While sororities saw a drastic increase in pledges this year, most fraternities' recruitment numbers were down from previous years, some dramatically so.
The decrease is thought to be a result of both apathy on campus and new athletic policies.
"We haven't had the enthusiasm in recruiting that we've had in past years," said Alex King ('09), president of Sigma Phi Epsilon. The fraternity had 19 pledges this rush season, down from 22 last year and 26 the year before.
David Kurz, president of Alpha Delta Phi, sees the decrease as stemming from new athletic policies. "Who won't allow athletes to pledge fraternities," Kurz said.
Sigma Alpha Epsilon, which also draws many of its pledges from sports teams, saw the greatest decrease of all the fraternities this year. The fraternity has only eight pledges, as opposed to last year's 20.
"The fraternities on campus are in the midst of a lot of changes," said Andrew Brandel ('09), vice president of rush at Sigma Phi Epsilon. "The Greek community as a whole is very different from how it was even a few years ago and I think the next few years will see more drastic changes."
Not all fraternities have seen such a decrease in numbers. Sigma Chi more than doubled its pledges from last year, and Pi Kappa Alpha have experienced a steady increase over the past three years.
Lambda Phi Epsilon, which had no pledges last year, now has 10, the greatest increase of any fraternity. "We had a strategy change this year," Christopher Yook ('08), president of Lambda Phi Epsilon, said. "Instead of doing so many parties, we connected with different sororities and organization on campus and did more outreach events. We did more informal, smaller events, so we could interact with students more personally."
Liz Meinert ('09), president of Kappa Alpha Theta, believes outreach events caused the increase in sorority involvement this year.
"The Panhellenic Council made themselves more available this fall," she said. "The powder-puff football game is very popular. Events like this are a great way to show the cameraderie of Greek Life."
To increase fraternity awareness, both Beta Theta Pi and Sigma Alpha Epsilon held popular poker nights, while Alpha Delta Phi tried a rock-paper-scissors tournament this year.
"We generally have an open house event, where we serve pizza and wings to freshmen," Jack Funk ('09), president of Sigma Alpha Epsilon, said.
"We always vary our events to appeal to a wide range of people. Paintball is always our most popular event," Matt Wasserman ('10), rush chair for Beta Theta Pi said. The fraternity is content with the number of pledges it received this year, 10, down from 12 last year.
"We anticipated a number slightly higher than the one we received, but we are nonetheless happy with the size," Wasserman said.
Beta also had 10 pledges in spring 2006.
Although none of the fraternities have official quotas, most anticipate a certain number of pledges each year. "We usually budget for about 20 pledges," King said. "We try to concentrate on quality of pledges, but we're also interested in quantity. We want our fraternity to grow."
"We take it on a year to year basis," Funk said. "Just trying to determine the numbers out there."
On the other hand, the Panhellenic Council establishes a quota for each of its four sororities. This year, all sororities except for Kappa Kappa Gamma exceeded the quota.
The quota, Meinert explained, is determined by dividing the total number of rushing women by four. This year, the quota was 39, while last year it was 32. "There was an unprecedented increase of the number of people going through the recruitment process," Meinert said.
Rob Turning, coordinator of Greek Life, partly attributed the increase in sorority involvement to a Facebook group set up for female students interested in rushing. "We had 130 freshmen women join the group, wanting to know more about the organizations," Turning said.
Last year, the Panhellenic Council had 115 pledges. This year it has 149.
Turning said more students are making their affiliations known, which also raises awareness of Greek life. "A few years ago, Greek life was something that happened in a basement somewhere. Now, you see a lot more sorority handbags and big Greek letter sweaters," he said.
Dorothy Sheppard, associate dean of students, echoed Turning, saying, "When students see a solid organization, people doing good things in the community, they want to join that group."
Nonetheless, fraternity involvement remains down for this year. Last year, pledges rose from 142 to 155. Currently, it stands at 152. "Our decrease this year is not dramatic, but we are worried a trend may be developing," King said.
To increase Alpha Delta Phi's future pledge classes, Kurz hopes to start reaching out more to non-athletic students. "It's something that will take time because we're pretty much labeled as an athletic fraternity," he said. "It's a slow process, but it's something we're trying to do."
"We're not necessarily working to increase number of pledges," Funk said. "We work every year to improve rush process and maximize our ability to attract freshmen and even some sophomores, to make operations run more smoothly."
Upperclassmen pledges remain low. "Over the past two years we have had one upperclassman in each spring pledge class," he said.
Upperclassmen generally avo-id spring rush because they primarily pledge with freshmen, according to Wasserman.
King agreed. "I think the mindset people have is to pledge with their age groups," he said.
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