Amen.

As James said in the other thread, if we were really serious about it being "recruitment" there wouldn't be any more skits, matching outfits or masses of women we know nothing about looking at each chapter. We'd be going to the nearby high schools looking at the brightest students and inviting campus leaders to hang out with us and join. And COB wouldn't be a dirty word, it would be a way of life.

But NPC can't actually tell people to do that so they change shallow things like terminology and pat themselves on the backs for their grand accomplishment.

The University of Michigan is trying to force deferred recruitment stating that it will reduce hazing (How???) on any organization with a "pledge" process. NPC and PC are working hard to fight this along with numerous alumnae and are using the argument that NPC groups do not have pledge processes anymore and therefore should be exempt. Deferred recruitment for this campus will be a huge financial crush to the GLOs because it will be hard for them to fill their houses without those Freshman signing up to live in for Sophomore year.

Freshman Orientation and athletic tryouts are not called pledging anywhere that I know of.

I also think with the term "pledge" vs. "New member", they are trying to get everybody to think of it differently. This person IS a new member, part of your chapter, not someone who has to earn their way in yet. Don't be surprised if, eventually, they are initiated immediately after Recruitment and then go through an education period. That's a whole nother thread though!

Dee

Wow, sounds more like joining a health club than a GLO! :rolleyes:

that's ONE school, and considering I'm in favor of deferred - I don't understand how it will be a "financial crush" unless you have to sign up for living arrangements a year in advance. If so, that's a school-wide problem that should be addressed rather than denying that we have pledge processes anymore. If we didn't, we wouldn't allow someone who received a bid and quit pledging halfway through to join another NPC group.

UM isn't going to care what it's called, they are going to define it as a period of education before they are fully initiated or whatever. It sounds as though they will only accept instant initiation. Sorry, but no.

A pledge is an oath, not a person! :p

I think Gamma Phi Beta is actually bucking some trends on this - we're lengthening our NMEducation period. I think my chapter is now going to be holding girls over for grades, which will be good for us. It's also going to make us a very odd duck with our school, but considering that SigEp takes up to THREE YEARS to fully initiate somebody, they can't do much to us. ;)

Re: Let's bring back "rush"
 

In Alpha Phi Omega, we still use the terms Rush, Pledge, etc. I can see the value in using the term 'recruitment' because some students don't know what 'rush' means.

At least no group has 'smokers' anymore as an event. :)

I also don't understand why some GLOs seem to think 'pledge' is a bad term, then have to figure out some alternate term to call them. I had no issue with being a pledge.

I was a longtime pledgemaster for my chapter. Some use the term pledge trainer. I don't care which term is used. Using the term 'pledge trainer' is good in the sense in coveyes what the pledgemaster should be doing: training the pledges.

The concepts I was talking about got too intertwined...

U of M wants to force deferred recruitment on all GLOs because of the hazing incident in September there. (Although the man who was hospitalized in that incident had gone through recruitment last Spring). They defined the groups who would have to do referred recruitment as those with "pledge processes". Since we don't have pledges, then we have no plegde process, right? That's part of the argument against it.

As far as the financial impact.. yes, to get an apartment in Ann Arbor for September, you sign a lease in January or February because it's very difficult to get housing. This is true at Eastern Michigan just down the street from them too. If people have to sign leases by January or February, then yes, deferred recruitment will prevent them from filling their houses. There really isn't a way to stop landlords from doing this as they are independent business owners who can do what they want.

My comment about "instant Initiation" is just speculation that sometime in the future, it will be that way. (Maybe decades from now even). I can see NPC and GLOs going that direction as the increasing costs of liability insurance impact them more and more. With instant Initiation, there can be no hazing, reducing Risk Management costs significantly. Like I said, that would be a whole new thread to discuss the pros and cons of it.

Dee

Although I went through the Rush period, I like the idea of recruitment. This is what is being pushed heavily by national during my days as an active, I believe it's still being pushed now.
I don't like the idea that the period for rush is only 1 or 2 weeks. I would rather see this period being year round. And, I think recruting is a good thing. Chapter has weaknesses, by recruiting, that chapter can find potential members that can fill that gap. It may sound impersonal, it isn't. I've seen this work.

Phi Mu has been pretty progressive in its terminology and keeping rational in terms of being over the top with PCness.

Our members who have made a pledge but have not been initiated are referred to as "Provisional Members" or affectionately
as "Phi's". Their membership is "provisional", they are members to participate, but they have obligations to meet before they can be initiated and they are pretty much in the drivers seat for accomplishing that (ie, grades, understanding of GLO life, realizing they fit.) We refer to their education time between when they make a pledge and are initiated as their "Phi Program" and the sister in charge of the process is our "Phi Director"

We have Big and Little Sisters. There was a move to change that to "Carnation" Sisters to avoid the connotation of hierarchy. It didn't work. Everyone just said "my Big Carnation sister and my Little Carnation sister". SO...we went back to Big and Little ;).

I think I prefer the term of Membership Recruitment over Rush. Phi Mu calls the "rush" Chair position the "Membership Director" office anyway. I think thinking of it as Membership Recruitment does two things....1) it allows the person who is going THROUGH the process to know that THEY are of interest to us. We are recruiting them, and 2) it is an important decision to make and should not be "rushed" through. I realize the whole process is pretty much a RUSH..time and energy ways. A better term would reflect the mutual selection process that actually occurs, say like, "Mutual Membership Festival" :) :) :) (note the big smile!)

I don't even mind the "Potential New Member" to refer to Rushees. I think it adds a bit more dignity to how we think of them. We should think of each one as a potential new member, until they leave the process one way or another. The acronyms however are pretty silly :).

Our org has always required us to use Members-in-Training to refer to our new members. However, it is such a long and cumbersome name like everything else now, we almost always use the term "pledge" when we're talking informally, and save MITs for meetings or other times when PCness is needed. :)

I actually think this is a good idea. I think it makes more sense to hold over for grades and to have a longer pledge period -- although not too much longer than one semester.

As for "pledge" and "new member," I do actually think that that was a good change. Pledge does have a negative connotation for a lot of non-Greeks and since things have changed a lot since the days of "pledging," it does make sense to me that the term should be changed to reflect that.

But I don't think "rush" ever had the same negative connotation as "pledge." And as 33girl pointed out, nothing has really changed when we switched from "rush" to "recruitment" -- it's still the same process.

Very well said, Pam!

I'm always impressed by your grasp of all things Phi Mu...

One possible reason for shorter NM period
 

On most campuses, the majority of new members are freshmen/women. There are alot of Greek/nonGreek freshpeople;) that don't make very good grades the 1st semester/quarter in college. As a result, it would be very disheartening to find out that most of your nm's couldn't be initiated Spring semester/quarter because they didn't make grades.;)

Re: One possible reason for shorter NM period
 

So we should initiate women, share our secrets with them, only to have them flunk out and never return?? :confused:

Sorry, but I don't agree with that. I'd rather wait a semester and know they are going to stay in school and active.

Can we move the deferred rush/grades discussion to another thread so we can talk about separate issues separately?

In Alpha Phi Omega, our National Pledging Standards say that the pledge period should be from 6 to 10 weeks long. Its up to each chapter to determine what works for them. My experience 8 weeks works best. From previous threads on this top, some GLO mandate a range for pledge periods, others do not.

Some schools, especially HBCU, mandate a shorter period, such as 2-4 weeks. Not an issue for us, as we feel if a school has stricter policies, we follow them.

Some schools do not permit any kind of pledge program. Again, for those we have an 'alternate pledge program', which basically means the newly inducted members get educated about APO after being made Brothers.