Indiana University New Recruitment
 

As everyone knows, IU does rush in a strange way in more than one aspect. One of the aspects, other than bed rush is that we do 21 party the weekend before finals and then conduct the rest of recruitment after winter break ends. This year, IU will push all of recruitment to after winter break.

There's an article in the IDS that talks more in detail about it. https://www.idsnews.com/news/mobile/story.aspx?id=91714


Personally I'm really excited about this change!

Personally, I am not excited about this change. For many reasons. On a selfish level? Because before I would go down for the weekends and just be away from my family. Now I have to burn vacation time so that I can be there for 21 party (I don't live close enough to drive back and forth every day).

Also, I think the schedule is just too grueling. 11 parties one day, 10 the next, 7 the next and then 7 more on day 4. With no breaks.

Wait, what? I thought the initial 21 party day was in November, like right after Thanksgiving. When does the semester end?

The semester ends around the third week of December- however IU has this thing called "dead week" which is the last week of classes- the last week of the semester is finals week (the third week of Dec.). So recruitment this year was the first weekend in December, however it was the Saturday and Sunday before dead week.

Many professors will have projects and papers due during dead week instead of giving finals. So the complaint from the student newspaper was that with recruitment the weekend before dead week, the women couldn't finish their projects and papers, and therefore PHC was hypocritical to put so much emphasis on grades and then take up the weekend before dead week with recruitment.

Not like everyone didn't know when recruitment was scheduled months in advance. I know for my girls, those that had papers and projects due had them finished BEFORE 21 party. So basically, this change was a pander to the bad press from the newspaper.

They did give PHC a choice, either all deferred or 21 party during fall break in October. PHC voted on all deferred.

I am going to show my age here, when I was an active we had 21 party but it was done over three days. We had 5 parties on Friday night, 9 parties on Saturday and 7 parties on Sunday. Those last two or three parties on Sunday were rough. We were tired, the rushees (yes, they were called rushees back then) were tired. I just don't see the logistics of having 21 party in two days. It will be grueling, at best. Recruitment will have to be spread out over two weekends in January.

I completely agree with FR, the change is totally pandering to the bad publicity encountered last December. As a Greek and a journalism major from IU, the student newspaper has historically been highly critical of Greek life in general. The level of negative press open house round received last year did NOT surprise me in the least.

Is it true that IU is thinking about adding another group since there are still too many PNMs not being matched? Maybe Sigma Kappa?

Yes, IU is open for expansion again.

I personally am not a fan of the switch to all after winter break recruitment. This is going to be brutal on the actives, given how little sleep we already got without 21 party being included. Having to tear down and re-set up the entire house after each round...I shudder to think at doing this again. It's like hazing for the actives, and totally pandering to the non-greek community

ETA: I think that girls who haven't yet been through recruitment on the actives side will have a different opinion--I know all the newest members were soooooooooooo excited for recruitment, then after going through it once, their opinions are different. You're still excited, but you also realize how brutal of an experience it is

IU is open for expansion. Any NPC chapter interested will have to submit an interest packet and go from there. There are only 5 groups not represented at IU already.

One just decided not to colonize at IU, so there are only 4 possible NPC groups left to colonize/ re-colonize.... right?

Right, but they could always re-submit. It's IU...stranger things have happened.

Since we don't have a "like" button, I'll just quote this and say DITTO!

I know there's lots of back and forth about the non/virtues of deferred recruitment, but I really think with this number of chapters represented, there's going to have to be a serious change in process. Maybe 2 rounds (and I still think round 1 should be 3 days at this school, and round 2 should be at least 2 days) happen in first semester and the final rounds after. Or Rounds 1 and 2 before school starts and the next rounds happening over the next 1 or 2 weekends. The first 2 rounds are the most brutal, so at least that would help.

Technically, this is what they are doing. They have 21 party on a Thursday and Friday before school starts. Then 14 party is that Saturday and Sunday. Then school starts on Monday, and the following Saturday is 8 party and 3 party (preference) is Sunday. The problem is the Thursday-Friday-Saturday-Sunday part. That is 35 parties over 4 days. That's more parties than most schools have for all of recruitment.

With a complete re-decorate tear-down and set up somehow occurring between 6pm on Friday and 8 am Saturday. Not to mention membership selection somewhere in there. 14 party is skit round- which means a stage, lighting, etc. has to be set up on Friday night. After a day of 10-11 parties.

Could they change skits to 8 party instead of 14? Then there would be less set up and tear down. If they did house tours on 14, the house would just require a good cleaning but no stage or lighting.