Ethan Hill ’26 and Christopher Royal ’26 talk to a new student about Wabash during Ringing In Saturday on August 19, 2023.
Fraternity rush officially wrapped up this past Sunday for the fall 2023 semester, marking an end to a process that began at the last Scarlet Honors weekend. Throughout this time, the Interfraternity Council (IFC), along with individual houses, hosted events in hopes of achieving their rush goals for the semester.
This year, the Interfraternity Council set the goal of achieving 70 percent involvement in Greek life for the class of 2027. The class of 2026 currently sits at 58 percent Greek, so fraternities had work to do to try and outdo themselves.
“Unfortunately we did not hit the goal of 70 percent, but we knew it would be really difficult to meet that mark,” said Brett Driscoll ’24, IFC President. “We came in at 59 percent Greek this year, which is still solid.”
While Wabash fraternities did not reach the 70 percent goal this year, the class of 2027 speaks to a potential positive shift in Greek life on campus. With the class of 2025 at nearly 40 percent Greek, the last two years of rush have set fraternities on track to reach the 70 percent mark in the near future.
One reason why fraternities did not meet the involvement goal of the IFC this year lies with individual houses not meeting their rush goals.
“Only five out of the ten houses actually met their rush goals this year,” said Driscoll.
This may be due to the seeming lack of interest from the freshman class when it came to rushing a fraternity during the first week on campus.
“I can’t sit here and say that houses didn’t put their best foot forward, because that’s what I saw this year,” said Driscoll. “For the first time ever we had a rush kickoff event, and not a ton of freshmen took advantage of that.”
This lack of interest could be attributed to downward national trends regarding fraternities, but Driscoll thinks that this isn’t the only reason that some houses weren’t able to reach their goals.
“While we did more events in regards to prospective students visiting, we didn’t get a chance to do some events like boat races at Scarlet Honors Weekend,” said Driscoll. “I think that could have hurt us.”
Though half of Wabash fraternities missed their rush goals, certain houses, such as Phi Kappa Psi, managed to excel this year once rush was settled.
“Phi Kappa Psi really stuck out, they went from 8 to 20 accepts in the past year,” said Driscoll. “They realized that the pressure was on, so they buckled down and attacked the situation at hand.”
Overall, this year’s rush process proved to be another year of growth for Greek life at Wabash, and the IFC plans to keep this growth going.
“The improved communication along with relationships being built earlier this year needs to continue,” said Driscoll. “We need to continue to show future Wabash men that Greek life is different here, instead of just telling them.”