CHAPTER NOW TURNING AROUND AFTER DIFFICULT PERIOD
By J.J. Kowalski, Virginia Commonwealth '12

The SigEp chapter at the University of Pennsylvania recruited 30 new members at the start of this semester, a strong sign that the chapter is well on its way toward recovering from several difficult years. Just two years after a membership review, the chapter nearly doubled in size, with more recruits than it had the past two spring semesters combined. The chapter attributed its success to use of the Balanced Man Scholarship, year-round recruitment and the proactivity of all their members.

When Michael Fernando,’13, took over as vice president of recruitment last May, he immediately focused on strengthening the Balanced Man Scholarship and using it as a primary recruitment tool.

Pennsylvania reached more freshmen and doubled their number of BMS applicants. In addition to mailing applications, they sent an electronic version to students’ school email addresses.

“It's generally easier to fill something out online versus typing it, printing it and sending it via snail mail,” Fernando said.

He added that the BMS was more organized than before. Having a Google doc in place to keep track of their progress helped reduce time wasted at meetings. They interviewed all the applicants rather than just cutting based on what they saw on the applications.

“Sometimes they would have an amazing application, but they wouldn’t be the right fit,” said Fernando.

They recruited nine men from the pool of finalists, and the BMS helped them to find even more men, including many who did not even apply for it.

“The biggest part was that the friends of those nine guys made up a majority of our newest class. It was really getting to know the guys who we knew through the BMS and getting their friends to come out, too,” he added.

In fall 2009, the chapter underwent a membership review. Some did not agree with the direction the chapter was heading and decided to separate themselves. The chapter was nearly split in half, and that spring they recruited only 10 new members.

“It was a dark time at SigEp at Penn,” said Fernando. “The morale was really low, it was kind of obvious and you could see that people were a bit down.”

But the morale did not stay low for long. They realized that other chapters were surviving on campus with few members, and they knew they could make the turnaround and grow even larger.
“That’s why I wasn’t too concerned, because there were chapters smaller than us, but we wanted to do better than just surviving,” said Fernando.

Even though the university does not allow fall recruitment of first-year students, the chapter continued to get to know potential new members during that period. They invited the men to work out with them, hang out at the chapter house and play video games.

“The guys that came out during spring rush were guys we had already gotten to know during the fall, which was good because rush literally is a rush,” said Fernando.

It took the effort of every member in the chapter to come out and get to know the men, not just the vice president of recruitment and recruitment chair.

“It all comes down to organization and the effort on everyone’s part,” Fernando said. “You can talk theory and strategy, but in the end it comes down to every single person being proactive.”

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