The Interfraternity Council has overhauled the fraternity recruitment process to make sure prospective recruits have a chance to tour and learn more about every single house at Syracuse University. 

In addition to requiring students to attend all the fraternities, the new recruitment guidelines extend the process by a day and turn bid night into an in-person event. The process will more closely resemble the formal spring sorority recruitment.

IFC wanted prospective recruits to visit every house after at least 150 men last year didn’t get bids, said Justin Tasolides, vice president of recruitment on the IFC executive board.

‘Recruitment’s a business, and when business isn’t good, the business dies,’ Tasolides said.

During fall recruitment, which starts Oct. 3, a computer system will randomly select prospective recruits and place them into groups of 20 to 25 people. A total of 36 brothers selected from various fraternities on campus will lead each group to all of SU’s houses.

The 36 brothers, known as Rho Chis, are not suppose to wear their fraternity letters or identify which fraternity they are in, according to recruitment guidelines.

The Rho Chis will undergo training in the weeks before recruitment to learn how to lead their groups and answer questions, Tasolides said.

Last spring, recruits had to visit a minimum of six fraternities and get a card stamped for each house. Some houses complained about the number of people coming through their houses, Tasolides said.

‘They didn’t know who was coming at any given time,’ he said. ‘There were too many people coming through their house, so they couldn’t keep track of everyone.’

This year, males will have a set time limit of 30 to 40 minutes to visit each house, Tasolides said.

Recruitment is extended by a day this year so students can visit every house. 

After students visit all the houses, fraternities will log into an online account and list the recruits they want back for Thursday.

Recruits will have their own online accounts, as well, and will be able to use their computers to see which houses invited them back.

‘It makes it easier for us,’ Tasolides said. ‘It makes it easier for them.’

When bid night occurs Oct. 8, the remaining recruits will go to the Martin J. Whitman School of Management and find out which houses gave them bids. In the past, recruits found out their bids online.

Each fraternity will be placed in 19 rooms around campus. Recruits will enter the room of the fraternity they intend to pledge and hand the representative brothers a blue card, which will have the student’s name and the fraternity he chooses.

With this new recruitment system in place, Tasolides said it is a better way to get to know different fraternity members.

He said: ‘You might find something that you never thought you would.’ 

mcboren@syr.edu

Published on September 22, 2010 at 12:00 pm