Only if it won't lead to a diversity workshop. ;) Gag me with a spoon.

If some folks are interested:
https://implicit.harvard.edu/implici...takeatest.html

Oh yeah!

Interesting. I just took the test. I got exactly the result I would have hoped for. I'd like to be all unicorns pooping rainbows about that, but I think my ability to take tests well probably had at least as much play there as my fabulously worldly and evolved opinions.

I love those. I always score meh on all of them.

I would have a hard time joining a sorority that cut me during recruitment then, because they were told they had to pledge a Black(ish) girl, suddenly decides to hand me a bid. I wouldn't want to be where I wasn't really wanted. Still, I hope these ladies fit into their houses and are happy there.

But would you have a problem pledging a sorority that wanted to pledge you, but was not allowed to due to some alumnae throwing their weight around to prevent it?

(I am speaking from the perspective of a BGLO member and our GLOs tend to have rich traditions of alumnae/alumni who either never go away or take years to go away. LOL.)

As an aspirant I wanted to know who I was expected to impress and whose opinion mattered. It was clear there were graduates who had power. Yet and still, I respected the fact that the current chapter members were able to tell the graduated members "what's what." That impressed me and made me respect the chapter and sorority at large. I didn't want to be a member of a chapter full of punks who got run over by graduates, advisors, local collegiate and alumnae chapters, and the school.

The analysis isn't always that deep. These Alabama PNMs have close friends in the chapters and they want to eat meals and go to social events with those friends. So they joined. Some NPC members, of course, have a much richer connection to the organization and its history, or may gain that feeling over the course of decades, but for new members, it may be just that simple.

I think the vast majority of NPC members start out with only the surface stuff in mind. That connection builds over time, and even then for most of them it ends with graduation. This is one area the NPHC has it all over the NPC and I think working together on some joint initiatives would be really valuable. Or eye opening at the least.

But there is a deep and pervasive attitude about "winning" at rush. If you get the top chapter on campus you've won, even if they're a bunch of hos who you have nothing in common with. It seems to me this is NOT the way NPHC aspirants perceive the process at all, partly because it is not her expectation to pledge at 18 and also because she knows going in she's going to be an active part of this group for the entire rest of her life. Most NPC pledges (except the ones who frequent here or have mothers who have stayed active, which is a teensy fraction of all pledges), don't even realize there IS sorority life after college.

This is romanticizing NPHC groups/members/aspirants to a ridiculous degree...and dissing NPC groups/members/aspirants to the same level of ridiculousness.

I agree.

I only used the BGLO disclaimer to discuss the culture of graduates who influence chapters and to spare people from saying "but you're NPHC...."

In other words, even in GLOs with traditions of influential graduates, SOME chapters know when and how to tell the graduates to go to hell and they don't need national news and school intervention. They handle it within the chapter and within the GLO if it goes beyond the chapter.

The chapters in this news story need to learn how to handle business (probably before seeking new members) and I still am not convinced (not like my opinion matters) that this 100% the alumnae. Some of it but I wouldn't be shocked if they were used as a scapegoat.

Yes to all of this.

This saddens me but I'm sure there's some truth to this. I hope there are ways this can be changed

We do this in our Alumnae PanHellenic Association here in Georgia!

Looking at [REDACTED]'s facebook page, it appears she has been hanging with Theta's for several years at Bama...

I think you should edit this and take the woman's name out of your post. She didn't ask anyone to facebook stalk her and post her info here.

I second this. I would be disturbed to find my name floating around on a message board because someone was creeping on my Facebook.

Anyway, I hope these women are happy in their sororities and that the sororities and alumna at Alabama continue to pledge amazing women in the future, regardless of their race.

Rough year for Greeks at Bama, according to ESPN Saban has taken away the student organization block for football games.

"Alabama suspended the block seating privileges of 20 student organizations on Friday, a day after coach Nick Saban criticized fans for leaving early during games."


http://espn.go.com/college-football/...-leaving-early

I believe it's only for one game (for now). I agree that if these organizations are always the ones leaving early, then they shouldn't have priority seating. However, you can't keep every student from leaving the game early. If you're winning 56-3 and there are 10 minutes left in the game, I would expect that not everyone is going to stay until the end, regardless of whether or not they're in a student organization.

ETA: And how can you ban organizations from sitting together? (the third offense listed in the article)

Coach did not take that away from them. The SGA President, in accordance with the rules of the student handbook, suspended block seating for ONE GAME for 20 of the 36 organizations who applied for and were assigned said seating. They will get their seating back for the next game (LSU). If they do not abide by the rules for a second time, their seating will be suspended for the remainder of the year (which would be one more game).

By having the police/stadium security stop fraternity pledges from "saving" large areas of seating for their groups (the way we did it when I was in school before they assigned seating)

How would they know they were part of an organization?

Because they have their fraternity flag held by a bunch of pledges staking out their area of the seating. Pledges were sent when the stadium opened in order to hold the seats.

And I imagine they'd be smart enough not to bring their fraternity flag. So again I ask.. how would anyone know they were part of an organization and restrict them from sitting together?

The seating is assigned, so it can be reassigned, meaning that another group would be there, or the group could, I guess, all come early to get their seats.

You probably went to a school where you showed up a couple of minutes before the game and just walked in and got a seat. At Alabama - and most other SEC schools - there is a large student section (at Bryant-Denny it's half of one end zone and about a third or more of the east stands and the stadium seats over 101,000). Seats are not reserved in the student section - it's first come first served. So as soon as the stadium opens, 3 hours before kickoff, the appointed pledges go and stake out the the seats. Even if they don't have their flags, they are dressed well (watch a game sometime and see how well dressed they are ) and wear their badges. And they spread out and stake out an area. I'd say 3/4 of the stadium is filled an hour before kickoff. Toto, you are not in Kansas any more. Nothing personal but football here is just as different as recruitment is.

No, it is not at Alabama. The student section is open to anyone with a student ticket. WIth the group assigned seating, you can sit anywhere within the area that is assigned to your group. If they cancel a group's assignment, an individual can sit anywhere in that area. But the seats themselves are not assigned like regular tickets.

And the stickers! The sorority women are dressed up as well--dresses in school colors, boots or sandals (depending on the time of year) and the spirit stickers. They make large stickers with ZZZ loves (fill in the blank). I watched the some of the Bama-Tennessee game and saw lots of navy blazers and khaki pants as well as girls in crimson and black & white houndstooth dresses. Saw several ladies wearing the large round stickers.

It is a whole different world from what I know in the Big Ten.

Me? I went to Penn State. I'm not a stranger to packed stadiums with a capacity over 100,000, and first come, first served seating. But thanks for assuming.

I was asking a simple question. Again, I would think that if it came to the third sanction being implemented, that the students would find a way around "announcing" the fact that they're in an organization, and there'd be no way to monitor who was sitting with whom.

But I could be wrong...

Here at Clemson we have gameday buttons-those rounds plastic button pins that say XYZ <3s the Tigers. You can stick them on your backpack when it's not gameday, which is what I've done. Everyone wears dresses as well in orange, purple, or some combination thereof. Our blocks are not large enough to hold everyone in the sorority because the school has figured out that if you give less students tickets you can sell more to alumni and because the sororities are the largest they've ever been here, so groups of new members will camp out for tickets together so they can sit together.

This is what confuses me - is it assigned seating or not? I thought they are assigned blocks and not individual seats.

Reading between the lines here, they assign a BLOCK of seats, so for the sake of ease, ABC sorority gets row A, CDE sorority gets row B, FGH gets row C. Within that row, any sorority member can sit there. But for this game, ABC has lost their row and will have to go to "festival" seating. Am I close?

More
Minorities
Join Alabama
Sororities.

OK, that rhyming thread name has stuck in my head for days and now I've finally said it and gotten it off my chest. Thank you!:cool:

Let me get this straight. They're not leaving early because the score is (example) LSU 60, Alabama 6. They're leaving early because the score is LSU 6, Alabama 60.

The team is WINNING. Not losing, and they really need the cheers of the fans to maybe help them rally and come from behind. They are mopping the floor with their opponents. It obviously doesn't matter if students leave early, the team is still doing well. So who cares??????

If it's a question of fraternity/sorority block seating, maybe make the blocks smaller so everyone in the chapter isn't forced to go. I mean, yeah this is SEC football and yadda yadda, but I'm sure there are members who really couldn't care less about sitting and watching the game for 3 hours. (Especially in dress clothes in the heat - bleeeaaahhhh)

If you look at the block seating, it's the fraternities who get them for the most part. And the individual seats in ALL the student section are unassigned. So theoretically, any student could sit anywhere within the student section. However, in the south end zone for the most part, organizations can ask for assigned sections so that their members and guests (dates) can sit together. It is this assigned block seating which was cancelled for this game only. So, everyone would have to get there early today in order to sit together. Back when I went to school, there was no assigned block seating but just regular student open seating. That's when the frat peldges would go when the stadium opened to save the seats for their frat and their dates....which is what could happen now if they cancelled the block seating as they did today unless stadium security was told to stop it. And not everyone in the fraternity goes...they have way fewer student seats available than needed so they have a lottery to buy student tickets too....


Now, does that make it clearer?

I went to a Penn State-Alabama game once, about 1980. We were amazed when people wandered in halfway through the first quarter and the stadium emptied halfway through the fourth.

Of course, it was 1980.

Other teams that have losing seasons still have students that stay through the whole game and cheer for the seniors at the end of the third quarter. This could be a lead in to the Athletic department cutting back on how many seats are available to students. They could make more money with higher prices and required contributions that way.

(Maybe that's the difference between a nation and a family...
Hides)

I've seen buttons and stickers in the SEC.

That's exactly what everybody's been saying for a couple of years now.

There are something like 10,000 people on the waiting list at Alabama for football tickets. I have 4 season tickets and only go to one game. All the rest are paid for before the season, including paying the Tide Pride allotment, by someone else. We just finished texting about SEC championship and NC/bowl game tickets a few minutes ago as I've already got the order form for those. It's a really big deal here....