Good Greek: USU’s fraternities and sororities have a recruitment increase
Out-of-state enrollment had a small spike this year, and Greek recruitment appears to have reaped the benefits, Panhellenic Council President Alexis Lear said.
This week was the fraternities’ recruitment week, with each house holding activities and running tables on campus to draw in new pledges. The sororities’ recruitment week was Aug. 22-25.
“Generally at Utah State, those who join fraternities and sororities are from out of state,” said Alexis Lear, senior in public relations and an alumna of Chi Omega. “In-state students tend to come with people and already have friends, so they don’t feel the need to find new people.”
Kevin Webb, president of Pi Kappa Alpha, said historically Greek life seems to fit out-of-state students more.
“When the Legislature passed House Bill 315, we saw a drop in recruitment and so we were glad when they reversed it,” Webb said. “We thought it would take a little while for the word to get out, but the university’s done a really good job of educating freshmen about the Greeks.”
Utah’s Greek system has struggled over the past few years, with enrollment dipping at USU in 2005 to 237 members in 10 fraternities and sororities affiliated with the Greek Council. Membership has been steadily falling since 2001. The official numbers for this year’s recruitment weeks have not yet been tallied.
Despite the friendly competition between fraternities and sororities at USU, Lear said, they all have the same goal of helping the Greek community grow and thrive.
“I think we’re definitely worried,” she said. “We want to keep going, keep growing upwards. Right now is a semester in which I’ve seen a lot of potential.”
Taylor Johnson, president of Delta Sigma Phi, said the fraternity has had the highest recruitment numbers it’s had in years, with 15 new students pledging to join the organization, which currently has 13 members. Johnson said a lack of school support may have hurt Greek recruitment the past few years.
“We haven’t had a lot of school support,” Johnson said. “Maybe they weren’t against us, but they definitely weren’t for us.
“One thing that’s different is the Student Involvement Center has been really helping us out. We’ve had more freshmen coming over than ever before.”
Another thing that has been blamed for Utah students shying away from joining fraternities or sororities is the image of Greek life perpetuated by movies like “Old School” or “Animal House” and TV shows like “Greek.” Webb said he agrees the stereotype has something to do with the low numbers in Utah, but Greeks haven’t publicized the good things they do, such as the charity work every house is required to be involved in, enough to counterbalance that image.
“We as Greeks don’t do a good job of PR,” he said. “We do a lot of good things we don’t tell people about.”
Lear said the Greeks are trying to expand their recruitment efforts to help their falling numbers. She said they are working on year-round recruitment and new ways to get registered with a Greek organization and be involved.
During the recruitment weeks, each house holds a service project for their organization’s sponsored charity, as well as house tours and activities specific to each organization. Johnson said this week Delta Sigma Phi had a sumo wrestling match with rented sumo suits, a root beer kegger, goldfish races, and tonight will have a Guitar Hero and Dance Dance Revolution party. Thursday Sigma Nu invited students to “Beat a Beater,” where they helped destroy a car headed for the junkyard. Pi Kappa Alpha had activities like bowling, ultimate frisbee and mini-golf.
Though this year’s house tours “were complete flops for some reason,” according to Johnson, with only two students showing up to see the houses for all the fraternities, he said other activities put on by the fraternities drew lots of students. The sororities’ house tours, held during Connections Week, had more than 90 students in attendance.
Today the fraternities will be “running the hill,” Webb said. Running the hill is a tradition in which pledges, or rushees, stand at the top of Old Main and run down to join the members of the fraternity of their choice. This ritual used to be where fraternities learned who had decided to join them. Now fraternities know earlier in the week who will be pledging with them.
“It’s just an old tradition,” Webb said. “USU is big on traditions.”
-elizabeth.lawyer@aggiemail.usu.edu