honechile's idea about the local Panhellenic checking up on transfer students isn't such a bad idea either.

Checking on every student who goes through recruitment would be burdensome (and probably a waste of time if the majority of PNMs on that campus are 18 year old freshman). But doing a quick check on the transfer students wouldn't be too bad.

In this day and age, it would be simple to maintain. I would guess the start up might be a tad daunting.

Name: Doe, Jane
SS#: 123-45-6789
NPC: ABC
Initiation Chapter: XY
Initiation College: Big State University
Initiation Date: 01/31/2007

That much info wouldn't even be necessary...


Just have each group load SSN's under their name and if there's ever a "hit" the NM Ed. can contact the other group to confirm name, etc.

Do we provide SSNs to Panhellenic when signing up for Recruitment? (It has been 15 years for me, so I don't remember anymore!)

Maybe not for recruitment, but when you send in your NM paperwork, it's there. I realize that's a little late to catch people, and someone else could have had that spot, but it's better then not catching them at all.

Yet another good reason to use the sponsorship system. Your sorority's alumnae from the candidate's hometown checks her out and writes the sponsor (AKA recommendation) form or letter. More than likely she will turn up whether the girl has been an initiated member of another NPC group. Not to say that some will slip through the cracks, but it would be another check. I personally would not give Panhellenic my social security number.
I really don't think it is that big of a problem. Now, I'm not saying that NO woman has EVER been initiated in 2 NPC orgs. People forget the rules. Perhaps the transferee really misses her sorority experience and wants to continue it. But I don't think it is that frequent a problem.

Really? I'm not so sure that's standard practice for everyone.

I'm not in favor of a giant database for all -- I don't think it's necessary.

seriously - its nothing an excel spreadsheet, or even an access file cant handle. find a sister/soror who knows their Excel and put them to work!

ETA: yes, i know the feasibility of the upkeep would be monstrous, esp between semesters and between 26 orgs. but there has to be a better way of stopping stuff like this happening. or maybe HQ's on a whole figure they have bigger issues to worry about?

You know, these days with facebook, I'm sure it wouldn't be too hard to find out. Seems like if they were in another organization, there'd be a picture or two here or there of them in letters or with sisters in letters...enough to give you reason to confront them.

Of course, it would be nice if people were just honest. And if they respected their own organization...I can't understand abandoning one and joining another...it defeats the purpose of sisterhood and reduces it to just a "club" status. But then, I guess some people do regard their organization as a social club.

Wow.. y'all are scary.

First off, if someone's going to lie about being in a different organization, why would they tell the truth about their SSN?

Secondly, why can you not take your new members' word that they haven't been in another organization? Is that not good enough?

Because when they give their SSN, they probably aren't planning to quit, unless they're really bonkers.

It's sad that you can't trust someone's word, but a lot of us have been shown (in real life and on here) that you can't. Also, sometimes I think that it is innocent - the women who joined a second group weren't properly educated during their pledgeship on sorority and NPC rules and regs because they were too busy opening their million gifts. But that is another thread :) .

Yeah, honestly, I imagined there would be some kind of database to check out these kinds of things. I can't believe in this day and age there's not.

Ummm . . . Kevin, didn't you tell me that IFC rush is often shady and entire organizations will lie in their rush materials? If so , you shouldn't be surprised that (very rarely) a NPC member would lie about her membership. Alas, it is a human trait.

Which is my point. Joining group #2, if she knows she's in the wrong applying to group #2, why would she provide her real SSN?

The problem cannot be widespread enough and serious that enough to merit the time and expense being proposed here. A few might slip through the cracks.. Is it really such a big deal that we must now talk about keeping a data base full of social security numbers in order to prevent this?

Sounds like a lot of unnecessary time, expense, and invasion of privacy to me. Not to mention that from a liability standpoint, keeping all of those social security numbers can't be a good thing.

But this is pretty absurd for women who are from towns where most people did not join sororitys. I should be precluded from membership simply because most women in my town were anti-establishment hippies when they were in college? I find that troublesome.