The fraternities experienced good numbers at their formal recruitment events this season and anticipate gaining many new members on Walk Night.
“I think we’ve probably had one of the best turnouts I’ve seen in the three years I’ve been here,” said Kegen Trebilcock, Sigma Alpha Epsilon’s recruitment co-chair.
Fraternity walk night is the ending event of recruitment where the potential new members “run” home to their new fraternities.
The number of attendees at the recruitment events for most houses has increased since last year.
“I remember last year when I rushed, there were like only four or five of us there at a time. This year we had like 12 to 15 people at pretty much every event,” said Braxton Davis, Alpha Tau Omega’s recruitment chair.
SAE reported almost two times the amount of potential recruits at their events, and so has Kappa Theta Psi. Lambda Chi Alpha had around 10-12 people at each event, which is about the amount at their events last year.
The fraternity’s formal recruitment ran a little differently this year.
“Before, there weren’t any stipulations to how you ran recruitment events, they just had to be during the recruitment week. Now we have to run events on particular days so we aren’t running an event in the same time slot as another frat,” said Trebilcock.
This new system was meant to encourage everyone going through recruitment to visit all the houses they wanted to, avoid the house’s recruitment events from overlapping and allow those going through recruitment to find their best match.
“We think there’s a lot more people wanting to be involved in something else other than sports or other activities,” said Davis regarding why there are more possible recruits this year.
Adacus Oberry, a first-year going through recruitment, believed many first-years are going through recruitment for housing reasons.
“The people are important for me, but also the building is. It’s the fact I don’t have to spend more on living, and it’s nicer than Kresge,” said Oberry.
Due to the large first-year class, the fraternities were told first-years with single-rooming accommodations may have to move into their houses due to the lack of space elsewhere in dorms.
“We’ve been told we should be recruiting more. We were told that if our rooms were not fully occupied by the end of the semester, they will have to put individuals in our house due to Simpson having to honor single housing accommodations,” said Amanda Orozco, the Master of Recruitment at Kappa Theta Psi.
“We have been encouraged to tell those who are interested in the house to move in so we can avoid the possibility of Simpson putting individuals into our house,” said Orozco.
“We might have the right to choose who we let into the house, they may also tell us to condense down and have people with single rooms combine with others if this happens,” said Nathan Keating, Lambda Chi Alpha’s former recruitment chair, on the issue of possibly having non-members move into the house.
The high numbers of people going through recruitment are a relief to the houses as they might be able to avoid this.
Orozco is hopeful they won’t have to worry about this issue. “It isn’t exactly affecting the way we recruit. Fortunately, numbers are looking good this year.”
Walk night will take place on Sept. 26, and the fraternities will welcome all their new members home.
