With the end of formal sorority and fraternity recruitment, initial numbers show sororities are down 79 and fraternities are down 19 from last year.
Both sororities and fraternities will continue to add new members, but fraternities hope they will get enough men to exceed last year's total.
For the Ball State University greek community, this means sororities recruited a smaller group of more dedicated women, and fraternities' new recruitment procedures for produced more interested men.
Despite the efforts of the Panhellenic Council to personalize sorority recruitment with longer conversation periods to allow women to know each other better, this year, only 156 women were recruited, compared to 235 last year.
This could be due to an increase in academic requirements, Cara Luyster, assistant director of Student Life, said, and because potential recruits were told the time commitment for being in a sorority at the beginning of recruitment.
Despite lower recruitment numbers, Luyster said student reaction made the recruitment a success.
"We'll have to sit down and evaluate everything, but I'm pleased to see the women so excited," she said.
Even though the numbers were down, the only thing that mattered was matching women to the most appropriate sorority, Sarah Aldridge, Panhellenic Council president, said.
"Kori Knoll, vice president of recruitment chairwoman, put so much work into everything," Aldridge said. "I didn't have to worry about recruitment. I cared about the week, obviously, but I couldn't think more highly of the job she did."
While the numbers for fraternities last year include recruits for the entire Fall Semester, Marino Solorio, the Interfraternity Council recruitment chairman, said 141 men were recruited during just formal week, compared to the 160 recruited during the entire 2005 Fall Semester.
So far, it seems like the fraternities will have more recruits, which can be attributed to an increase in public relations compared to previous years, Solorio said.
"In the past, the Panhellenic Council and the IFC gave out a greek book to inform interested members what greek life was all about," he said. "This year the IFC had their own book that included a map showing where the fraternities are located and contact information for the fraternities."
The fraternities reinstated formal recruitment, which was not used last year, so men could learn about and meet members from every fraternity.
The fraternities held an open house before formal recruitment began to allow interested members to meet all the fraternities and then will have 365 days of recruitment to give interested men an opportunity to join a fraternity.
Like the Panhellenic Council, Solorio said the IFC would evaluate the recruitment procedures to see if additional changes should be made for recruitment.
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