That is a great idea!

yea same here.it was EXTREMELY helpful and i met my future roommate/sister in that group!!

sorry it took me so long to respond! yes i agree! however, this semester which is formal recruitment, panhell decided that facebook recruitment groups could be allowed! However, they had to be shutdown after round robin (which was last night). I still feel tho that facebook is the ultimate dirty rushing tool and there's not much we can do about it.

Concerning rho chis, I kno that the rho chis from my sorority defriended all their sisters, took anything sorority related out of their profiles, and the rest of the chapter was told to make our profiles private or take all pics down of rho chis. A huge pain in the arse. :cool:

you've just described my school's greek system in a nutshell.
:cool:

Facebook & dirty rushing
 

One of the campuses I work with deals with facebook in this fashion (quoting 2006 recruitment rules)

XV. The Facebook
1. Rho Chis will remove all mentions of affiliation from their Faceboook profiles, and adjust privacy settings to limit access to their friends by date.
2. Chapter Women will adjust privacy settings to limit access to their friends by date2. Chapter women are strongly encouraged to potray themselves on the facebook in accordance with Panhellenic guidelines. More restrictions may be implemented by individual chapters.

I believe that the chapters on the above campus are mostly self-policing about Facebook contacts. The CPC does spot checks of chapter women's profiles, and the individual organizations do check up on each other. They have seen a problem with the fraternities accidentally giving away CPC/Rho Chi afilliations, but it usually gets straightened out before recruitment. I also believe that there's some contact through Facebook during recruitment, but it doesn't seem to constitute dirty rushing - people are just too darned busy to do any of that. And the PNMs seem to be coached too well about giving everyone a chance and the realities of bid matching for them to fall for the dirty rushing. But I could also be naive here.

What really interests me is how much sorority members use Facebook to research the PNMs. I can share that I know of some organizations that cut PNMs because of the (extremely lewd) profile and pictures they had posted on Facebook. I can add that when I saw one of the PNMs on Facebook, I was glad I wasn't in the chapter and having to make the decision about whether I wanted someone who seemed to be into public soft porn doing it while wearing my letters. That may be judgemental of me, and I'm okay with that - I don't know that my organization can afford to take that kind of a hit to its reputation. However, I wonder if it is fair to do this, when it would take just one person to say to the PNM, "hey, make sure your Facebook profile is classy and clean before recruitment starts".

if she is stupid enough to post her soft porn on facebook, she should expect to suffer the consequences. chapters(and their advisors) don't need to have to deal with this-a chapters rep. can be ruined by one person and take years to rectify(if it ever recovers).

FACEBOOK AT MY CAMPUS
 

At my campus they are pretty strict about facebook stuff and greek life. My chapter is even stricter. I cannot have my letters or chapter appear anywhere on my profile or in any pictures. We are not allowed to have any pictures of alcohol or letters(even on shirts on our facebook). With the alcohol pictures it does not matter if you are 21. We are not even allowed to comment on others pictures or have comment on our own with any words relating to alcohol, drunkness, or hangovers.

During recruitment we are required to not accept any friendship requests from any girls. We are required to have our profiles set as private as possible. We have to have it set so that people cannot view our friends(this way they can't see which Gamma Chi's or recruitment counselors you are friends with.) Our sorority group on facebook has to be private and by invitation only. Our Panhel does check random profiles to make sure that no one is adding PNM's.

FB..
 

Yeah, at my school, they even have it that the day before bid night that no sorority members can even talk to or acknowledge any PNM. That even goes for previous friends and people in the same class. My best friend couldn't even talk to me for a day, even though I wasn't going to join her group, because of this rule. ( I was a sophmore at the time).

There are also a lot of rules on facebook stuff that applies to everyone on campus. PNM's are not allowed to message/comment/friend any affiliated members and the same goes for the reverse - even if you are good friends.

I will say that I know a friend got a "snap" bid after dropping recruitment early and she got her bid the night before everyone else found out who was in the process - mainly because they found out that day that they would be short quota by one no matter what. I am pretty sure that it is dirty, but it is what it is and it isn't really my friend's fault. She got her bid through a facebook message because it was private and could not be accessed by university members like the emails can.....

ordinarily snap bids happen during the bid matching process and are handled by the greek life advisor-phoning the pnm and saying that the pnm did not match, but that abc would love to have her as a new member and were offering her a bid. noone but the greek life advisor, the alumnae present at the bid matching and the pnm would know that she received a snap bid, if it is handled the way npc suggests.

At UGA, the houses themselves make the phone calls for snap bids. As I recall, there was a certain time that houses could start doing so, like maybe 7 or 8 in the morning? I didn't realize that other schools had Greek Life doing the snap bidding. Maybe this is to avoid what happens at UGA... certain PNMs getting calls from several houses if they have mismatched.

Giggles @ Facebook
 

Sorry, was reading down through this thread and read your post and it cracked me up about the boyfriend bit.

During fall rush here (UCLA), all of the girls deactivated their Facebooks (basically, it's deleted, but you can always bring it back). I don't know whether this was required, or whether it was just easier than deleting pictures, changing privacy settings, and "cleaning up" their profiles.

It was really effective, because it was as if girls in sororities didn't even exist! I'm sure it was hard for them to live without Facebook for that time, but they all survived. :D

Rho Chi's had to make their Facebook profiles Private, though I'm not sure about Myspace. It's not big here.
Sorority sisters, as far as I know, did not have to do anything to their profiles. I remember friending a sister during rush (she didn't confirm until after COB) since we had gotten along well. I did not message her, nor did she message me until the whole thing was over.
Rushees were not given special instructions other than don't contact the sisters outside of rush activities.
I know a lot of girls who used Facebook as a way to get a feel of the sorority she had in mind. She looked at the functions they did together, what the sisters were like, etc.

Interesting conversation with a collegiate Panhellenic officer yesterday.

She was at their national convention. There was a Facebook slideshow of different sorority members across the country doing "questionable" things, like drinking, skanky outfits. Wonder what those members thought when they saw their face/chapter members' faces flashed on a gigantic screen.

So, everyone (sorority members or potentials), clean up your Facebook or set to Private or someone may see it and get an unfavorable impression of you.

We did this just within our chapter at meeting (faces were blacked out but you could still pretty much tell who was who) and warned that if these things didn't get cleaned up faces would be shown. It was pretty effective. ;)

On a different note, I specifically remember girls from several different chapter friending me in the middle of rush and striking up conversations. And that was just in spring of 06!

This is a minor hijack, but what is the appropriate thing to do when you see inappropriate pictures of another group. Is it worse to be a tattle tail and notify their chapter advisor or pretend you never saw it and not tell anyone? I’m not talking about just the underage drinking pictures, but the ones that make you wonder what in the world they were thinking.

Personally? I'd send an anonymous message somehow to the chapter president or historian explaining that you don't think that's a very good representation of Greek Life and they might want to consider talking to the member and taking action before *someone* reports it to their adviser. That way you give them the benefit of the doubt that they weren't aware of it and they are now so they can do something and if they don't do anything you shouldn't feel nearly as bad reporting it.

i agree that the panhellenic thing to do would be to let the chapter president know that a member has inappropriate photos on facebook, but i might just leave it at that-if they care, they will know how to handle the situation themselves. they may already be trying to get the member to take those photos down-that's internal chapter business that an outsider would not know about-there's no need for us to tell them how to handle the situation.

That's a very good idea. Thanks.

All the girls in sororities have to unfriend the Rho Gammas for the semester they're disafilliated at our school. I still figured out my Rho Gammas' affiliations by looking at pictures my friends who were in their sororitites had though.

Same here, except this year our Rho Gams have taken off their entire wall, their "view more pictures" and most of their photo albums.
Also, our Panhellenic is policing facebook to make sure there arent any violations. There is supposed to be NO contact whatsoever... and this year that includes being friends with any PNM.

We thought that would be too much trouble...and the friends would give it away. That's why we have dummy profiles set up for them. Part of the logic behind making sorority members "unsearchable" is that a PNM can't find them and message them then unless they are friends (which isn't allowed). Honestly though when it comes down to it you have to just trust the girls on both sides...if they want to get around it, they will, and if there were no facebook they would have found a different way to dirty rush.

Facebook
 

At my school its required that all women in sororities make their facebook profiles private. We don't want PNM's making judgements based on information they find because it may not reflect the whole chapter. We are not allowed to accept any friend requests until recruitment is over. PNM's should make their profiles private too. I know individuals that have used facebook to judge PNMs. I would advise PNM's to put up a pretty picture and make it private! The same goes with myspace.

My entire chapter have our Facebook profiles on private (at least, we were urged to do this -- although, mine has been private from beginning because it's creepy).

I was close with one of our PNMs and I wasn't allowed to talk to her on facebook or IM because we weren't sure if it was dirty rushing or not, we just wanted to be safe. The thing about this is that it is really easy just to copy and paste something all over the internet and to spread it.

I also saw said PNM at the bar near campus and I felt so bad because she wanted to tell me everything/how she was feeling about rushing and I couldn't be there as her friend... but it paid off because she joined our house! :)

From Panhellenic..

We are asking all of you to adhere to the requirement below in order to clearly define facebook when it comes to closed contact and to protect the identities of our Rho Gammas.

No sorority women should be friends with potential new members, not even orientation leaders. Please let your orientation leaders know that they should simply explain to the women that because they are in a sorority, they are not allowed to be friends on facebook with them to keep recruitment fair.

Also, all sorority women need to alter their privacy settings on facebook. Everyone needs to go to "privacy," then select "profile," and then select "only my friends" for every single blank. Then select "save." We are having everyone do this instead of having to take down all of their pictures that have Panhellenic Exec or Rho Gammas in them.

Please make sure that profile pictures do not have any Panhellenic Exec or Rho Gammas in them either.

AGDLynn,

That really does seem like a good idea since then nobody going through recruitment is going to use facebook pictures to profile the groups either.

What about women who are already facebook friends with PNMs? All it does in these cases in make facebook dirty rushing invisible to others, right? (Or are they supposed to "de-friend" them?)

They'll have to ask the Panhellenic people, lol.

Seems that when Greek Life was doing some checking, they found out some of the privacy guards weren't protecting what they thought the guards were..

University of Miami's Panhellenic Facebook Contact Rules
 

All sorority women are required to make their Facebook profile's invisible from the months of April - September (Bid Day)

And they must abide by the following contact rules:

Facebook (and other internet sites):

You should have no contact with potential new members over the Internet. This includes but is not limited to, “poking” them, messaging them (Such as on AOL instant Messenger), or “friending” them. If a potential new member contacts you, you may reply to her with the following phrase:

“At this time all of the Sororities have agreed upon certain rules, one being that we are asked to not speak with you over the internet until the end of Sorority Recruitment. Thank you for understanding.”

***You must “de-friend” any potential new members on Facebook. This means that you must “de-friend” any incoming freshmen women that you may know or are currently friends with. You must also “de-friend” any upperclassmen that are considering going through Recruitment. If you are friends with upperclassmen who are positive that they will not go through Recruitment, you may stay friends with them. Also, as discussed in the Recruitment Roundtables, the only family members you may stay friends with are siblings.***

Those rules are only for Miami. Your school might have other similar rules - check with the Greek life office if you're concerned.

shommy, you might visit the panhellenic website of your school-often the recruitment rules are listed, so you know exactly what is what.

a word of advice pertaining to continuing to communicate with your sorority friend via facebook: be careful. members of the other sororities on your campus might be randomly checking pnms facebook accounts and see posts between you and your sorority friend. they then might assume that you are zeroing in on your friends sorority and that you won't give the others a chance. it might effect your recruitment.

lol......politeness counts!!

seriously, good luck with your recruitment!

I don't know if someone said this yet cause I didn't want to read EVERYONE's posts haha but make sure if a PNM even MESSAGES you on FACEBOOK you don't message them back (if you are required to keep your profile private). If you message them back they are able to view your profile for like 20 days after, which defeats the privacy purpose. If a PNM does send you a facebook message, perhaps you can get their email address from their profile, and send them an email so as not to seem rude. But you also need to be careful about what you say to them in the email.

For example:

PNM: Hi, I noticed that you were listed as a Beta Beta Beta. I am going through recruitment and really want to be a BBB! Can you give me some tips on what I should wear? What makes BBB so great at this school?

Response: Hi, thanks for your interest! It's great that you are going to go through recruitment! I am going to forward your message to Panhellenic (or the Greek Counselor) and hopefully they can help you out!

or something like that.

Good luck everyone!

what would a pnm need to "clean up"? if there are any pictures with alcohol, even if you arent drinking?

Anything that implies unladylike behavior.

Being in photos where you are surrounded by alcohol, even if you don't "look" like you have been drinking, carries this implication. Being in a photo where you are holding a cup could also imply alcohol.

You may know what you were or were not doing, but anyone viewing your page might form other opinions. Clean up your page with those people in mind.

We, the advisors look carefully at the pictures in photo albums. In fact, we just asked two girls to untag themselves from a picture because at first glance it looks as if they each have a wine bottle in each of their hands. In reality it is the top of a golf club and you can see they are on a minigolf course. But since most people aren't going to examine the pictures as closely as we did and we didn't want people to think we have a bunch of alcoholics each with their own bottle of wine, we asked the girls to delete the pictures.