Duke asks selective groups to pause recruitment planning

Duke is asking selective organizations—including fraternities, sororities and non-Greek selective living groups—to pause planning for recruitment processes until further notice, Mary Pat McMahon, vice provost and vice president for student affairs, and Gary Bennett, vice provost for undergraduate education, wrote in a Thursday email to undergraduates. 

“This pause is in response to the continued University-wide planning regarding residential living for the 2021-2022 academic year, as well as revisiting the risks involved in any type of recruitment and new member efforts for the spring semester,” McMahon and Bennett wrote. “We also have been closely observing how these processes have occurred at peer institutions this fall and want to carefully consider how to keep our community safe through these continued challenges.”

A decision on spring 2021 recruitment will come in mid-November, they wrote. A failure to respect the planning pause—which applies to all recruitment, “in-person or otherwise”—will be a COVID-19 policy violation, with potential consequences for organizations, their leaders or both. 

As the COVID-19 pandemic continues and student activists push for the abolition of organizations associated with the Duke Panhellenic Association and Interfraternity Council, those organizations have already taken a new look at rush plans.