dnall, for the love of Mike, please stop typing misinformation about sororities. You have no idea whatsoever what a member education program consists of, and you're passing off hearsay. You don't know what is covered, you don't know anything about new member education. It's far more than "social & don't post stupid pics". And that's all I care to say about it.

Have you seen the manual for new members? Have you participated in the process? No, you haven't. Nor should you (see the manual or know anything else other than cursory superficial information, which btw it appears that you have and have written about it, above). But I have. And I can state this with impunity: your "gf" told you something, you heard something else, and the truth is in yet a third location.

Stick to your own damned lane. You are constantly muddying the waters with your sorority misstatements which you attempt to pass off as factual.

Quote:

Originally Posted by dnall (Post 2041945) But, anything you leave 18-22yo kids in charge of with little supervision is going to eventually get out of control.

:rolleyes:

Can things get out of control? Yes. Do they, no matter what? No.

Quote:

When I give a bid… I'm looking for a guy that doesn't care if he's going to be hazed or not hazed, and ready to overcome whatever challenge emerges to be part of my fraternity.

So, you want guys in your fraternity who are willing to get hazed…

Quote:

If he's whining about hazing, I'd feel like he's saying "I'm that committed to your org, unless it gets hard & then I'm gone." Even if I know we don't haze, I'd still think he's the guy that's going to bail when pledgeship isn't all glitter & unicorns (joke w/ my gf, sorry, but you get the point). I'm going to worry that even if he makes it through pledgeship, he'd be the active that wouldn't be there for you or wouldn't live up to his responsibilities cause his heart's really not in it.

… and if they’re not willing to get hazed, they won’t be committed to your organization? Well then I guess all that commitment that I had for my organization was just one big lie. Someone needs to piss on me.. quick!

Quote:

For the OP, I know it's frustrating, but a lot of this is unknowable going in the door.

A lot of it is unknowable. You said it. Therefore, a guy who’s afraid he might have to do things to a goat (that I won’t mention here) – and yes, these crazy things are concerns for some potential members – is someone who also won’t want to take on leadership positions, help the chapter to grow, and stand by his brothers when things get tough? O..k…

Thank you, Maria. I was about to jump on this myself. He knows nothing of sorority NM processes. Just because we don't consume 100% of our NMs time does not mean that we don't have successful and meaningful NM processes. It also is probably why we have women with outstanding academic records!

Women on GC - particularly of a certain generation - have complained about the length and depth of the NM program since the inception of GC.

I'm in that certain generation, Sen. My pledging period was close to six months. I knew what I needed to know, backwards and forwards.

Having seen and read the New Member Education manual for my fraternity, I will attest to the comprehensive nature of the materials. Having sat in on NME meetings, as have other advisors, I know that talking about "social and photos" (paraphrase) is NOT the only topic. Far from it.

As for the NPC decision to shorten the NME period, that's way out of my scope of influence, and there are reasons that the NME period was shortened. That's been discussed ad infinitum. I gave up complaining, instead I'm focused on broadening the education process to the entire chapter. We do a little segment each week in chapter; we have sisterhood firesides where we talk about our history and ritual. It has made a difference, based on what I'm hearing and seeing in the chapter.

I can speak about what I know as it pertains to my fraternity.

True dat, but I think dnall is exaggerating. Plus he's at least 38, according to some of his other posts, so unless he's really gross, his girlfriend pledged back in the day as well - so this has zero to do with the new mandated quickie NM programs. I'm guessing it was more due to the fact that her pledge class was honking big and getting through a competitive rush was hazing/pledging/education enough.

Although I am quite curious what kind of pledge program back in the early 90s was giving direction about "posting stupid pics."

boom, roasted

First the girl in question is still an active. (Far as the personal life goes... we didn't know each others ages till it was on, and then decided to take a chance. I've heard this shit from my friends and hers. It hurts and I'm tired of it. We recently broke up after a year and a half together over this issue, which still hurts. So, now that your curiosity is satisfied, I really do not want to talk about it. I appreciate your consideration.)

This is a thread about fraternity pledgeship, so is my damn lane.

Yes I'm going off what she told me, which may not be the entire story, but is pretty close. I'm repeating her story only. I'm not saying anything about any other sorority on her campus and certainly not everywhere else. I know for a fact other sororities on her campus made their girls know a lot of information. That's not the point.

I was trying to explain through a real world example that a joke of a NM program makes for a bad org, less than stellar members, weak brotherhood, and a poor greek experience. VERSUS a legit program.

This is one of those areas where things need to be very different for girls and guys. What it takes to teach and gain absolute devotion from a guy in a short period of time is very different from a girl. If I were an expert at methods to achieve that with girls, then my life would be a bit more entertaining than it is now. But, I am pretty damn good at getting those results from guys through military, fraternity, and business experiences.

When I pledged, which was well back in the day, I knew for sure I was getting hazed. I hung out with my soon to be pledge brothers the night before we took our bids & we made a pact that if we had to do certain things to a pizza & eat it or goats or any crap like that, that we'd all walk together, but otherwise we'd stay strong together to get through anything that comes.

Most of what we experienced was productive, some was not. Some was funny, some was moronic. A lot of it was fun to laugh about later. When pledge brothers wanted to quit, we had a conversation with them about hanging in so they could vote to help us change it. It took another year and getting busted for hazing, but we did change it to a great program that I was really proud to be part of creating. Most people would have said it was harder to do the new program than hazing, but it was legal & very productive.

Anyway, advice for the bf of the OP is don't stress about it. Focus on finding the right place to be & everything else will take care of itself.

And in the process insulted all sorority women for giving their NMs a poor greek experience.
Because girls and guys just have totally different brains, amirite?

What.

Did you just compare new member/pledgeship to getting someone to have sex with you? Really?

Absolute devotion. Right.

Funny how your ~*~abilities~*~ don't seem to win friends and influence people on the internet.

No, if anything I insulted that one unnamed chapter of one unnamed sorority. At no point did anything I said at any time read as to apply to anything other than that one chapter. And, that was given as a contrasting example to demonstrate the need for a hard pledge program.

Yall are right that I wasn't there to experience that program first hand, but neither were you. You don't know that their program wasn't/isn't as bad as I've described. I think if you had the opportunity to talk to her or many other girls in her chapter you would find that it is that weak, and that there's a lot more wrong with their chapter than that.

It's more that he likes to consider himself the ultimate expert on the inner workings of sororities. He's just Earp with proper punctuation and fewer emoticons.

Must be the fact that I've got ovaries that I'm not absolutely devoted to you right now. Darn those little suckers.

You aren't a member of that chapter and have no idea of its true inner workings. You don't know. Which is why you have absolutely no business writing about it on a public message board. You're just gossiping.

FTW.

And I'm quite confused; I don't understand how repeating hearsay, misinformation, and gossip about something that I have no first-hand knowledge or experience with = good, helpful information. All the spin is dizzying.

They prove useful yet again!