Four of the smaller social clubs will participate in spring pledging this year.
So far, only five students have signed up to pledge, but registration will be open until Tuesday. Every club is allowed to participate in spring pledging, but only clubs with fewer than 50 active members are allowed to take freshmen as pledges.
“This allows students to pledge and then do study abroad their first semester of their sophomore year,” said Mark Jackson, director of student organizations. “Students are graduating earlier, some in three to three-and-a-half years. This gives students more of an option to be as involved in club as they possibly can be. It also allows for students who did not get the club they want, rather than waiting a whole year to pledge, to pledge the next semester.”
Spring pledging numbers are always lower than fall pledging numbers because not as many clubs participate. Spring rushing will include two weeks of individual club rushes before Bid Night on Jan. 29, followed by three weeks of pledging centered around Sing Song.
Cameron Craig, president of Trojans, said they’ve heard from a few people who are interested in pledging but didn’t have enough time to pledge during the fall.
“Our pledge classes the past couple of years have been a little bit down,” said Craig, senior marketing major from Arlington. “Nothing that we’ve been worried about, but they have been down, so we thought this was a great opportunity to get some of those guys.”
Typically, Trojans only participate in fall pledging.
“We’re just looking forward to being able to do this,” Craig said. “We’re kind of testing it out so we’ll see how it goes, to see if we want to do it in the future, too.”
Lacey Medlock, president of Zeta Rho, said she expects it to be a good season for her club.
“Historically, we usually have spring rushes,” said Medlock, senior physics major from Garland. “We didn’t have fall rushes this year because we needed to take a semester off to focus on us, so it just made a lot of sense to have spring rushes.”
For a full schedule of rushes and other information about the clubs, visit http://acu.edu/socialclubs.
