In AST, as a new member, you can wear letters and a new member pin. You are allowed to wear an initiated sister pin and the crest after initiation.

pledgees wearing letters
 

That would never happen with Zeta Phi Beta. There is no way anyone who is not a national member of the organization would get away with that.

That's right.

A member can get away with using sorority money to buy personal items but they can't get away with using letters.

Very true sister!

:)

We don't take too much issue with the letters thing. In all, it's really not such a big deal as people make it out to be. If Nationals says it's okay, then who are we to question that?

As a general rule, we always say that we have the right to make new rules on things not stated in the Constitution of AST...but we do NOT go against rules in the Constitution.

Sorry you had to wait so long for this response. I'm usually quite busy and don't have too much time to get on GreekChat. Well this is true that they do not know what phi mu means until after initiation. Just as you said earlier though letting them wear it shows that they, while not initiated where chosen to be a part of the orginization. Wearing the actual Greek letters however should be earned. I'm not talking about hazing. I'm talking about proving your devotion and love for the sorority. Anything good is worth waiting for. That's how I felt about waiting to wear letters. It's also so you don't take for granted what a privelage it is to wear them. I went through formal recruitment with a good friend who ended up joining delta zeta. They were allowed to wear letters through the pledging process. Wearing them was not at all special to her. I realize this is an isolated example but it's the impression I got from most girls who did not have to wait to wear letters.

Oh and our new member pin has only the phi on it, not the mu.

We don't let pledges wear letters, at least not in my chapter. The main reason is that they don't know what they represent, so they really appreciate them. We believe strongly in earning your letters through learning about the fraternity and everything it represents. And our pledge pin doesn't have any letters on it, so you can't tell a Psi U pledge just by the pin unless you know alot about greek life. Even most greeks in my school don't know what our pledge pin looks like.

I didn't see this earlier, but coming from an org that follows this policy, I'll take a stab at it.

The Greek letters spelled out -- Phi Mu Alpha -- are basically the name of the Fraternity; they identify the Fraternity and those people and things affiliated with it. But the Greek letters themselves -- F, M, A -- are much more than just the name of the Fraternity. (Shoot, for our first 50 years, they weren't even officially part of the Fraternity's name.) They are symbols of the ideals that we most cherish; and they identify those who have been fully initiated and who have committed themselves by solemn oath to cherish and promote what the letters mean. They are among the most meaningful symbols we have.

Until initiation, one is not a full brother. He may indicate his probationary affiliation with the Fraternity by wearing or having something with the name spelled out. But until he is initiated into full membership, he doesn't have the right to wear the letters themselves (or the coat-of-arms), because he has neither learned what they mean nor committed himself to what they represent.

Thank you that was more along the lines of what I needed to say. I'm sure most if not all GLO's greek letters have special meanings that you only know about after initiation and spelled out is simply the name of the organization.

Our New Member period was almost a full semester but I do know what you mean. We were the last chapter on my campus to be initiated. Most were only about a month long.

I cannot speak for your Delta Zeta friend, but wearing my letters has, from the day I pledged, been special to me. Time and experience has made them only more so. My badge, and my crest, are the symbols which I could not wear until initiation, but they don't "prove" my love and devotion to my sorority. That is shown by my support and activity within Gamma Phi, as a pledge, as an active, and today, as an almost 25 yr. alumna.

I fully support any GLO's policies, whether or not they make sense to me, so please understand that I am not advocating that anyone is wrong, or should change.

I am simply approaching this from a logical standpoint. It still seems to me that hairs are being split - Whether or not "Alpha", for example, is written as a Greek letter or the English version, both stand for an element of the name of the group. Most, if not all, groups use the letters themselves because they are the first letter of a secret motto or meaning. So I still don't see why the Greek letters are any more representative of the secret-not-known-until-initiation meaning than the English version - both represent the beginning letter of a word that is not revealed until the member is fully initiated. And then there's FIJI - but that's taking it to an extreme.

Ultimately though, it's like I tell my darling children sometimes - "Because I'm the mom, and I say so!". If your GLO wants the letters reserved for initiated members, then they should be. I do think chapters should follow the national policy.

I'll agree that each GLO should do things the way they see fit, whether it makes sense to me or not.

But, with all the humility I can muster ;), might I suggest that your approach is not a purely logical one, but rather one starting with the ethos of your own organization and using logic to apply that ethos to other organizations, whether the other organizations actually share that ethos or not. You say "I still don't see why the Greek letters are any more representative of the secret-not-known-until-initiation meaning than the English version." But just because you don't see why they are "more representative" of the esoteric teachings of an org doesn't mean that other orgs shouldn't (or can't) reasonably see them as "more representative."

To use my own organization as an example: We were founded in 1898. Our name was The Sinfonia Fraternity, not Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia Fraternity. We began using the Greek letters as early as 1900; by 1910, they had been added to our badge and appeared on our coat-of-arms (as part of the badge in the center of the shield). It was common from early days to sign letters "Fraternally yours, in F, M, A." (Notice the commas that were usually, though not always, included.) Used this way, the letters were taken to refer to what they represent, not necessarily to the Fraternity as such. Although the Fraternity had been informally referred to as "Phi Mu Alpha" for decades, the name was not officially changed until 1946. (Sinfonia remains the accepts "short form" name -- our equivalent of "Gamma Phi," if you will.) We have never referred to brothers as "Phi Mu Alphas," but rather always as Sinfonians; we often, however, refer to "brothers in FMA," again referring as much if not more to what the letters represent as to the Fraternity as such.

Also, because our name includes an English (derived from Greek) word -- "Sinfonia" -- as well as the Greek letters, we almost always write the name of the Fraternity in English. While brothers may use the Greek letters as identifiers on shirts, houses, objects, etc., I've rarely seen the name of the Fraternity written as "FMA Sinfonia." (Yes, I used to have it that way in my sig, although again not so much for the name per se as for what each letter or word means. One of the reasons I got rid of that sig was because it never looked right to me.)

So we do have a history and tradition where the Greek letters are, to us, more representative of what they stand for than the English spelling of the letters. I wouldn't be surprised if Phi Mu (for many years The Philomathean Society) has a similar historical understanding.

And as much as I swore I never would, I use "'Cause I'm the dad" on my kids way too often. :D

ETA: FWIW, the policy that only initiated brothers can wear the Greek letters is not just a policy promulgated by our HQ or followed by some chapters; it's contained in Article XXI, section 4, of our national constitution: "Only Sinfonians in good standing may wear or otherwise display the Greek letters 'ΦΜΑ' or the Fraternity’s Coat-of-Arms. Probationary members may not wear or otherwise display these symbols at any time prior to initiation. A member may not authorize or encourage a non-Sinfonian to wear or otherwise display these symbols."

When I pledged AXiD in 1990, we were not allowed to wear letters. We were given a pledge shirt, which had ALPHA XI DELTA spelled out, with LAMDBA (pledge class) underneath it.

For those of you who know my story, we pledged for three months, to be initated the beginning of the next semester (for grades). Well, one week prior to finals, I became sick and had to head home early. I ended up missing out on a few things and ended up not initiating with my class.

Shoot ahead to this past March, when I was initiated via AI into my home chapter (LOVE MY EPSILON NU GALS!). Initiation was especially poingnant for me, because I learned things that meant something so much more than I could have ever understood. I realized that the person who I am, who I have always been, was already so much of who an Alpha Xi Delta woman is and attains to be. It felt so right. I can't explain it any better that that.

After initiation, the collegiates presented me with hand-stitched letters, my first set. They made me put it on over my dress, and took pictures. You cannot imagine what it felt like to wear my letters, so many years later. It's a feeling that I imagine will never lose its novelty.

There is so much confusion on this. Here is an example.

My chapter had a tradition of not allowing new members to wear letters. It wasn't strictly enforced. If a NM went out and bought items with the sorority letters on it, we didn't confiscate it from her or anything. Well, maybe some people in the chapter would have wanted us to or said something to the NM but officially we didn't take any action on that. Basically, our tradition was that during the NM period, no sorority shirts with the letters would be made. We just used the spelled out "Pi Beta Phi" (again, doesn't make a whole ton of sense to me logically either, but whatever). So getting your first letter tshirt and your lavaliere from your big sister was a big deal in my chapter.

Somehow this came up when a consultant came through and she got tense and told us this was NOT Pi Phi policy. She said we could still do the informal traditions of only spelling out the letters, as long as the NM and initiated member tshirts were all the same (they were). So really the only change that came from her visit was the chapter got even less concerned about NMs buying lettered stuff on their own, which given Pi Phi policy was a good thing.

Then, my senior year, we got a new AAC Chair (head advisor). The Chair was new to advising. Let me say that she was GREAT and I loved having her around and we were lucky to get her. But, her chapter as an undergrad had had a VERY strict policy that NMs should not wear letters. OK, so one of the duties of the AAC Chair in Pi Phi is that they conduct NM interviews prior to initiation (I don't think that's giving away too much). During the interviews, a few of the NMs were wearing stitched letter tshirts. The advisor was discreet, but she came to the officers afterwards (I was president at this point) and confronted us about the NMs wearing letters, this was a violation of policy, etc. We had to explain to her that this was NOT a violation and in fact telling them they couldn't wear letters was a violation. Her first reaction was disbelief. Her second reaction, once we convinced her that we were right (it took a while) was "That's stupid." Which is an opinion she's entitled to. But it just demonstrates how much confusion and disagreement there can be even within one chapter about A) what policy is B) what the ideal policy should be.

Re: the comments about most NPC chapters allowing NMs to wear letters and not crests, I've never heard this before. Can anyone provide some evidence for this on a NPC-wide basis? In my view, I can't really see what the difference would be, from a "treating NMs differently is hazing" perspective, between letters and crests. Also, I don't really see NMs jumping at the opportunity to wear tshirts with their crests. Because most people on a college campus would not immediately recognize what the heck their crest even is. But... I'm willing to be convinced of this fact. I've never heard such a thing for Pi Phi.