Students are beginning to have answers for what events fall under recruitment during the dry recruitment period. On Friday afternoon, Jarvis Clark, director of Student Engagement and Development (SED), sent an email to the Fraternity and Sorority Life community to “provide additional clarity” on the dry recruitment period.
Clark attached a Google document outlining the different types of recruitment events and which events the new policy affects, and he specified that the SED team will not be referring to the period as the “red zone” in the future. All recruitment events, including informal events and rush dates, must be substance-free.
These events include:
- Events or parties not listed on the FSL calendar that are promoted by an organization and that invited all potential new members (PNMs)
- Inviting PNMs to a venue or other off-campus event and providing transportation for them
- Attending Bombay’s Bicycle Club after 10 p.m. and inviting PNMs who one only knows through rush
Some students worried that the new policy affects some events, such as birthday parties. The document, however, specifies that this is not the case. Administration outlined a few events that they would not consider recruitment events, including:
- Birthday parties, where a student invites a PNM that they already have a prior relationship with
- Running into a PNM at Bombay’s Bicycle Club, given that a student is not meeting the PNM for recruitment purposes or providing them with alcohol
- Attending an event with PNMs because of a shared interest in something, such as music, given that the PNM did not attend in response to a broad communication to all PNMs and that the student is not using the event for recruitment purposes
- An event that individual members share with their friends or on their personal social media accounts that is not promoted with on-campus flyers
The document also outlined definitions of FSL recruitment terms, such as “rush dates,” “recruitment” and “FSL organizations.”
The SED team provided the “provisional guidelines on how to interpret this change” after feedback from FSL presidents, Greek Council, recruitment chairs, risk chairs and alumni advisers, Clark explained in his email.
In the coming weeks, the team will meet with Greek Council and FSL presidents “to provide the clearest guidance on the events that are and are not impacted.”
“This has been a challenging process, and we appreciate your continued communication, feedback and openness to finding the best path forward,” Clark wrote in the email.
*This story was updated on September 25. This story is a follow-up to “Red zone extension causes commotion.” Continue to check The Trinitonian for updates as our reporting develops.
