“Go Greek” is a common phrase on college campuses across the country, and the U is no exception. Nearly 300 students interested in joining one of the eight fraternities at the U started the recruitment process, commonly known as rush, yesterday.
“We have a three or four day process of rush, or recruitment, where [prospective recruits] go to all the houses and get the opportunity to meet the guys and see the houses that they live in,” said Alex Khan, recruitment chair for the Interfraternity Council (IFC) and a senior in business.
The requirements to become a member of a fraternity at the U are simple, but they vary from house to house.
“From the university standpoint, you need to be a university student. After that, each fraternity has its own standards: usually GPA, and sometimes a credit hour requirement. Most fraternities just look for people that are interested in what they are doing,” said Arlyn Bradshaw, the assistant dean of students.
Last year, 228 men participated in fraternity recruitment. This year, 273 students showed up for rush.
Contrary to rumors that no alcohol will be allowed in the fraternities this year, certain “wet” fraternities will continue celebrating with alcohol this year.
“It’s not necessarily that there’s no alcohol,” said Arash Bakhshandehpour, IFC president and a senior in business administration. “It’s that the houses have to meet certain requirements to petition to be wet. So, we basically incentivized for there to be alcohol for people of age, obviously. We require … grades to be above the all-men’s average at the university and for no infractions or run-ins with the law for the entire school year in order for them to petition for the entire next school year. All but two houses this year met requirements to be wet.”
The Interfraternal Council believes that this jump in numbers is because of an increasingly positive public image of the greek community, which IFC has been working to improve.
“The reason I wanted to run for IFC president was to break the stereotype, although it would be ignorant to say there’s no partying. The things I wanted to focus on were, service-wise, we are one of the best organizations on campus. [I also wanted to focus on] involvement, greeks are involved in nearly all organizations on campus. In regards to meeting and networking, you only go as far as the people you know in the real world, and Greek Row is the best at networking,” Bakhshandehpour said. “We just wanted people to see what we do, outside of the partying.”
Recruitment started with students touring all eight fraternity houses on Tuesday. Today, recruits will eliminate four of those houses from consideration and return to visit the four still on their list. On Thursday, students will attend an alumni-hosted dinner at one of the two fraternities they are still interested in, and Friday, the final day of recruitment, called “Bid Day,” potential new members will make their bids to whichever fraternity they want to join.
“The overall process has stayed pretty consistent on our campus. We had some pre-recruitment events to get people interested,” Bradshaw said.
Fraternity rush will conclude the recruitment process for Fall Semester at the U, as the sororities held their recruitment last week.