Spring Break
Sororities surge as fraternities falter
Sororities attract largest pledge numbers in three years; fraternities see drop-off
Issue date: 2/21/08
To increase fraternity awareness, both Beta Theta Pi and Sigma Alpha Epsilon held popular poker nights, while Alpha Delta Phi tried a rock-paper-scissors tournament this year.
"We generally have an open house event, where we serve pizza and wings to freshmen," Jack Funk ('09), president of Sigma Alpha Epsilon, said.
"We always vary our events to appeal to a wide range of people. Paintball is always our most popular event," Matt Wasserman ('10), rush chair for Beta Theta Pi said. The fraternity is content with the number of pledges it received this year, 10, down from 12 last year.
"We anticipated a number slightly higher than the one we received, but we are nonetheless happy with the size," Wasserman said.
Beta also had 10 pledges in spring 2006.
Although none of the fraternities have official quotas, most anticipate a certain number of pledges each year. "We usually budget for about 20 pledges," King said. "We try to concentrate on quality of pledges, but we're also interested in quantity. We want our fraternity to grow."
"We take it on a year to year basis," Funk said. "Just trying to determine the numbers out there."
On the other hand, the Panhellenic Council establishes a quota for each of its four sororities. This year, all sororities except for Kappa Kappa Gamma exceeded the quota.
The quota, Meinert explained, is determined by dividing the total number of rushing women by four. This year, the quota was 39, while last year it was 32. "There was an unprecedented increase of the number of people going through the recruitment process," Meinert said.
Rob Turning, coordinator of Greek Life, partly attributed the increase in sorority involvement to a Facebook group set up for female students interested in rushing. "We had 130 freshmen women join the group, wanting to know more about the organizations," Turning said.
Last year, the Panhellenic Council had 115 pledges. This year it has 149.
Turning said more students are making their affiliations known, which also raises awareness of Greek life. "A few years ago, Greek life was something that happened in a basement somewhere. Now, you see a lot more sorority handbags and big Greek letter sweaters," he said.
"We generally have an open house event, where we serve pizza and wings to freshmen," Jack Funk ('09), president of Sigma Alpha Epsilon, said.
"We always vary our events to appeal to a wide range of people. Paintball is always our most popular event," Matt Wasserman ('10), rush chair for Beta Theta Pi said. The fraternity is content with the number of pledges it received this year, 10, down from 12 last year.
"We anticipated a number slightly higher than the one we received, but we are nonetheless happy with the size," Wasserman said.
Beta also had 10 pledges in spring 2006.
Although none of the fraternities have official quotas, most anticipate a certain number of pledges each year. "We usually budget for about 20 pledges," King said. "We try to concentrate on quality of pledges, but we're also interested in quantity. We want our fraternity to grow."
"We take it on a year to year basis," Funk said. "Just trying to determine the numbers out there."
On the other hand, the Panhellenic Council establishes a quota for each of its four sororities. This year, all sororities except for Kappa Kappa Gamma exceeded the quota.
The quota, Meinert explained, is determined by dividing the total number of rushing women by four. This year, the quota was 39, while last year it was 32. "There was an unprecedented increase of the number of people going through the recruitment process," Meinert said.
Rob Turning, coordinator of Greek Life, partly attributed the increase in sorority involvement to a Facebook group set up for female students interested in rushing. "We had 130 freshmen women join the group, wanting to know more about the organizations," Turning said.
Last year, the Panhellenic Council had 115 pledges. This year it has 149.
Turning said more students are making their affiliations known, which also raises awareness of Greek life. "A few years ago, Greek life was something that happened in a basement somewhere. Now, you see a lot more sorority handbags and big Greek letter sweaters," he said.
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Jeremiah
posted 2/22/08 @ 5:03 PM EST
I don't know if this has been explained previously, but as an outsider, I'm curious why the JHU athletics department forbid its students from pledging fraternities. (Continued…)
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