Given the fact I'm not in a sorority, I did considered AI at one point just because I enjoy being a mentor/leader to girls. Which comes to my next point...

IMO, I think organizations should request a "resume" from each potential AI, with a list of college orgs or leadership positions they have participated in the past (if they attended college). That way, you can tell who is willing to put in an effort in the sorority, and who are coming in just for the letters.

Also it would be nice to have them go through a series of interviews (like why you didn't join a sorority in college and what can you do for the chapter etc) , anywhere from an Alumni Chapter President to high ups. That way, you can effective see who is a good potential AI and who is not.

I've heard stories that AIs put more effort into their sorority than collegiate who have graduated an moved on.

It seem to me that this highlights the distinction (or what should be the distinction) between AI and honorary initiation.

For us at least (granted, not NPC or an NIC fraternity), only a collegiate chapter, the National Executive Committee or the National Assembly can initiate. A chapter can, by 3/4 vote, choose to initiate an honorary member; that decision has to be approved in writing by the province governor. A chapter cannot initiate more than two honoraries in one year unless the National President gives written permission otherwise. So far as I know, the honorary initiate is never informed that honorary initiation is even being considered until after the province governor has given approval -- there's no seeking it or vetting candidates for it, other than the chapter's own decision-making.

Per our national website, we've initiated 1,700 honorary members in our 110 years -- an average of 15+ per year. Some of them would have already been brothers who were made honorary members of a chapter other than the chapter that first initiated them.

We did once allow alumni chapters to initiate, but that was done away with some decades ago. And we don't usually have the advisor problem. While we are always required to have a faculty advisor, there will usually be brothers on the music faculty. We do allow faculty/staff members of the sheltering institution to pledge and be initiated as collegiate members; they can then immediately transfer to alum status. If we colonize somewhere that there is not a brother to serve as advisor to the faculty, then the man who serves as advisor to the colony is initiated along with the colony.

I'll admit that I like the way we have it now. I have no problem with occasional and appropriate honorary initiations, or with allowing the occasional initiation of faculty/staff members. But otherwise, I think a brother should pledge and be initiated in college.

I know I'm a little bit late in saying this, but I agree 100%!!!

Interesting. Pi Phi is the same. Only a collegiate chapter or Grand Council can initiate. This strikes me, again, as one of the main distinctions between the NPC AI programs and the NPHC graduate intake programs. Alum clubs in the NPC can't, or at least generally can't, initiate members. So they have to rely on the collegiate chapters to initiate. In the past, when most AIs/honorary initiations were either occurring A) at convention B) at the installation of a new chapter C) by a chapter honoring a volunteer/advisor/house mother, that was not really a problem. Now that alum clubs are selecting AIs... it is a more awkward situation.

I'll go on and say that when my chapter initiated an AI many of the members were confused about why we were doing it. I was President at that point and had to explain what AI even was. We approved it because she was the daughter of our regional advisor and it was an honor for us to be asked to initiate her instead of another chapter, and because the Northern Virginia Alum Club gave her their strong recommendation. But many members were confused about why we were being asked to initiate her, what an AI was, why we should do this, etc. It was not really a case where this person had volunteered extensively for Pi Phi, or that our chapter knew this person or anything; moreso it was a case where the person felt a strong affinity for Pi Phi, being a multiple legacy, and wished to get involved. Incidentally, our house mother was already a collegiate initiate of Pi Phi so there wasn't any need to AI her. :)

AIs in Gamma Phi have to be recommended or sponsored by an alumnae group. I believe the thinking is that the AI will be active with the alumnae group, so it makes sense that the alumnae group "sponsor". So in my experience, when a collegiate chapter wishes to recommend someone for AI, they do so thorugh the alumnae chapter with which they work. The alumnae chapter does the paperwork and the member education, while the collegiate chapter does the initiation. I have no idea how it works for those initiated at Convention.

The problem is that there isn't always a clear "pairing" of collegiate chapter and alumnae chapter. There are chapter associations, created specifically to support a specific college chapter, but not all groups have them. (I think that all groups should but that is another thread. :) )

Ah, and see that's the part of it we don't have. Our alum associations don't select, recommend or sponsor honoraries. A member of an alum association (like any other alumnus or collegiate brother in good standing) could recommend someone to the NEC for initiation as a national honorary initiate, and an alum member could, I suppose, suggest to a collegiate chapter that the chapter consider someone for honorary initiation. But alumni associations, as such, have no role in the process at all. It's completely a chapter's decision (with the province governor's approval) or the NEC's decision.

I speculate part of it could be that it is possible most alum groups do not have all of the ritual equipment needed, since it is such a rare occurance-but I could be wrong.

I think that's one logistical consideration; but, I agree that it would only be a part of the reason.

I personally would feel uncomfortable if we allowed alumnae groups to just alumna initiate women at will without the permission/endorsement of a collegiate chapter.

As SWTXBelle mentioned, Gamma Phi Beta AIs have to be recommended by an alumnae chapter. However, they are also initiated under the designation a of sponsoring collegiate chapter. So, the two entities needs each other. If the alumnae chapter wants to AI someone, they have to ask nicely of the collegiate chapter....and if the collegians want to AI someone, they have to ask nicely of the alumnae chapter.

But what about the point breathesgelatin brought up? Her chapter members were confused about AI, the purpose of AI, didn't know the candidate, etc. Part of this could be alleviated by education. Though, I like what her chapter did, they trusted their alumnae sisters' judgment, based on a strong recommendation and the candidates connection to Pi Phi, and approved the request.

I'd like to think that, if my girls asked us (the alumnae chapter) to sign off on AI for a well-liked faculty member or mother of a member, etc, that we would take the time to learn why they thought she was a deserving candidate and then trust their judgment. If we didn't feel entirely comfortable, I suppose we could invite the candidate around to an event; but, at the end of the day, it would be discourteous to the collegians to not approve her.

.....Kelly :)

I think Kelly hit the nail on the head. Many Executive Offices are still not exactly sure how they want to handle AI, or just have only the basics of a program started. Because of this, most alumnae aren't sure if they should be proactive with AI or not. If a collegiate chapter needs to be involved, they are the most clueless at AI.

We all need to be educated on the Alumnae Initiation process: either told how AI works for our own GLO (ie: how rare or open it should be), or why our GLO doesn't involve itself in AI.

There are some really good reasons to develop an AI program, such as the previously stated need for Advisors on rural campuses. There are also some bad reasons to do so. Personally, I would rather know my EO's point of view prior to posting my own agenda - and the first part of this is educating ALL members, from EO down to New Members on the GLO's policy.

I would not want my group to have an AI program (I don't believe Kappa Sigma has anything like that in place). I see the need for special initiations every great once in a while, where the person in question has done a lot for the fraternity, or for a specific chapter. Indeed, I've seen cases where very deserving people were initiated after doing substantial work for a nearby chapter.

However, I wouldn't want the fraternity to institute a formal AI policy.

I agree. This could be very helpful to both the sponsors and the PNAMs. I know it would have helped a lot in my case. I had a sponsor who knows me well. She was very excited about my interest, but she had a very difficult time in getting anyone in FW to respond to her.

She played phone tag for a long time with both of us getting discouraged. A GC member of Gamma Phi suggested we contact the Dallas Alums and see if they could get the ball rolling. They were very helpful and after an appropriate time, I was initiated at SMU.

I would encourage alum groups to be educated about the process and PLEASE RETURN PHONE CALLS from ladies who want to sponsor someone.

wait, so this isn't done already?

Back to the original question....
 

I'm intrigued that so many of the NPC posters emphasize that PNAMs must have been actively involved with a collegiate chapter before they could be invited into the sisterhood. In my hyothetical AI program, that would rule out way too many potentially great sisters who have a lot to add to the org but aren't not conveniently located to a college campus. If you truly believe that sisterhood is forever, that should mean that sisterhood opportunities abound in every corner of the world, not just in the vicinity of a collegiate chapter. So instead of using AI to honor women who have already made an impressive contribution to the sorority, I would more commonly bestow it on those whose contributions to the sorority are ahead of them.

And who is in the best position to make that decision? The alumnae chapters. These sisters, who are leaders in their individual communities, routinely interact with other women leaders and are best equipped to identify kindred spirits who might make wonderful sisters, vet them to ensure their interest is true and lasting, educate them in the sorority's history / policies / traditions, and even initiate them.

Rather than implement this program on an invitation-only basis, I would welcome PNAMs who made the initial contact. Why? Because then I KNOW she's truly interested in joining, rather than accepting an honor as a courtesy when she doesn't have the time to commit to sorority membership over the long term.

It all depends on the group.

If a woman is going to be involved in the alumnae chapter only, that's one thing. But many of the women we've seen on here who want to AI also want to get involved w/ collegiate chapter advising immediately. If you've never gone through sorority rush at a collegiate level, IMO you have no business being a rush advisor. It's not something you can just learn from a manual, and the "AIing to have an advisor" is probably my least favorite thing. If you don't have the alumnae support someplace, maybe you should rethink opening a chapter there - or ask why the alums in the area aren't getting involved.

And I can think of women who were super duper gung ho to be AIed, got AIed, and then became virtual GHOSTS a few years later, not participating in their sorority at all. Just because they seek membership doesn't mean they are going to stay active.

I completely agree. No one is qualified to consult on a topic that they have never "lived" personally. Obviously, those are not the people I'm talking about. And I'm confident that the AI situation described earlier in the Michigan UP was not the GLO's first choice for filling those vacant advisor positions. Desperate times call for desperate measures.

True again. I'm just playing the odds here. Everybody's life goes through cycles where they have lots of time to give, and then later they are consumed by career and family commitments. Hopefully during those periods when they are focused on other parts of their lives, the GLO bond will be tightly formed so they are comfortable getting reinvolved when they have more available time. My point is that I think the odds of someone staying involved are greater for someone who went through the trouble to seek out sisterhood than for someone to whom it was given as a courtesy.

My problem with the "the person should volunteer with collegiates first" is that it's assuming the old model of AI - sometimes conflated with honorary initiation. In that model, unself-conscious women willingly gave of their time because they saw a chapter in need - moms, faculty or staff on campus, house mothers, etc. They had no expectation of being "rewarded" with initiation. But with the rise of internet awareness of AI, I feel like now that we're saying "You shouldn't sorority shop or just contact alum clubs" and pushing the collegiate involvement aspect, we're going to get weirdos contacting collegiate chapters, randomly wanting to "volunteer." Which in my opinion is even worse than sorority shopping/calling up alum clubs/calling up national offices, because the collegiate chapters are honestly probably much less prepared to deal with such requests. I mean I don't know about most chapters, but speaking for my chapter I think I was the only one who knew anything about AI (through GC) until we actually got a request to initiate someone for AI. Maybe with some of the orgs were AI is more common the collegiate chapters are better educated, but I can't imagine the average collegian knows much about AI...

That's why my ideal AI program would look more like the NPHC graduate membership intake programs. The other great thing about those programs is that you can always say "we are not conducting intake right now." End of story. That said, I reiterate that I realize most alum clubs and orgs don't have the programming and resources to conduct programs on that level at this point. Nor, I guess, would most NPC orgs want to. But I think it's the only thing that would solve the problem of "sorority shopping" if AI is going to continue to exist.

One more clarification though... I do think that there will always be selfless women (moms, faculty/staff volunteers, house moms) who help chapters and then are invited to membership. The awareness of AI isn't so widespread that every non-member who volunteers with a chapter is doing it just for a chance at initiation. But I think that GC members' current emphasis on collegiate volunteerism (whereas we used to say, contact the national office, or local alum club, or whatever) is going to lead to crazy women doing just that... You know? Like there's no good way for us to even discuss AI, because whatever we say, crazy women will take too far, unless we either A) completely end the programs or B) just say it's by invitation only and not to even bother contacting ANYONE. I realize that no GCer these days is saying "Contact the collegiates and ask to help out" as they were saying to contact alum clubs back in the day, but I'm worried that by even talking about collegiate volunteerism as a reason for AI, we're going to indirectly encourage people to start calling up chapters.

Well, I will say this.

I think sometimes collegians have better bullshit detectors than alums and can probably realize who is there because they really love doing it, and who is there because they want to get AIed.

In my experience, most non-members who volunteer with collegiates are faculty or university staff (grad assistants, etc) and are there because the school requires faculty advisors. They are usually pretty sane. :) If Rhoda Random from 3 towns away with no connection to the sorority OR the school had contacted our chapter about advising, I think our school would have put the kibosh on it before it even got to the level of the sorority approving it, just for safety reasons.

I'm rereading and realizing my post was misinterpreted. I don't mean a PNAM should contact a college chapter and volunteer w/ collegiates first. I mean that unless you're an alum of a local sorority or a GDI who worked in the Greek Life office, you shouldn't get AIed and then immediately jump into a role like rush advisor.

I don't really know much about AI as Alpha Ep doesn't have a formal program for it... but, I found this interesting.

On the "Parents" page for a collegiate AOII Chapter:

"Mothers: Would you like to be a member of AOII?
Membership is available to mothers of AOII's who are not initiated members of another NPC organization. Mothers and daughters have always enjoyed the special closeness of being involved in AOII. You can find an application and more information about our Alumnae Initiate program on our international web site."

Only one thought-that would be pretty scary. Talk about living your life through your daughter! That's really the flip side of the coin.