Amid Temple’s recent enrollment decline, Louis Gutterman, president of Temple’s Interfraternity Council, has witnessed firsthand the decrease’s effect on student organizations as they struggle to recruit new members.
“With the enrollment crisis happening at Temple that affects student leaders more than anything, because the fewer people who want to come here, the less people are going to want to get involved with student orgs,” said Gutterman, a junior management information systems major. “Without student leaders, these orgs don’t survive.”
Temple’s decline in undergraduate enrollment has prompted tuition increases and budget cuts. Enrollment has dropped by almost 22 percent since the COVID-19 pandemic with 30,530 students in Fall 2023, down from 39,088 in 2019.
As the university is holistically experiencing the effects of a decrease in enrollment, Temple’s registered student organizations, like Greek life and Temple Student Government, have also seen a decline in students actively interested in interacting and joining their organizations.
No matter how much larger organizations — like Greek life chapters — on campus shrink, members will always be able to gain valuable experiences from participating, Gutterman said.
“[Enrollment decreases] affects morale overall, with not only Greek life, but with all student organizations, it gives Temple students the ability to get out of their comfort zone in some ways, but also to do something they may be passionate about or enjoy,” Gutterman said.
The university emphasizes self-advocacy in recruitment efforts, engaging students beyond discussions specifically about Temple and focusing on aiding students in the college application process. The university prioritizes student experiences and services while addressing budget challenges, and individual college budgets are impacted by their enrollment numbers.
“I think we are seeing less engagement from the student side,” said Rohan Khadka, a junior secondary education major and president of TSG. “It’s not just that you come to school and then maybe you get a job or join a club, now it’s like, you come to school, what incentive are you doing? What extra curricular are you in? How many classes? So we’re coming to this competitive stage. So I think it’s very hard to even assess why [there’s a decline].”
STUDENT ACTIVITIES
Temple’s Board of Trustees approved a 4.2 and 4.4 percent base tuition increase for in-state and out-of-state students, respectively, prior to the Fall 2023 semester as part of the university’s 2023-24 operating budget.
The increase marked the third consecutive year the university has raised tuition for students. Temple also implemented a 4 percent reduction in its budget for the 2023-24 fiscal year, amounting to around $49.6 million.
Mandatory fees for full-time students increased from $462 to $484 per term, with the extra funds allocated to supporting student health, wellness, counseling and other student support initiatives.
All full-time undergraduate students, graduate students with nine or more credit hours, full-time professional students and professional law students pursuing a degree, must contribute a $25 General Activities Fee each semester.
The fee is designed to foster and improve the educational, recreational, social and cultural aspects of student life, according to Temple. The funds generated from the fee are specifically allocated to support various activities and events for the benefit of the students.
Other clubs and organizations registered and recognized by the university also receive some of this funding through Temple Students Government’s allocations. TSG was allocated $155,000 to delegate to RSO’s at their discretion for the 2023-24 fiscal year.
The Allocations program supports student groups, fraternities and sororities that are officially recognized by Student Activities and are in good standing. To be in good standing, these groups must have fulfilled all yearly obligations, like re-registration and basic organizational requirements. Fraternities and sororities also need to meet specific standards of recognition through the Diamond Accreditation program.
Temple’s Student Activities receives some of this funding for events like Weeks of Welcome and Homecoming events. These events are typically when they see the largest amount of student participation and interest in events.
Participation has generally varied during the past year. Some areas within Student Activities are thriving, while others are seeing slightly lower levels in participation, wrote Barbara Perlman, the director of Student Activities, in an email to The Temple News. RSO numbers are similar or above pre-COVID-19 levels.
“While there has been decreased participation in some areas of Student Activities, given the uptick in involvement in [registered student organizations] and large campus programs, it is unclear if that is a result of an enrollment decline or students being more intentional about how they are engaging outside of the classroom,” Perlman wrote.
GREEK LIFE
Temple has been home to various Greek life chapters since 1903, ranging from Multicultural Council to National Pan-hellenic, College Panhellenic and IFC. More than 1,800 undergraduate students are actively involved in Greek life on campus.
Victoria Cheung, vice president of administration for Temple’s Multicultural Greek Council, noticed a decrease in student interest during the past year, she said.
“I think the numbers are going down and there are not many people interested in joining Greek life, with the new generations having different interests and joining cultural clubs,” said Cheung, a junior public health major.
Cheung’s sorority Alpha Sigma Rho, which is a part of MGC, started their first weekend of recruitment on Jan. 29 and will continue the recruiting process through Feb. 9. Panhel also hosted their recruitment weekend from Jan. 26-29, while IFC began theirs on Jan. 22 and NPHC hosted a “Black Greek 101” session on Jan. 24.
While all avenues of Greek life promoted recruitment efforts at the beginning of the new semester, some chapters saw a decrease in students actively attending recruitment or “rush” events.
Spring semester recruitment events are vital to the existence of a Greek chapter. Some chapters are allowed to recruit only upperclassmen in the fall, and freshmen aren’t permitted to attend recruitment events until the spring.
Some organizations rely on membership numbers more than others, as dues can fluctuate each semester depending on the amount of active members.
Panhel recruitment numbers also rely on the number of chapters; each chapter receives a quota of how many new members they can recruit depending on how large the new member class is, new member class sizes were determined Jan. 29. This same system is used at universities nationwide during formal recruitment. However, the recruitment process is different for each individual council.
Alpha Sigma Rho has hosted a substantial amount of recruitment events throughout the academic year like tabling events, fundraisers and collaborations with other RSOs for targeting freshmen and prospective members.
“This fall semester, our external vice president did a collab with VSA, the Vietnamese Student Association, and she also had a collab with the Chinese Student Association to gain more interest from different cultures and backgrounds,” Cheung said.
Alpha Sigma Rho hopes to expand their outreach through collaborations with other organizations and to gain interest from prospective students that haven’t considered Greek life before.
Alpha Sigma Rho has also utilized social media in its recruitment strategy. The chapter recently changed its Instagram theme to differentiate themselves from other organizations, helping them stand out to potential new members. They also utilize the account to connect and stay in touch with prospective members through Instagram direct messaging, Cheung said.
THE FUTURE OF RECRUITMENT
Khadka has used his role as TSG president to have continuous conversations with student organizations about how they are responding to decreased student interest in RSOs.
“We’ve been continuing our ongoing roundtables to really engage with student organizations to see how they’re feeling, how we can help and using the material information that we get from these conversations to create projects and align better with the student body to see how we can continue the interests on campus,” Khadka said.
Khadka has taken feedback from RSOs on topics, like the scheduling time for TSG town hall meetings, and has helped organizations update their Owl Connect with the most up-to-date information.
Most organizations are relying heavily on social media as a recruitment tool as they navigate smaller class admissions.
Student Activities utilizes their Instagram to communicate with students and announce events and they plan to revive their newsletter as another outreach method.
“We are also looking forward to reviving our student leader newsletter and are looking for other ways to keep students in the know, without inundating students with too much information and clogging up their inboxes,” Perlman wrote. “We also provide opportunities for formal feedback for many of our programs, this assessment allows us to better understand what students liked and didn’t like.”
Gutterman also promotes IFC through their own social media and through relations with other councils, like Panhel. However, being featured on Temple’s official social media pages is a goal of Gutterman’s.
“It would be nice to see if even the Temple University Instagram account could promote all Greek life in general,” Gutterman said. “That would be nice because you have to look for FSL, it’s not something that’s really promoted.”
Khadka sees the decrease in enrollment as a causation of many different complex issues both relating to campus and national trends. Across the country, undergraduate enrollment has plummeted by 8 percent from 2019 to 2022, persisting even as classes resumed in person. This decline marks the sharpest decrease in college attendance since 2018, according to Fortune.
TSG is utilizing communication, both with the university and from student organization leadership, to determine how to best serve the Temple community.
“If students can’t make it for something, or if there’s not enough engagement on one thing, whether it’s a position that we’re trying to hire, or an event that they’re trying to get to then it’s on us as leaders and representatives to come together and say, “So what’s up? What’s going on? And how can we better shift the language?” Khadka said.
Anna Augustine contributed reporting.
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