Rush Week is not OKAY time [by a fraternity prez]

Dear friends, brothers, strangers or other:

As the school year inches closer, Rush Week looms large for incoming and returning students alike. Yet the rush process itself seems uber-mysterious and snobbish to non-Greek affiliated students, while the actual selection process is seen as intentionally coy, with often arbitrary results.

I think it’s a huge misstep on the part of fraternity and sorority members alike, that most of us don’t promote mutual respect and transparency in our recruitment process. During my years in Lambda Phi Epsilon (bias disclosure coming soon), we’ve pushed harder every semester to engage rushees as equals and to encourage genuine interactions during Rush Week because it improves the recruitment process for everyone involved. When we get it right, the practice can be summed up as such: We look for future brothers, not future bitches. But it’s always a struggle to fight through the mis-conceptions about Greek life, for both current and prospective members. Just check out the reputation we get from urbandictionary.

The OKAY Myth

I've regularly noticed that many students unfamiliar with Greek life actually believe their designated role in the rush process (if they choose to take part) is Official Kiss-Ass/Yes-man (OKAY). They’re sent chasing after an invitation into an organization that they barely understand. Then they nervously go about the all-too-familiar steps of giving the "right answers," making a good impression on the "right people," and finally staying up all night in their dorm room for that coveted bid... or not.

Further down the road, you’ll find that OKAYs, who excel at “presenting” themselves during rush week, are the same individuals who end up disillusioned or unsatisfied with Greek life, noting: "This wasn't what I expected to find after pledging" or "Wait, why did I waste a semester of college on this?" The problem is that the Greek recruitment process has become a method for singling out candidates who excel at conforming or following, not leading or initiating.

The result of a rush process that rewards OKAYs:

Newly-inducted members with very high but vague expectations (if it's so hard to get into, I guess it's gotta be worth it), who are more inclined towards complacency and following orders, instead of independent thought and initiative.

Fraternity officers who feel more comfortable giving orders to underlings than advancing the group's mission, who can't accurately articulate the organization's goals or values (beyond the standard bullshit), and then feel pressured into trading on Greek life's supposed exclusivity as their selling point to rushees.

And if the process continues, fraternity members fall into either of 2 dangerous traps:

1) they've started to believe their own bull, becoming so absorbed in talking up their "proud traditions" and "founding principles" that they forget about creating real value for current members, or
2) they've become cynical and complacent about doing anything worthwhile or innovative with the fraternity and therefore focus solely on extracting as much entertainment value as possible out of college life before it ends -- symptoms include snorting derisively during rush information sessions, deferring rushees' questions straight to the rush chair or showing up only to parties, yelling “Mah house, bitchess!”

Increased transparency during Rush Week is a win-win for everyone. It yields stronger, happier, more committed brothers, while helping rushees make a fair decision about whether Greek life's right for them. Don't shun the OKAYs in your midst -- the mis-conception isn't their fault. Instead, begin the mentoring process early. Don't passively accept an OKAY attitude, dispel it with questions that elicit genuine responses.

Transparency is an active goal. Without having to be asked (because rushees don't know what questions to ask!), fraternity rush chairs (and everyone else too) should be answering 4 big questions:

1. “What did you accomplish for our members last semester? For the community? For the world?”
Not just keggers and hot girls, I’d hope.

2. “Which chapter alumni do you look to most often as your role models?”
Is it the multinational corporate billionaire CEO, the TV star of a hit reality show or the founder of a non-profit grassroots organization? (I use these examples because my chapter has its pick of all 3)

3. "How many community service events did you have last semester, in proportion to the number of parties you threw?"
This question would probably scare most fraternities shitless. Except for a rare few, most frats throw a party twice a month, but dedicate their time to service only once or twice a semester. I'm not advocating for fraternities to start spending every weekend night at a soup kitchen, but maintaining a healthy service-to-party ratio (as near to 1:1 as possible) is simply a part of developing socially-conscious leaders (which we're sorely lacking in today's world).
The inherent problem is motivation - it's much easier to convince a "frat boy" to show up to a party than to an after-school education program for under-served schoolchildren (one of our events last semester). Focus on what you and your brothers actually care about! Our national philanthropy's the bone marrow drive -- it's easy to care after you realize that ethnic minorities (esp. Asian Americans) in need of a bone marrow transplant have <30% chance of getting a match from the national registry, compared to >80% chance for Caucasians. But we're always on the lookout for new causes to support, like Hep-B research (shout-out @PTS and the charity bball tourney) and community initiatives in Philly.
I'm truly impressed when I meet rushees who come bearing their own cross and are out to make a difference where they can.

4. “What guarantees can you honestly make about the pledging process?”
The most common white- lie I hear about pledging is: “Your schoolwork won’t be affected.” Why even promise that bullshit? The truth about your GPA, regardless of pledging, is that it’s dependent on a combination of personal discipline and the value your social circle puts on academic merit.

In Lambda, we make 3 guarantees about pledging every semester:
1) No alcohol. At all. Not only will you NOT be forced to drink obscene (and sometimes fatal) amounts of liquor, pledges are expected to maintain clear judgment 24/7 during the pledging process by abstaining completely from all mind-altering substances;
2) No physical contact. Inflicting physical abuse onto a future brother goes against our values, not to mention basic human conscience – we’ll never lay a hand (or other) on a pledge; and
3) No violations of personal space. I’ve never confirmed a single rumor about elephant-walks or circle-jerks at any fraternity I’ve encountered, but it sure as hell isn’t happening at mine.
Strangely, I’ve also been asked in recent semesters about pledges being pulled out of class to do menial tasks for brothers – that’d be an unacceptable practice at our chapter. If any one of my brothers needed me for something urgent and I was in class, I’d walk out in an instant. But our pledges are expected to attend all their classes. Unless you’re a rare brother willing to leave class to go help a pledge in need, I don’t think it’s fair to ask that of them.

Obviously, I could continue the self-promotion all day, but the point is: Transparency starts at the top. We do ourselves and our organizations a disservice by not pro-actively refuting the myths surrounding Greek life and by promoting OKAYs. During my short and unremarkable life, I've done a few stints in various leadership positions, where recruitment criteria ran the gamut from athletic talent to musicality to persuasive-speaking skills . Now that I've had the privilege of being the president of a fraternity, I can honestly say:

Rush Week is one of the few times in life that students are given a chance to be more inclusive than exclusive, to distinguish candidates based on their innate potential for positive change instead of on padded resumes or family background, and have a damn good time doing it. If we don't start now, when will we ever?

"Every generation gets a chance to change the world
Pity the nation that won't listen to your boys and girls"

-- U2