The reality of the situation is that a lot of these seemingly innocuous things (interviews, notebooks, signed daggers, etc.) are logistically harder to accomplish with the shorter NM periods first, can be arduous to complete for larger chapters second, and open the door to one jerk sister (and let's be real, there's always at least one jerk sister in every chapter no matter how small) taking it upon herself to make tracking her down for a chat/interview/signature really, really tough on new members, causing undue stress and taking time away from the real reason any of them are in school in the first place.

I had a ton of fun during my new member period, and I was lucky in that I was able to balance schoolwork and fun in a way that allowed me to keep my grades up. A few of my pledge sisters were not so lucky and had to defer initiation until they could get them up. Thinking about even my own collegiate chapter, which is bigger now, doing some of the things we did in "my day," with a shorter New Member period, and understanding that programs of study at my university are not magically getting easier... I can totally understand the shift away from these activities even if HQs weren't getting involved to put a stop to them.

And that's not even going into the other "fun" stuff we did that was actually pretty freaking dangerous.

But the point is, when the pledge periods were longer, you had more time to do all that. I did all that in 6 weeks, but I also had a chapter of 35. There's no way I would recommend that program in that time to an aporeciably larger chapter. That's part of what sororities are supposed to be teaching women: to think critically and take responsibility for your actions. If your chapter doubles in size and the majority of women have issues completing your program or making grades, that's a sign that you need to change up your program. If there's pushback, you need to be able to explain why you're changing and ask for ideas, help and support. As far as the jerk sister, that's why you have a pledgemistress. She's there to run interference. Again, if the majority of pledges have an issue, it can be ascertained with critical thinking that the sister is the problem.

We were founded in some cases by women of 15 or 16 who had remarkable foresight and courage. And ironically, now we're infantilizing 19-20 year olds because we don't think they can they can think.

I was initiated in 1984 and my pledge period was 8 weeks- same as it is now. Numbers wise, there simply aren't that many women who don't make grades today. Of course in 1984, the minimum GPA was a 2.0 to initiate and it's significantly higher now. Back then, if they didn't make grades, they got kicked out of school anyway.

The way information is presented is much, much better than it used to be, but the real requirements to be initiated haven't changed much at all. Our test was oral and it's a written test now. None of the things that aren't allowed now were ever part of our program from the International org. It was stuff that chapters made up and it really didn't serve a purpose.

I was really glad I wasn't in the chapter of women who had to go around campus blindfolded, hanging onto a rope with their hair in curlers and cold cream smeared all over their faces. I would have turned around and walked away from that group in a hot minute.

I had a boyfriend in a Fraternity so the fraternity guys didn't bug me much but some of my sisters were expected to kiss guys to get their signatures. And yes, agzg is right, there were also some sisters who were jerks. Our VP Fraternity Education could talk to them AFTER something happened, but once it happens, it is already too late. As one of the sisters who always had to run interference to keep pledges and sisters safe, that was unfair to me to put me in that position. It made me angry with my sisters a lot of the time and it ruined events for me because I was always having to save someone from themselves(because they were out of control drunk) or from someone else (because they were trying to haze a sister or a sister was being sexually assaulted). Not the good old days from what I remember...

This!

You totally misread what I was saying. It is not the specific things that are included in the program that help you learn critical thinking (and FWIW I never had to DD or cook for a sister), it is being able to decide what should be included and figuring out the best practices that help your pledges to become a vital part of YOUR chapter, YOUR campus, and YOUR community. Removing that autonomy is what's infantilizing. If there was a chapter out there who initiated pledges 3 days after giving bids and they had a strong chapter with fantastic retention, that's cool with me. If there's a chapter out there who needs a semester to attain that, that's cool with me too. Is it more work to sort through and approve different programs? Yes. Is it worth it? Yes.

The definition of hazing has become much more broad than it used to be and I've noticed a big disconnect between what the national office views as hazing and what the university views as hazing. Big one is pledge book. Our pledges were required to have all members sign their book but that was shut down last year as "illegal hazing". I always viewed hazing as mandatory fifth chugs, 10 mile pledge hikes, study hours, etc. Signing a damn book is not hazing but unfortunately I don't make the rules.

Some of this is not a particular chapter but campus culture that made it easier to close the door on activities rather than try to evaluate how far is too far on each of them. I was not asked to sign a book or paddle but my roommate's group and my friend down the hall were. Several sisters made them do things like flash a guy, get a guy to sign her um.. lower back, take shots, find out from someone else what their favorite food was, etc. It only takes one or two to make this escalate pretty quickly - from funny "ha ha you embarrassed yourself talking to a stranger " to wild.

Then you discipline those sisters, and tell the NMs they don't have to get their interviews. That's why NMs have bigs and/or a NM coordinator - to take these problems to during pledging.

As a LONG TIME advisor, and having pledged 24 years ago, the NM program has become somewhat ridiculous.

As a pledge, I was required to interview each sister and get their signature by showing them I knew stuff about them. We had NM projects like creating a NM class banner, creating a sisterhood banner, having a theme party for the chapter, doing a fundraising event (think a bake sale) for philanthropy, scavenger hunts and a couple other things. I never was a DD for drunk sisters, I never had to cook or clean or do favors for actives or that nonsense.

Today, the NMs are required to do little more than go to 2 meetings a week, go to their NM rituals and that's about it. Much of the "getting to know you" with sisters is gone from programs, sanitized with a national NM program. Then, when women are initiated (which subsequently, when I pledged, we didn't know when we were being initiated...we had a night when we were done with our NM program, called getting in, and we were initiated the following semester provided we passed the NM test and met grades), but when women are initiated, they are constantly overprogrammed because they think sorority is going to 2 meetings a week. But no, now they have to go to chapter, go to their committee meetings, go to philanthropy events, go to sisterhood events, go to workshops, go to ritual, go to recruitment, go to formal, go to mixers...GO GO GO! And everything is freaking mandatory. So now you've sold these NMs a bill of goods that they didn't sign up for, and they end up saying fuck this, I don't need this stress, because I never became invested in this sorority thing during the first 6 weeks of sorority life.

Nothing is going to change this...we're not turning the clock back to doing sister interviews and scavenger hunts. And we're still going to treat our NMs as princesses, and then once they get initiated, we will treat them like the work horse we expect everyone to be. Sorry, just calling it like I see it, and I see it ALL THE TIME!