Wabash has continued its trend of admitting a large freshmen class that it has cultivated over the last few years. This year’s freshmen class, while not as big as last year, is one of the biggest classes Wabash has ever admitted. As a result the student population is at an all time high, with 908 Wabash men on campus.
Wabash growing in such turbulent times for higher education is cause for celebration, but it has caused some stress on the housing market. With students prepared to part with an arm, leg or lung to get into Martindale, the premium on independent housing is higher than ever. With Independent housing only representing 40% of all housing on campus, the onus has been on fraternities to meet their goals for rush.
Many fraternities have been under constant pressure to reach rush goals set out by college administration. “I think the pressure is almost always the same,” said President of the Interfraternity Council, Kyle Foster ’27. “There’s always that expectation. We need to be filling up fraternities fast and efficiently.”
Going hand-in-hand with increased pressure to meet rush numbers, there seems to be less interest in fraternities across the board. This has caused the perfect storm for a near housing crisis at Wabash College.
“From my perspective, freshmen have been more interested in independent life than ever,” said Phi Gamma Delta Rush Chair, Colton Cooper ’28. “We would put on our rush events and get almost no numbers, and we heard from our freshmen that they were just exhausted from orientation and were fine being in a dorm.”
One factor that has seemingly affected rush heavily this year is the stigma behind fraternities in today’s culture. Fraternities have had to take greater care in combating some of these stereotypes.
“Obviously, parents are always nervous dropping their kid off at a fraternity,” said Foster. “It’s always good to have an alumni, teacher or parent there at these fraternities talking with them. I especially noticed when we had our faculty advisor there, they felt a lot better and if we just have more that these would be better spots for people to go.”
Rush chairs are asking for schedules to be changed to make it easier for new members to make the rounds during rush. “I think the time period when rush occurs needs to be changed or orientation needs to be less grueling,” said Cooper. “I’ll be honest I wouldn’t want to come rush a fraternity after getting through a 12 hour day of being talked at nonstop.”
Still, proponents of rush are adamant at the benefits of the fraternity system and continue to push the importance of getting freshmen into houses outside of just hitting a number.
“I think the fraternity system offers a lot,” said Foster. “You’re obviously engaging with guys in your living unit, but also the alumni who are constantly coming back and engaging with guys as well. I had a great internship this summer. I don’t think that would be possible, or even applied, if I wasn’t in a fraternity.”
The pressure is still on for fraternities to fill up their houses with the constant threat of having independents moved in looming large. Fraternities have had to seriously reevaluate how they look at rush, all the while keeping in mind the reason we want people to join fraternities.
“We are looking to increase brotherhood involvement in our new member process,” said Cooper. “With more in house events and an emphasis on building skills that they need to be successful in college.”