At the University of Maryland Baltimore County (at least until our president gets the name changed, as it is rumoured to be), we are in our second year of “deferred” rush. That is, no incoming student without a college-level GPA based on 12 credit hours or more can be offered a bid to join a sorority or fraternity. No other student organization is so restricted, interestingly enough.

This rule was put into place last year in an effort to “protect” new students from the eeeeevils of Greek life and the low GPAs that come with such involvement. It’s not unique to UMBC, of course, and on the surface, it’s not such a bad idea. After all, who can be against improving grades and academic performance?

But, the first year there were no sanctions against those who violated the rules. When it was made known, there was some grumbling, but basically nothing was done about it. When a chapter was recently disciplined for (among other things) violating the campus regulations on rush and recruitment, the chapter’s national HQ simply told the university leadership that the suspension violated their First Amendment rights, and they were going to ignore the decision and operate anyway. (See my other blog entry for more on that story).

So, I am asking myself, “Why this policy, and why only Greek organizations?”

Of course, we are told that Greek organizations have education programs and activities that take time away from studies. Oh, and the soccer, vollyball, and basketball teams don’t? There is a hip-hop dance club with membership about the size of most chapters on our campus that starts practicing before our chapter meetings and goes on long after we have left the building. This doesn’t take time away from studying?

Has anyone every really studied the impact of Greek life and academics? No, until the True Brother Initiative came along, we’ve never had any kind of measurement attempts.

When I was an undergrad at Butler, we could rush any semester, but we could not be initiated until grades came out and the new semester. This way, there was an incentive to study and make grades, as well as not placing fraternities or sororities behind a wall, compared to other campus organizations. (NB, Butler has since gone to deferred rush, too). I’m not certain that deferring rush is necessarily an impediment on campuses where there are Greek housing units of one form or another, but on a campus where housing is not available, much of the “draw” to Greek life (like better food than the campus food service, for one) to a prospective member just isn’t there.

Do not misunderstand…I am not saying that we are only about good food and social activities. Far from it. What I am suggesting is that there is the issue of “selling the sizzle” and then serving the steak. There is a hurdle that comes with deferred recruitment plans. I would expect that on campuses where the Greek system is relatively young, the impact is greater than on campuses where the Greek life has been the leadership core of the university for a long time.

No answers here…heck, I’m not really sure I have a complaint about deferred recruitment. I’m just waiting to see if this action “for the chilren (sic)” really makes a difference, or if it is just another “feels good, let’s do it” action on our campuses.

This entry was posted on Friday, October 5th, 2007 at 2:33 pm and is filed under Campus Involvment, Chapter, Recruitment, University Relations . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.