Interfraternity Council Vice President of Recruitment Dylan Nash altered the rush process to be more inclusive of the greek community as a whole, rather than chapters recruiting individually.
This year, instead of gathering in Dunn Meadow, potential recruits signed up for formal recruitment on IUIFC.org. There, they could research and connect with chapters before rush even started. This is especially helpful for out-of-state students, Nash said.
“(I wanted to) provide an opportunity for those individuals to go through and see every chapter that’s offered at IU and learn about IFC as a resource and really make an educated decision on where they want to pursue the rest of their recruitment,” Nash said.
Eliminating the long lines and the chaos of 32 fraternity tables set up in Dunn Meadow also helps lessen the bias toward lesser known or unhoused chapters, said Joe Whipple, Alpha Sigma Pi recruitment chair.
“It’ll open people’s minds up a lot more to maybe a fraternity they never heard of before they came to IU or one they never thought they would join in a million years,” Whipple said.
In previous years, fraternities would organize and host events individually, and recruits would have to wait to hear back from the chapters they signed up for.
This new structure allows for rush to be more communal, Nash said.
“My hope for the future is that the next VP of recruitment can step in and continue with a similar process and improve upon what I have done so that the community buys into recruitment,” Nash said. “It’s not an individual chapter basis, it’s everyone coming together and participating in these events.”
not pictured: Delta Sigma Phi, Phi Kappa Sigma, Pi Lambda Phi, Sigma Beta Rho, Sigma Phi Beta
This weekend, rush groups of 20 to 30 students will make chapter visits and talk to brothers for 30-minute intervals.
Monday, brothers from each chapter will be represented in Dunn Meadow for a field day. Recruits and current fraternity members can play games and sports instead of participating in a formal meeting.
“It’s going to give everyone a chance, rather than intimidating people or putting them outside of their comfort zone by just having them walk into a house and having them just go for it,” Whipple said.
Tuesday, recruits will participate in a fraternity-wide service day.
Each chapter has planned an event for its philanthropy or coordinated with another chapter to work together. This event was added to give recruits a broader understanding of what it means to be greek, Nash said.
“Fraternities tend to preach service and stewardship and a lot of people join and don’t understand that that’s part of the greek system,” Nash said. “That’s something expected of you.”
Rush will continue Wednesday with an open event day. Each chapter will host an event. Recruits will be informed of all the events but have the option to go to as many or as few events as they choose.
Finally, traditional unstructured recruitment will resume Sept. 11. Fraternities have the freedom to plan as many events as they like and will contact recruits ?individually.
“Over the course of the week, recruits will learn more and more about the brotherhoods of each chapter,” Nash said in an email. “When traditional recruitment resumes they will be much more educated on the chapters and can make a more educated decision on which lifelong brotherhood they wish to pursue.”
