Ohio University’s chapter of the Lambda Chi Alpha social fraternity hosted its annual car smash event on South Beach Wednesday evening to recruit possible candidates for its organization.
More than 40 students from all across campus arrived to take turns demolishing an old car that the fraternity bought from the McKee Auto dealer. The car cost $150 without windows and all fluids were drained prior to the event, said Dan McLaughlin, a sophomore studying marketing and rush chairman of Lambda Chi Alpha.
“Students from all over campus come by to take a free smash at the car,” McLaughlin said. “Even though it’s a rush event, we have some girls come take a swing. Sometimes other fraternities stop by to try it.”
In past years, there was a wide range of students that came to the event, making it one of the biggest events for recruitment, said Michael Rodgers, a sophomore studying sports management.
Due to the formalized recruitment process, it was easier in terms of trying to decide who would be a candidate for bidding, said Nick Vargo, a senior studying mechanical engineering and vice-president of Lambda Chi Alpha.
“It’s more strict, but it weeds out the people who give Greek life a bad name,” he said. “There’s a lot more to fraternities than parties. From the rush events, we hope that we can find a group of people that we can shape into leaders. We want to accent the good parts of Greek life.”
The car smash was a fairly new event as it was the third time the fraternity hosted it in fall 2011. The event proved to be one of the more popular events in terms of attendance, said Vargo.
“This is a great way of getting [the fraternity’s] name out,” he said. “So far we’ve got 18 guys that are rushing, but we’re expecting the numbers to increase later during the week.”
The fraternity reached out to students advertising the event through social media and word of mouth. It was meeting the fraternity that spurred the decision to rush Lambda Chi Alpha, said Jake Catino a sophomore studying biology.
“The brothers of the fraternity became my good friends,” Catino said. “Definitely after the exam I had today it was a good stress reliever to completely destroy the car.”
The students who arrived to destroy the car described the experience as satisfying and emotionally driving. It was enjoyable to come and support her friends that are brothers of the organization, said Lauren Hartsel, a sophomore studying psychology.
“It was kind of empowering,” Hartsel said. “Obviously, you can’t go hitting cars around campus.”
hy135010@ohiou.edu
