Next semester will be the first opportunity for current first-year students to join a social fraternity or sorority. Because of this, the Greek organizations are gearing up for a productive recruitment period. The Interfraternal Council (IFC) has planned various events in order to educate students about Greek life.

One major event will be Meet the Fraternities night, which will be held in early January. Kurt Oblinger, a senior management major and the public relations officer for the IFC, sees this event as a big opportunity for first-year students.

'Just going to events like this, you won't learn much about an individual organization, but you're networking, meeting new friends, and possibilities are there to find something that you find that complement your own values and beliefs,' he said.

While Meet the Fraternities actually debuted this past semester, it was not very successful. Oblinger cites lack of advertising as the major reason for the failure. He and other IFC members have many plans for getting students, particularly freshmen, to come out to the event in January. Poster boards, flyers, banners, pamphlets, and even going door to door in residence buildings are the keys to promoting this event.

One of the major differences between Meet the Fraternities night and a rush event hosted by a fraternity or sorority will be the objectivity and comparison in the same night.

'In the past, you had a lot of people basing their decisions solely on who had the best free food as the reason for going to a rush event at a fraternity house,' Oblinger said. 'This will provide [students] with the values and beliefs behind each fraternity, so that they can make the proper choice, and narrow their selection.'

He added that the goal of the IFC is to increase Greek life and participation, not to promote a specific fraternity. For this reason, when they come around to the dorms to speak to students, they will not be wearing fraternity letters.

Oblinger is himself a fraternity brother of Sigma Nu. While he does believe that he would have joined this fraternity regardless, he wishes he would have had an event such as Meet the Fraternities when he was deciding on what fraternity to join.

'I would have been able to see a lot more of the fraternities,' he said. 'I didn't get to learn what the [other fraternities] were about or what they could offer me.'