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"Greetings from Arizona!"

February 27, 2005

Greetings from Tucson, Arizona! I write this as news of NASCAR races and of my delayed flight fills the air of the little airport café. I have had the great opportunity to be in Tucson with four other students and two advisors over the weekend for a leadership conference at the University of Arizona. The jet lag was bad enough coming in to Arizona—and I gained two hours from the time change. I’m not eagerly anticipating tomorrow (Monday) morning, but I’ll survive.

The past few weeks have been a whirlwind of events and excitement. I alluded to a few details in my R-Journal earlier this month—and I’m not one to renege on a promise!

First, let’s talk fraternity rush. In fact, let’s talk Greek Rush (the week in which students, generally freshmen, learn about and apply for admission to various Greek organizations) in general. Rollins is different from many colleges in that it has “deferred rush” for the various Greek letter organizations. This means that students wait until spring semester to rush a Greek house. The first semester really gives everyone time to get to know all of the various fraternities and sororities on campus before the crunch time of formal recruitment. Men’s recruitment takes place the second week of the spring semester and women’s rush takes place the following week. While some of my lady friends have certainly told me a bit about women’s rush, I can only give a day-by-day outline of men’s rush. I attempted to participate in women’s rush, but my efforts were hampered by my masculinity. Too bad. No one bought my lobbying; I tried to convince the various sororities that I needed to participate in order to educate my faithful R-Journal readers, but, alas, my efforts went nowhere.

I can’t lie; the first evening of recruitment can really be a drag. All rushees are assigned to particular groups. The various groups then visit the different fraternity houses for 30-minute parties. Upon arriving at these parties everyone receives plenty of great food—but also lots of scrutiny. As the fraternities take a group vote to determine the recipients of their bids (kind of like an offer of admission into the fraternity), it’s important that all of the rushees get out and speak with as many brothers (members of a fraternity) as possible. The food is good, but it’s really not for eating. The first night is your night to make a great impression. After the first night, I think the pressure goes down a bit. For the following nights, no one is mandated to attend an event at a house that he is not interested in. On the second night, potential Greek men can choose which parties to attend. On the third and fourth nights (Wednesday and Thursday), the parties are by invitation. There’s always a bit of tension as all of the guys check their mailboxes for the “oh-so-important” invitations back to their favored fraternal organization. Finally, on Friday night, the bids are announced in a ceremony at the Cornell Campus Center. All of the guys who have been offered bids are informed earlier in the day, but they are not informed of the exact organization offering the bid. Then, if the person decides to formally accept the bid, he meets up with the rest of the organization’s recruiters and his fellow new members. Then the fun begins…as does the pledge process. The pledge process is a trial period of sorts for both the new member and for the fraternity. At any time during this period (normally ranging from six weeks to 12 weeks), the “pledge” can choose to drop the fraternity—and visa versa. During these weeks, the new members participate in a variety of bonding and team-building activities and learn about the vital tenets of the Greek organization.

So, the big question—did I join a fraternity? Yes. Why did I join a fraternity? Well, I really felt that I got along well with the brothers of the fraternity I joined. I would consider my decision to join a fraternity to be very similar to my decision to attend Rollins; things just really felt right. Pledging keeps me busy, but it’s a good kind of busy because I am spending lots of time with some of my best friends on campus. I never really thought I’d join a fraternity, but I think that it’s due to the many stereotypes that I had about fraternities and what they were about. My recommendation: take everything you’ve heard about fraternities with a grain of salt and give them a clean slate upon arriving on campus. Sure, fraternities have some of the greatest social events around—but they do a lot more than simply “party”.

Well, I need to run—not really (our flight was delayed a few hours), but I have a lot of homework to complete, especially considering that we won’t be getting home until 2:30 a.m. I really can’t wait…there’s no better place for me than Rollins. It’s nice to visit different colleges and places throughout the world, but there’s something really comforting about the familiar Rollins campus and family always waiting to welcome me home.

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