Throughout the fall the Hilltop is thrown into a state of mass chaos where first-year women are all too eager to impress sorority members. These first-years, overwhelmed with the constant charade they must keep up, don’t pay attention to their slipping grades and increasingly slutty ways. Active sorority women hold posts outside of Hughes-Trigg and residence halls waiting to pounce on their next first-year victim – petting and doting on her like a kitten, which is a waste of time that could have been spent bonding with their sisters or enjoying college life. All of this because of SMU’s deferred recruitment policy.
On the other hand, fraternities benefit from spring recruitment by enjoying a semester of continuous drunken partying. First-year men are courted with the promise of booze, babes and eventually a bid. Without the stringent rules that the sororities have in place, fraternities laugh in the face of good judgement.
Social events, intramurals and even classes are turned into recruitment tools, making the semester unbearable.
President Turner’s reasoning for deferred recruitment is to give first-years time to settle in before the process begins. But how are they supposed to settle in if they are constantly trying to impress the upperclassmen?
Perhaps Turner has a point, and beginning recruitment at the start of the fall could be overwhelming for first-years who are away from home for the first time. But these same first-years are poorly served by the current system, which puts them on display for a semester’s worth of greek window shopping.
Allowing a recruitment during fall break would be a fair compromise. It would still give the first-years almost two months to settle in while postponing the disruptive process of recruitment, which bars greek students from truly socializing with the prospective members.
While some might complain that this would involve giving up their fall breaks, look at it this way: To go through recruitment in the spring, first-years have to be back Jan. 6, a week before school starts. Why not move the process up to fall break so that the first-years can find their home and everyone can focus on classes and enjoying the company of all other students, without worrying that being nice to a stranger may land you in trouble for violating the arbitrary rules of recruitment.
