What is Recruitment Theory?

"Recruitment Theory" is the working title of the massive piece I'm working on about fraternity recruitment at MIT. I started it in the fall of my junior year and have been writing ever since (albeit, somewhat sporadically). Now that I'm a graduate, I feel like I should finally sit down and chug away until I finish it. The plans for the final version? Hopefully some sort of publication, but we'll cross that bridge when we get there.

The outline of the piece is as follows (sorry for the formatting...HTML hates outlines):

Preface

I. Recruitment
A) Definitions
...- Types of recruitment
...- Types of joiners
...- Terms for Rush
...- [...]
B) Passive Recruitment
...i. Branding
...ii.Reputation
.......- Types of reputation
.......- Changing reputation
...iii.Alignment
...iv.Passive Recruitment - So What?
C) Active Recruitment
...i. Spring Recruitment
......a. Model
......b. Solving at the IFC level
......c. Tackling at the chapter level
.........i. Three idealizations
.........ii.Practical execution
......d. Miscellaneous notes
......e. [Dormitory effects] (Probably to be axed)
......f. [Pledging sophomores] (Outdated; probably to be axed)
......g. Final thoughts
...ii.CPW
...iii.Summer recruitment
...iv.Rush
......- Importance at MIT
......- Types of Rush
......- Stages of Rush
...v.Active in summary
D) Who, What, When, Why, How of Recruitment
...i. Who - like vs. unlike
...ii.What - house vs. fraternity
...iii.When - all year (Really stupid; probably to be axed)
...iv. Why - reasons we care about getting new members
...v. How
......- Two apparent paradoxes
......- Resolving the paradoxes
......- Miscellaneous notes
E) Recruitment Unpredictability
...- Intro
...- Internal unpredictability
...- External unpredictability
...- Reducing probability of unpredictability

II.Rush
A) Pre-Rush
...i. Extrahouse affairs
......a. Orientation and leaders
......b. Preorientation and FPOPs
......c. First contact with freshmen
......d. Frosh Mentalities I
......e. End-of-week goals
......f. Selling Rush
...ii.Intrahouse affairs
......a. Rush Chair
......b. Event planning
.........- Selecting proper events
.........- Types of events
.........- Layout of the week
...iii.Motivation
...... a. Via Rush outlook
.......b. Via incentives
B) The Rush Week
...i. The Beginning
......a. The Greek Griller and its aftermath
......b. Jaunts
......c. Other events
......d. General early Rush notes and goals
......e. Frosh Mentalities II
...ii.Midweek
......a. Maintaining the mood
......b. Midweek goals
......c. Frosh Mentalities III
......d. Personnel Micromanagement
.........- Retention and passing
.........- Hiding members
.........- Mixing potential flushes with potential bidsmen
......e. The preliminary Power Rush
...iii.Endgame
.......a. Frosh mentalities IV
.......b. Dorm paradox (not sure about this)
.......c. Crossrushing
.......d. Bid Day
.......e. The Clincher Jaunt
.......f. The Power Rush
.......g. Pledge Day
.......h. Beyond pledge day
.......i. [frosh mentalities V?]
C) Special Topics (subject to a reorganization)
...i. Clearinghouse
...ii.Rush rules
...iii.Rush shirts
...iv.Sophomore un-jinx
...v. Event advertising
...vi.Rush girls
...vii.Rush meetings
...viii.Prisoner's dilemma of event planning
...ix.Giveaways (events)
...x.The Speed Rush
D) Conclusion

III. Retention
[...]

Conclusion

The purpose of this log is to keep you updated on my progress as well as to gather input from you. I will rarely (stress the rarely) post the actual text here, since I'm a little OCD about drafts floating around.