Recruitment Restrictions To The Rensselaer Community:



The Jackson administration recently announced a checklist that heavily restricts the ability of certain Greek organizations to recruit. Rather than relying only on five-star accreditation, the holistic process used to assess the Greek system, the administration chose to make its own checklist of restrictions on rush and recruitment in addition to regular accreditation.



This checklist was approved by Assistant Vice President of Student Life and Dean of Students, Travis Apgar, without involvement of any students, alumni, or faculty. The Greek Life Task Force was not consulted when creating these new recruitment restrictions, which the administration denied existed.



Five-star accreditation uses an over 1000 point scale to hollistically evaluate Greek organizations. The new checklist is out of only 50 points and Greek organizations are required to have 30 in order to be in "good standing" for rush. The average score for all chapters was 25/50.



The new restrictions also require approval by the administration for Greek organizations to recruit new members, even if they are in good standing. In the past, any fraternity or sorority in good standing was allowed to recruit without prior approval by the administration.



All Greek organizations are also required to submit a recruitment plan (essentially a research paper), justifying all rush events and activities. Over-night trips, rush events outside New York, and recruitment activities over eight hours long were also banned by the administration.



The Jackson administration reserves the right to deny any recruitment plan, potentially compromising the traditions and recruitment of Greek organizations.



Alumni and members of Greek organizations are also not allowed to participate in new member intake activities at Greek organizations without taking an online course. To see a Q/A on these issues with the administration please see the following video.



Be aware, these restrictions are already impacting Greek Life.



1. "Meet the Greeks" saw much less freshman attendance this year, even as the Institute welcomed the largest class in RPI history of nearly 1800 students.



2. Four organizations have been informed they do not meet the requirements to participate in new member intake activities due to the restrictions checklist, or 16 percent of Greek Life.



3. Seven organizations are on non-judicial probation by the RPI administration, or 28 percent of Greek Life due to the five-star accreditation process.



Rather than looking to improve Greek organizations, RPI is imposing arbitrary restrictions developed without students and alumni that seek to abolish time-honored traditions, severely limit recruitment, and prevent certain chapters from participating in recruitment at all.

