"Rush month" modernizes spring recruitment
by Andrew Chew and Jacob Sloan
Coming fresh from the previous semester’s two recruitment periods, the colony showed some concern for the spring recruitment since IFC reported last spring’s rush had produced some of the lowest numbers of attendees. Rush Captain Evan Sylvester reconstructed the spring rush calendar into a more accessible “rush month” with two or three events each week. He also worked with actives to help refine rushing techniques and to design an appealing schedule of events. The finalized events were more personal and consisted of more closed functions that included in previous recruitments. These types of events allowed rushees to really get to know the actives and have time to ask key questions about our organization.
One of the most notable events was the regular Texas Hold ‘Em Poker Tournament. The rushees that eventually became our Spring 2006 Pledge Class told us our attitude and laid-back demeanors impressed them the most during the recruitment period. They were surprised by that we did not pressure the fraternity onto them.
We also held a dodgeball tournament inside Jester that attracted new faces. On-lookers joined the game, and all the actives in attendance had a great time. We maintained our on-campus presence by tabling during the day before our events in the West Mall area, inside Jester and in front of Gregory Gym.
Currently, the Rush Committee is busy preparing for the upcoming fall recruitment. The committee has been meeting on a weekly basis to discuss events to keep or change and how rush would best be conducted in our much larger house next year at 2614 Rio Grande. Our calendar is almost finalized for the fall, and we will soon begin promoting it.
We have been working extremely hard to figure out ways to attract new members since the Greek community as a whole has a faced a decline of prospective new members, but we feel confident that our rush program targets a unique group of individuals not reached by other student organizations. Although other fraternities have seen declines, we have only had increases each semester. This note proves to us that we have successfully established ourselves as one of the most modern fraternities on the UT campus. The entire colony is looking forward to another pair of ever more successful recruitments next year.
|
