What seemed to be the promise of a fresh method to recruit new members to the greek community ended in a revert back to the basics after a last-minute change in plans.

Until Wednesday evening, the greek community had planned the first formal recruitment process in over a decade for potential fraternity members to commence this weekend.

The cancellation was attributed to several factors – mostly time constraints, which acted as a catalyst for more problems.

About three weeks ago, the vice presidents of fraternity recruitment and their advisers decided to try formal recruitment, which was dubbed “Men’s Rush 2007,” said Luke Johanson, president of the Interfraternity Council and senior in civil engineering.

“There just wasn’t enough time to market and implement the process,” he said.

Marketing strategies were limited to word of mouth and fliers that promoted the process. Johanson estimated that approximately 1,000 posters were distributed by the IFC.

“Our reach on marketing wasn’t as successful as it could have been,” said Jared Heidemann, vice president of recruitment and junior in communication studies.

The fliers, which were up for about two weeks, advised men interested in going through the process to sign up online.

In all, 15 men signed up for the rush, said John Bulcock, graduate assistant for IFC and graduate student in educational leadership and policy studies.

“It was a slow turnout, but there was definitely interest,” Bulcock said. The interest, however, “was not at the level to proceed.” “It was a new process for the Interfraternity Council and the whole greek community, so it’s going to take some time for us to think about what’s going to make it right,” Johanson said.

Formal recruitment was a new idea for ISU fraternities. Whereas sororities at Iowa State are known for their extensive formal recruitment, fraternities customarily recruit new members through informal means.

The idea of adding formal recruitment to the recruitment process for fraternities was a result of a desire from several fraternity chapters that wanted to increase participation levels, Bulcock said. The idea was to increase the number of men who knew about the community and thus increase the number of men who were involved.

“It was really for anybody who was interested in joining but didn’t know how to go about it,” Heidemann said.

Although formal recruitment didn’t come through this year, Heidemann has high hopes for the future. He thinks formal recruitment will be implemented thoroughly next fall.

“We have a lot of time to market it effectively now that we have a structure for the process,” he said.