Spring Rush was in full swing last week, transforming the highly-trafficked Breezeway on the Boca campus into a giant bowl of Greek alphabet soup. Unfortunately for these Greeks, only about five percent of the student body finds this flavor appealing.
“We need to give frats a better name,” says Beta Theta Pi member Haseeb Khan, who thinks that the stigma associated with fraternities may be driving away potential pledges.
Unlike in the movies, there is more to fraternity life than drinking beer and getting babes. Members often participate in community service projects, such as volunteering with underprivileged children, Khan said.
Students involved with Greek Life also have the opportunity to hand out those laminated flyers which, as we all know, cannot fit comfortably in a pants pocket even if folded. These flyers have the uncanny ability to end up on the floor, creating a patchwork of bold colors and words – which are too small to read while standing – in otherwise drab campus hallways.
This may not be the best way to advertise, but many FAU fraternities are running out of options.
“The tables don’t work,” said Pi Kappa Alpha member Mike Murphy as he stood by his fraternity’s table in the Breezeway, just steps away from all the other Rush tables. Murphy explains that Spring Rush is generally a “cleaning up” of the potential pledges his frat, also called the Pikes, missed in the fall. Murphy would like to see individual fraternities and sororities teaming up to draw in more student interest, and says the fraternity and sorority tables may work if they were spread throughout campus.
Raul Kapoor of Beta Chi Theta says student interest would increase dramatically with the addition of Greek housing, which FAU does not currently provide. This sentiment was echoed by nearly all the other fraternities.
Theta Phi Alpha, a campus sorority, faces a different dilemma than its male counterparts.
Kristina Konopka says they do not have enough spots available in Theta Phi for all the girls who have expressed an interest in joining. Konopka would like to see the membership quotas for her sorority raised to meet the supply and demand.
With Spring Rush coming to a close, each fraternity and sorority represented in the Breezeway received several new pledges and many other students expressing a sincere interest in joining. At a university with twenty thousand undergraduate students, though, the turnout could be much greater.
Why are so many students apathetic toward Greek Life? There is no definite answer. But FAU’s fraternities and sororities say they’re doing everything in their power to change that statistic.
