Men’s Greek life on campus grew larger on Feb. 1 with the Interfraternity Council (IFC) finishing up its Formal Recruitment process. Almost 50 guys went through the process.

At first, the sign-up for recruitment was low, causing concern for fraternities’ growth. Concerns were high among the IFC and it’s president, Neil Daly. “There were definitely concerns, most important for me was making sure kids signed up and ensuring everything went smoothly,” said Daly. Chapter sizes have always been significantly lower at Spring Hill than state schools but that comes with the smaller student body so getting recruitment numbers up has been a problem for the IFC.  

But with this year’s recruitment having more guys signed up than last year, IFC was really satisfied with their performance. Daly went on to say “we had 15 more guys sign up which was fantastic to see especially with the rise of more and more commuter students.  To me, seeing an increase in Rushees is a great sign for next year and the years to come.”

Greek Life has been a hot topic in recent years. In fact, Spring Hill SGA candidates have been pushing for greek housing, which has been non-existent for greek life members since the late 20th century. Many believe that no housing for greek life hurts the campus overall. The topic that was brought up two years ago during the SGA Presidential debate, but was quickly shut down. Countless cases of radical hazing across the nation, and the revolving door of our Student Affair and Student Involvement positions hasn’t helped public relations for the campus. Spring Hill hasn’t had the warmest welcome toward the progression of Greek Life. But the IFC president wished the best for the college’s fraternities and many believe he did a great job with his position.

With the difficulties of Greek Life support on campus, Daly commented on the production of the rush process saying “setting up the rush process was interesting, there were parts of it that were really easy, and other aspects that became difficult. The fiasco the morning of the rush with not having designated holding rooms for each fraternity was a lot to handle, but thanks to the help of the other guys on IFC, it was a slight setback and we were able to figure it out.  There weren’t any issues with school administrations, Kevin Abel and Ashley Russell were a huge help to us and were willing to assist in any way they possibly could.” The problem with the holding rooms was because the original rooms in Byrne were labeled as “not usable” for disclosed reasons according to Daly.

But Spring recruitment is over for Spring Hill and the new members have begun their strides towards initiation. Many considered this year as a huge success for recruitment, Daly finished saying “yeah, I do believe it was a success. Each organization did well and got some great guys to add to their chapter.”