As the Interfraternity Council prepares to make changes in the recruitment process next week, it seems the days of "dorm storming"--when upperclassmen fraternity brothers swarmed East Campus to hand out personal invites for upcoming events during recruitment--are numbered.
Instead of dorm storming, potential members will go to the Office of Fraternity and Sorority Life to pick up invitations. Other proposed changes include shortening the rush period, instituting alcohol-free dinner and event nights, mandating online sign-ups, offering two IFC presentations about fraternity life, and making Community Service Weekend the first weekend of rush.
Todd Adams, director of OFSL, said he initiated the discussion among IFC members about evaluating the recruitment process but left the details to them.
"They worked very hard and looked concretely and intentionally at the process," Adams said. "Sometimes it's difficult to look inward.... That's been one of the difficulties with our greek community."
IFC President and senior Jeremy Morgan said removing dorm storming was a security issue. "[It's unnecessary] that many upperclassmen guys [are] running around dorms when they're really not supposed to be there," he said.
Senior Peter Liu, assistant vice president for recruitment and pledging, said IFC is investigating alternative ways of facilitating personal interaction during rush, but admitted that any system that eliminated dorm storming would be less personal.
"Dorm storming gave me the opportunity to have contact with the brothers more often and have more interest with the fraternity," said Ross Mitchell, a sophomore in Alpha Epsilon Pi.
Morgan said, however, that many chapters embraced the decision to shorten the recruitment period by one week because they believe the recruitment process is already too extended, even at the cost of spending less time with potential members.
"A lot of chapters are really excited about [recruitment] being a week shorter. It saves chapters money," Morgan said.
Kevin Dugan, an Alpha Tau Omega sophomore, agreed rush can be slimmed, especially since many rushees already know where they want to join. "Having it second semester, a lot of guys have a good idea where they want to go, and it's almost a burden on fraternities to have it that long," he said.
Liu said the proposed alcohol-free evening would allow members to get to know freshmen better. "Since one of the earlier events will be a dry event, brothers will really get to know members, and there won't be a problem of not remembering things because they were intoxicated," he said.
Fraternity members agree the event will make potential members feel welcome if they do not drink. "They want to at least make a statement that every event doesn't have to be [about] alcohol," said senior Matt Baldwin, rush chair of Delta Kappa Epsilon.
Morgan added there will be a new online component to recruitment, through which potential members will provide basic information and their preferred fraternities. "[Online sign-ups] make IFC record-keeping easier and lets the chapters know who's interested in them before rushing even starts," he said.
Liu said online sign-ups will place all potential members on the same database, which will contain correct, readily available information. "In the past, things haven't been as organized as we wanted them to be," he said.
Baldwin said the revamped recruitment process should prevent potential members from falling through the cracks, as an inclusive list of all potential members will be available. Eliminated students will still be on this list and other fraternities can take a look at them if they need more members to fill their quota.
"The whole goal of this year is to attract more people to the rush process," Baldwin said.
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