The Fall 2011 Recruitment Week hosted by San Diego State’s Interfraternity Council organizations was radically different from previous years because of a recent restructuring of its recruitment process and a new level of involvement by IFC members.

The IFC is the governing body of the nationally recognized fraternities at SDSU.

The changes in rush week were organized and implemented by IFC Recruitment Director Barzeen Barzanji and IFC President Matt Cecil, who explained they were created to formalize the process and make it more professional.

In previous years, the process of getting a bid was far more haphazard; houses handed out paper bids that were often given to ineligible students or those with no intentions of joining a fraternity. Students would become “lost” in the process of handing out bids; they were misplaced or lost, and many students would never receive bids because of a lack of organization within different chapters.

The new process requires students to register online at the SDSU website, an idea adopted from other university Greek systems.

The registration releases the students’ grades and judicial standings to each fraternity, so the fraternities can get a better idea of the students trying to join their houses.

At the end of rush, each fraternity submits a list of highlighted names of students whom the fraternity is interested in, and those students then choose from the houses that extended them a bid.

This new process makes it easier for chapters to keep track of potential new members and monitor who receives bids.

Another difference in this semester’s recruitment was IFC’s involvement and enforcement of pre-rush and inter-rush rules. Freshmen and non-Greek members not allowed in the fraternity houses before rush, and the events were monitored to ensure compliance with IFC rules.

A strict 9 p.m. curfew was enforced during rush week to prevent unauthorized social events from swaying students’ decisions. Cecil felt this would ensure students joined fraternities for the brotherhood and ethical values rather than the social scene.

There were some setbacks with the new system though: Some students did not understand how the registration worked, while others were not used to the new rules. However, the IFC hopes the end result will be larger and stronger new classes.

This semester’s rush had an increase in attendance from last year’s event with 475 students, up from 250 in 2010.

—Compiled by contributor Sean Guardian