October 2004

James Ehrmann • My House

The two weeks I spent in Iowa City this summer prior to the start of classes were some of the best of my life. I’ve always taken great pride in Sigma Nu fraternity, but this year a reinvigorated sense of pride spread like wildfire throughout the house. When a lot of our current seniors pledged Sigma Nu, it was a small- to medium-sized house. Since then, it has become the fastest-growing fraternity on campus, to a point where we are now the third-largest house. This proved advantageous for us going into formal recruitment, since our primary concern didn’t have to be getting big numbers. Instead, we could concentrate on getting quality gentlemen who will advance this house to the next level, something we accomplished rather well with the 13 we gained from formal recruitment.

Formal recruitment is a special time for fraternities and sororities to show their strengths to potential members. Many fraternity houses this year employed different tactics. One house tried to impress the masses with a cleverly placed jeep monument on its front lawn. Another attempted to wow the pants off “rushees” by renting luxury automobiles. Here at Sigma Nu, we pride ourselves on our concrete qualities, things that will stay constant throughout someone’s four or more years here on campus. We like to show “rushees” the character of our members: the pride we have in this house, and the dedication we’ve made to live our lives in honor.

It was a new experience to be on the other side of formal rush week this year. That’s when incoming students visit all the fraternities or sororities and then make a choice about pledging a house or, in many cases, joining the Greek system. Right now, Greeks make up about 13 percent of the student body at the UI.

In fraternity rush, the would-be Greeks see all 18 houses in two days, and then rank them, with the top nine houses ideally being the ones they’d like to return to the next day. Meanwhile, each fraternity goes through a similar process, deciding which "rushees” to invite back. Then, the Inter Fraternity Council compares the picks and gives each student a list of matches the following morning.

One thing that sets our house apart from many others during the cut process is the fact that we use a “one ball” system. This means that if even one person in the entire house has a qualm about a “rushee,” that person is “balled”—not invited. Many other houses use majority systems, where only 51 percent of the members need to approve of someone for that person to be invited back. There’s only one problem: how would you feel walking into a house where 49 percent of the members aren’t all that enthusiastic about your return?

Furthermore, I would venture that Sigma Nu’s rush process is one of the most well structured on campus. Each person in our house is given a role as a primary rusher, secondary rusher, or floater. If a rush group has 14 guys, we’ll have 14 primary rushers who will each match up with one of them during the first speech. They will usually be accompanied by one or two secondary rushers, depending on group size, and the floaters will walk amongst the groups, introducing themselves to at least three different people.

For our house, the biggest factor is assessing the personalities of those “rushees” whom we decide to invite back for the second round. If, in talking to a “rushee,” a primary rusher finds out that that individual is his complete opposite, it is his job to take note of that “rushee’s” interests so that he can be paired up with someone more compatible in the next round. It’s all about making each newcomer meet one or two guys he feels compatible with and supplementing those connections with the chance to meet as many members as time will allow.

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