Why Recruitment Theory?

Although I've explained what this project is, I have yet to explain why it got started to begin with. The following is is revised version of the original prologue:

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My interest in fraternity recruitment was born in January of my freshman year in 2005. I had volunteered to help the IFC Recruitment Chair with his Spring Recruitment campaign, so I found myself coming back for IAP early to assist him with a few projects. During this time I was introduced to Dave Stollman, the most well-known fraternity recruitment strategist. After his workshops and lectures (both of which stressed the importance of abandoning Rush and moving to continuous recruitment) I quickly realized that this area was a lot more complex than I had initially thought.

Jump to a year later. After attempting to tackle "Spring Recruitment" and seeing Rush from the affiliated side for the first time, I threw my hat in the ring and ran for IFC Recruitment Chair. I won this election and saw it as my opportunity to take the focus solely off of Rush and expand it to year-round recruitment. Unfortunately, after weeks of brainstorming I realized that this was not an easy problem. In fact, it seemed like every tip and trick Stollman offered just didn't apply to MIT. I ended up writing my thoughts down in an essay called "The Spring Dilemma".

Now, since Freshmen on Campus was only 3 rushes old, there was still a big burden on my position and Exec as a whole to find ways to boost numbers to pre-FoC levels. The FSILG office offered their assistance by hiring a group to come in a give a 13-hour course (over two sessions) called "Recruitment Boot Camp." All rush chairs were invited to attend. I went in with an open mind, but you can imagine my dismay when I found out the program was created by Mr. Stollman. "Please," I thought, "Be tailored to our school." But alas it was not. In fact, the facilitator continuously ignored and brushed aside our dorm situation. It wasn't until the morning of the second day that she said, “So I heard that dorms aren’t very receptive to Greeks…” which sent all of us into a fit of annoyed laughter. Now she realizes. Her comment essentially invalidated the whole first day of the program.

The whole first day. Six hours. Wasted.

My evaluation of Recruitment Boot Camp was that the facilitators were nice but the subject matter was irrelevant. Why couldn’t any of the “experts” tailor a presentation to the needs of MIT Greeks? Why couldn’t they use their knowledge to help us with our problems? This all annoyed me considerably.

Afterward, the IFC faculty advisor asked me if I would be interested in creating a program for our guys, to which I replied no; I hate seminars myself, so there’s no way I’d force my peers to endure me rambling for hours on end. I instead revised "The Spring Dilemma" and kept to writing other brief recruitment essays.

Now leap to right after Rush in 2006. I had written "Rush Memoirs" (after a joking suggestion from an older brother of mine) the previous year, and I planned on doing it again. I started when Rush began so I had real-time notes, but something interesting happened when I tried to wrap up my thoughts at the end of the week. The Memoirs from 2005 were mostly anecdotes and stories of things that happened. This 2006 version included some of that, but it also starting venturing into a number of "big picture" concepts and instructions on how to do things properly. Memoirs were not the place for that material. But what was?

Then I remembered "The Spring Dilemma" and the other recruitment essays I had written. I also recalled my advisor suggesting I hold a seminar. And then it all clicked. I still wasn't sold on the seminar idea, but what about a manual? A book of sorts to guide MIT Greeks down the right path to obtaining new members? Something which could address our problems and needs? Hmm...

And just like that, Recruitment Theory came to be.

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Interesting to note is how it all grew out of a piece on Spring Recruitment. This is painfully clear if you were to look at the draft of Part II: Active Recruitment (if you can't already tell from the outline). One of my biggest challenges continues to be the smoothing down of the Spring section so it fits in properly with everything else.

Anyway, I'm going to leave you with that. I'm taking a break from Recruitment Theory to work on the second draft of a piece I'm writing on my chapter's history (oh, and to finish my master's thesis).

The Recruitment Breakdown

So here's the hierarchical recruitment model I've come up with:

• At the top we have recruitment, which refers to fraternities doing that which results in new members.
• This can be divided into passive and active recruitment. The passive sort relates to how our day-to-day operations are perceived, while active recruitment is just as it sounds: actively trying to increase our ranks.
• The most complex method of active recruitment is rush. Rush can be broken into what I have been referring to as passive and active rush. Passive rush is essentially what's done during Orientation, whereas active rush is what begins with the Greek Griller (also known as Rush).
• But there's yet one more level of depth! Active rush consists of two different flavors too. The bulk of the week is indirect rush, where we entertain freshmen with fancy events, free food, and so on. And then the final days are direct rush, where the flashiness goes away and we talk to rushees explicitly about pledging.

But here's a problem. "Passive" and "active" rush are poor terms for what I'm trying to describe. Can you think of anything better? And from a grammatical angle, when should "Rush" be a proper noun?

Status Update: 2.16.10

I did some work yesterday on the following:

> CPW (Active Recruitment) - Went a little into how our goals during CPW don't necessarily align with the task Admissions gives us, and that we must compromise the two.

> Rush (Active Recruitment) - Finally found something to put here! I outlined the three Rush stages, going from the "Meet-and-greet" to "Hanging out" to finally sealing the deal with serious "power rushing".

The updated outline should be coming soon.

EDIT (10pm): The outline in the first post has been updated, and a permanent link is at the top of the right sidebar. I'll just keep modifying it when the structure changes.

Back to the grind

It's been a long time since the last update, hasn't it? But it's somewhat misleading since I have been working on Recruitment Theory, albeit much less I would have liked. But after participating in my final Rush this past Fall, I'm sure that I have enough material and experience to finish the first draft. So expected completion date: August 2010.

It's funny that I've restarted RT now. I'm at crunch time for my master's thesis and I'm in a draft phase on a piece about my chapter's history. This probably isn't the best time for this, but I suppose RT gives me the opportunity to relax.

Oh yes, a little on the August deadline. I plan on taking a summer-long break before I start work, so I'll have hours and hours of time to burn. If I can't finish RT under those circumstances then I won't finish it ever (even with baseball as a distraction...)

Enough about that; onto the text. I'll post an updated outline later, but here's a brief description of the things I worked on yesterday:

> The Rush Week
The first pass of "The Beginning" is complete. I also moved onto "Midweek" and better organized the outline for "Endgame". There will also be discussion on what I've termed the "Power Rush" in the latter section. This refers to having those serious talks with bidsmen on the eve of pledging.

> Rush Special Topics
Wow. Since my last update, this section has changed a lot. I'll save the full description of that for the new outline.

Also, I did a lot of miscellaneous formatting and touched up a few sections.