to rush]."
Miller said that potential members might feel less obligated to "stick out" recruitment if they do not have to pay before the process begins.
"It creates a sort of no-risk, no-obligation kind of feeling for the girls going through recruitment," she said. "It might make the decision to drop out easier."
Slagle wrote that the postponement of the fee is not a positive change. "Girls need to be made more aware that pledging membership to a sorority entails a certain financial obligation," she wrote.
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