Summary of 2005 NPC Resolutions
1) Vision Statement: “The National Panhellenic Conference will be the premier advocacy and support
organization for its members, member groups, College and Alumnae Panhellenics and a proponent of
women’s fraternity membership.”

2) Mission Statement: “The National Panhellenic Conference exists to promote the values of and to serve as
an advocate for its member groups in collaboration with those members, campuses and communities.”

3) Adoption of the NPC strategic plan, which encompasses the years 2005-2010.

4) Amendment to UA VII on judicial procedures allowing a decision by the College Panhellenic judicial
board to be appealed within one week of the decision. Previously the time limit for appeals was 48 hours.

5) In an effort to encourage potential new members to complete all rounds of recruitment, the guideline has
been changed and excludes women from the quota additions process who have failed to accept or attend any
recruitment event for which there was room in her membership recruitment schedule or who has failed to
list on her MRABA (bid card) all fraternity chapters at which she attended the Preference event.

6) As a result of the 2003 Recruitment Resolutions, Quota Range has proven to be effective. This resolutionstates that where Quota Range is used Quota will be determined mutually by the Panhellenic Advisor and the
Release Figures Specialist or NPC Area Advisor. This eliminates a Panhellenic “vote” to determine quota.

7) Reaffirmation by NPC that a fraternity should be willing to offer a membership invitation to any potential
new member who is invited to and attends its Preference event and that any Preference attendee should
appear on the fraternity’s bid list.

In addition to the resolutions that were passed, several topics were discussed among the NPC
delegates and alternate delegates. While resolutions were not brought to the floor regarding these
topics, there was agreement on the understanding of existing guidelines that affect recruitment.

Below are these topics.
�� Donated goods as part of recruitment expenses
All goods that are donated by alumnae, chapter members, parents, etc., and used during
recruitment should be reported and should count as a chapter’s expenses during recruitment,
even if these same donated goods are used year after year.

�� Men wearing t-shirts advertising a particular sorority
There should not be any organized effort to have men wear a t-shirt that advertises a
particular sorority, even if the t-shirt event is from a previous year.

�� Pledging sophomores or juniors
Many women have a curriculum that requires more than four years to graduate. Many more
women arrive at college with little or no information about sororities and decide to wait until
they are established in their studies before joining a sorority. Few Panhellenics actually
encourage upper-class women to participate in recruitment and join. Further, few are ever
asked to join. Some Panhellenics or chapters impose restrictions that actually discourage
these women from joining. The Conference urges each Panhelllenic to re-evaluate
regulations that discourage women from joining, no matter what their class in school.

�� Recruitment styles need to be more widely used
Few Panhellenics have actually investigated the four styles of recruitment and determined
which style best fits their particular Panhellenic. Low PNM participation and low quota
indicate a need to re-evaluate the use of fully structured recruitment. Please work with your
Panhellenic and NPC Area Advisor to determine if a change in recruitment style would
improve your Panhellenic’s performance in attracting more PNMs for recruitment on your
campus.

�� Signing bid cards
For the past several years, Panhellenics have felt that they should discourage all PNMs from
selecting only one sorority when signing the Membership Recruitment Acceptance Binding
Agreement (MRABA). Although the intent of this idea is wise, the problem has surfaced
repeatedly when a young woman has either actually been instructed that she must list more
than one choice. This results in women being matched to groups that they had no intention
of joining, and in some cases, another woman was denied membership in a group where she
would have been happy. Please be sure that your Panhellenic is in agreement on how tocounsel PNMs on MRABA signing.

�� Judicial procedures
One of the noticeable problems associated with the judicial procedure is that few
Panhellenics actually follow proper procedure during mediation. The purpose of mediation
is to come to a mutual agreement. It is not the same structure as a judicial appeal. Please
Inspire the Woman. Impact the World.
review the Manual of Information regarding the proper method of utilizing mediation in the
course of dealing with recruitment infractions.

Cut and paste is a good thing :)

Thumbs up on both of these resolutions!

I concur, and also #5 from above, re: encouraging PNMs to complete all rounds or no quota plus for them.

What if you have a minimally structured rush where there is quota, but it's stated that women do not have to attend any events they don't want to?

I think this is a good idea, but it kind of contradicts the "signing bid cards" part.

Just a note - these were not resolutions but "discussion topics" - meaning they are not a rule, but could maybe be the basis for one soon.

Also, in response to 33,
My campus had (and still has) a pretty decent size traditional greek system for the midwest. We did a normal formal rush with skits/parties/etc in the fall. Generally the spring was basic COB. However, the year I pledged (a spring rush) all the houses had quite a few girls graduating in December so they did "Structured Informal Rush" and it was great! I think it would work especially well for smaller schools/systems that have a lot of upper class pledges.
They had 3 days of parties. Each was 30 minutes, and they were for a set time period - so all ther houses had them at the same time and you could only stay at a house for those 30 minutes on each party day. You got to the houses on your own, though panhel would arrange transportation if you needed it. So you picked who you went to for those three days. Then after the last day's parties you went to panhel and ranked the houses just like you would after 3rd round in formal. From there on, prefs, bid matching, quota, etc was all done just like formal.

It was really a low stress but effective way to do it I think. I have to say, most women did not visit EVERY house, but they certainly went to more than just the "best" houses. Mostly they just didn't go to houses where they had a beef with the girls or had depeldged or whatever.

thumbs up to the junior/senior PNM thing! I did not join till I was a junior and I feel I was a huge asset to my chapter. I brought in half of our new members one semester during informal recruitment and held positions on all the greek governing boards.

My words of wisdom: Take those juniors and seniors!!!! Because:
1. They usually know alot more people on campus-PNMs
2. They tend to have already figured out how to do well in college and get good grades
3. They tend to already be involved on campus (ie. recruiting leaders!)

I joined this year a a junior as well, although I wish I had done so as a sophmore when I began to understand what a sorority really was. We have plenty of older members this year and I'm proud of them all. Our school is very non-traditional so no one is a guaranteed to graduate based on a standard 4 year program anyways.

Another reason to get a mixture of the classes is because if a group keeps pledging primarily freshwomen and sophomores, there will be lots of members leaving at the same time...if they don't leave early. We're seeing an increase in transfers.

I agree to the thumbs up on reevaluating older PNMs. It is not uncommon here to accept Juniors or even Seniors as pledges, and they become wonderful NMs and alumnae...they tend to give the alumn organization a shot in the arm due to youth/energy :)

they also tend not to be too burnt out because of greek life when they graduate so they are still excited and get involved with alumni groups.

it is sad tho that i only had a year and a half as an active collegiate sister. i had always wanted to be chapter pres or recruitment chair but only was able to be on exec for 1 term (year). I definately ahve considered trying to go active at my grad school, and still kind of am. Its just this chapter is way different than mine, party alot more, are much bigger (9 vs. 65) and dues are much more. I'd still do it just to help that chapter change a bit, as i tried to be an alumni advisor and they 'didn't have a need' for me. someone definately has some blinders on. i was here a month and already saw the problems.

If you're coming in with a "this chapter has problems and I'm here to fix them" tude, you are NOT going to be welcomed with open arms...especially, to be blunt, from a chapter that small. I'm not saying you don't have valid points here and there, but if I would have gone from my chapter (which was small) to our Penn State chapter (which is huge) and told them all the things that were wrong with them, they would have told me to go s$%t in my hat.

/tangent

I hope that the sophomores/juniors thing is really taken seriously, but I don't think it has enough teeth in it to make the huge chapters that have nearly all freshman pledges begin doing anything any differently. "Urging" and "re-evaluating" aren't exactly NPC Action Words.

Bump! Found a pdf of the Green Book 2010 Edition online.

Flipping through, I noticed a big error when describing Delta Gamma's new member pin--the NM pin clearly does NOT have the letters "Delta Gamma" on it (which is what the description says) but rather "Pi Alpha." I hope they fix that before it goes to press, if it hasn't already