Greek organizations on campus will once again have the chance to fill their ranks, this time in a more relaxed atmosphere.

The greek community is in the middle of its fall rush, allowing upperclassmen who passed up on the greek system their freshman year a second chance to get into greek life.

‘There are a number of first-year students that want to take their first year and focus on academics and meeting people,’ said Josh McIntosh, senior administrator for the Office of Greek Life and Experiential Learning.

Fall rush is less formal than spring rush because it is organized by each individual chapter house instead of the council it belongs to. Fraternities and sororities will hold informational meetings and allow interested students to approach them, McIntosh said.

Each council gives a different name to the fall rush period. The Panhellenic Association calls it continuous open-bidding, the Interfraternity Council calls it rush and the Latino Greek Council, the Multicultural Greek-Letter Council and the National Pan-Hellenic Council call it intake. Each professional, honor and service fraternity is accepting new members on a case-by-case scenario. While OGLEL doesn’t regulate whether a house can take on new members, it mandates that the initiation process can’t last longer than six weeks.

Some greek groups have already wrapped up their rush. The Panhellenic Association’s recruitment process ended successfully early this week. Two of the 12 chapters in the Panhellenic Association participating in continuous open-bidding drew 18 prospective pledges. Two of the sororities, Phi Sigma Sigma and Pi Beta Phi, organized informational socials to get to know their prospective sisters.

‘It was a great time for the girls to get to know about the sorority and what they do,’ said Sofia Hassan, a senior political science major and president of Syracuse University’s Panhellenic Association.

The association’s continuous open-bidding is for the social chapters that didn’t fill their recruitment quota of 44 girls last spring or don’t have a chapter total of 75 members. Final bids were due Sept. 21 at midnight.

Fraternities in the IFC have yet to start their rush process but will do so with a Rush Expo tonight at 7 p.m. at the Schine Underground. Matthew Goodman, a junior newspaper major and IFC rush chair, feels that fall rush is given an informal atmosphere because it caters to an older audience.

‘These guys have been on campus for a year already, and so they have a better idea of what fraternity they want to join,’ Goodman said.

Unlike the Panhellenic Association, the Interfraternity Council has all 18 of its chapters participating in fall rush period.

‘We’re expecting more students than usual to rush this fall because of some disappointing numbers last spring,’ Goodman said.

Goodman attributes the poor turnout to the Greek System’s poor reputation throughout the community, and to little publicity and the fact that unrecognized fraternities can take in students at any time.

Published on September 17, 2003 at 12:00 pm