Fraternity recruitment will be more formal in an effort to get non-greek members to meet greek members with a new initiative by the Ball State University Interfraternity Council.
This is a change from last year when fraternities only had informal recruitment during one week in the fall.
In 2005 the houses opened their doors and waited for freshmen to come in, making the recruitment process more passive, Delta Tau Delta fraternity President Bob Rutherford said. Fraternities hoped men would just take an interest and see what the houses had to offer, he said.
Beginning today, the formal recruitment period will allow fraternities to have open houses and promote their fraternities through presentations, question-and-answer sessions and discussions while displaying their greek letters. Wednesday and Thursday the houses will be open so potential members can go to the fraternities and learn more about which one they are interested in.
Bidding begins at 5 p.m. at the end of the formal recruitment period. A bid is a written or verbal invitation to join a fraternity.
"Now it's a more involved process and all the fraternities are on an even playing field," Rutherford said. "The changes will give new members more of an opportunity to see all the houses and see which is better and where they want to go. It's all about where they fit in, where they're most comfortable and where they'll get the most out of it."
Last year there was not a formal recruitment period because the president was kicked out of his fraternity and no chairman was available to organize formal recruitment, Jamie Manuel, president of IFC, said.
"The IFC is acting more as a support system," Manuel said. "We wanted to make this change so those interested in going greek can have a better opportunity at finding the right fit."
Formal recruitment was fairly common around the nation, but Ball State had one of the shorter formal recruitment periods of any school. Other schools go one or two weeks but Ball State only has formal recruitment for a couple days, he said.
The North American Interfraternity Conference wanted to keep the recruitment process open with no formal period so fraternities could hand out bids anytime, Manuel said.
"At Ball State we want to keep the formal process so we have three days of no bidding so new members can feel comfortable about where they are going instead of feeling like they need to join at that moment," he said.
Rutherford said the change would be good, but said he would have to wait and see how this recruitment period went.
Other than the three days during the formal recruitment period when bidding was not allowed, the IFC also had a recruitment 365 philosophy where fraternities were always taking in new members with open bidding, Manuel said. The process was informal and relatively new, but the IFC thought there should never be a time when there were not any bids, he said.
TJ Hall, president of Sigma Chi fraternity, said the formal recruitment process was a great thing that could only help the greek system.
"The IFC has made such a good effort at increasing recruitment to 365 days instead of one week, that everything seems to be going in the right direction," Hall said. "Now fraternities have 365 days to show new members about philanthropies and community events throughout the greek system instead of just different things about a particular fraternity."
Without the 365-day process, Manuel said the recruitment efforts to help the greeks grow would not be conducive to the IFC's philosophy.
"This is definitely something new we'll try this year and will evaluate afterwards. I'd love to see it continue because IFC is on the right track."
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