Rush is upon UVM’s greek community once again. For those who are not in tune to what rush is all about, I’ll try to explain it to you. Rush usually happens twice a year during the academic year, once at the beginning of fall semester and once at the beginning of the spring semester. It is the greek community’s time to get to know someone interested or even not interested in greek life. To me it is the time to attract as many people as possible to my house to spark an interest in the diversity and dynamics of the men in my fraternity. Attracting people to greek life is one of the hardest goals especially at a school where greek life only makes up less than ten percent of the student body. To accomplish this goal, fraternities and sororities hold events so that people unassociated with the greek community can meet members and see where they would fit. Being rush chair at Sigma Phi Society, I have been responsible for setting up a Las Vegas Night at my house. We have rented roulette wheels and poker set ups for the hopes to attract new faces down to the house. This event also provides good brother to rush contact which is probably the most important aspect of rush. Rush is a hectic time because it is when a house of thirty or more memebers need to make a decision on who they want to share in the secrets, rituals, and songs with. There is always the question of “what characteristics does he have to be a brother?” My personal preference is someone who is going to be a leader in the house and do whatever is necessary to make the house strive forward. In a few simple words, rush is a time to get to know new people. There is a place for every student on campus in any of the houses here. I implore you to rid the predjudices and stereotypes of Greek life and go to a house that may interest you. I have, and I do not regret one moment of it. Andrew Bourret Rush Chair Sigma Phi Society Forty-five smiling faces in matching t-shirts wait anxiously behind a closed front door, one girl peaks around the corner looking for a group of girls to round the corner. Eighteen apprehensive faces wait on the front porch on the other side of a closed front door. Suddenly a roar of voices erupts from behind the closed door. The eighteen take a surprised step back as the door swings open and a great rushing flood pours out from insides. Forty-five smiling faces screaming at the top of their lungs in song; “Boom Boom there’ll be nothing but Theta” And so rush has begun at every sorority house at UVM. The process of rush is one of planning, hard work, excitement and most of all fun. This semi-annual, weeklong event is one of the most exciting and the most stressful part of sorority life. Each house has its own rush “rituals”, that is to say that each house has certain things that it does each year to prepare for rush. Kappa Alpha Theta, for example, has the tradition where it is the responsibility of the girls who actually live in the house to do the decorating. Rush occurs in both the fall and the spring. Fall is considered the “formal rush period”. The fall has much more structure and formal guidelines. Spring rush is much less formal. The houses set up events and notifications of these events are posted around campus. Anyone who is interested is invited and encouraged to attend these rush events. At Theta, these rush events usually consist of the sisters and the girls who have come to the event, sitting around talking, watching Friends and eating snacks or ice cream sundaes. Each house looks forward each year to the rewards or rush; the promise of a new group of girls to carry out the traditions and bonds of sisterhood that have existed for hundreds of years. Rush is the bloodline of the sorority life here at the University of Vermont. Krissy Tosi Rush Chair Kappa Alpha Theta