It's interesting to read stuff about how the age at which people were regarded as essentially adult or mature has changed over time.

The founders were amazing and it's hard to imagine very many groups of undergraduate woman today who would be able to do something similar today, at least in part because of additional red tape everywhere.

This is kind of a different issue from the legal idea of being under 18, but I think about how much additional concerns were introduced with the drinking age became 21. It happened before I was in college, so I didn't witness the change first hand, but it would seem like going from almost everyone in the group being legally adult for all purposes to the idea that some people are minors in some areas was probably weird too.

We have to do the same thing.

That makes sense. I just wouldn't want to hurt anyone who was 17 as a freshman in the fall (or younger).

Esp because right before they were considered legally adult for it and all of a sudden they weren't...

I guess there could be as far as signing contracts and such, but I would think that would apply across the board (i.e. campus housing). It's probably an issue that is going to come up more if we see more kids who have been homeschooled and able to graduate early entering college at earlier ages.

My sister and I both entered college at 16. During rush, no one even asked my age.

No one asked me either, until I actually pledged. Then, my parents had to sign on the financial statements and such. I can remember a "how old are you?!" moment all too well!!

I'm the Greek Advisor at my University and we had this happen about eight years ago. When the girl that had initiated two sororities had asked her about it, she did confess, and voluntarily gave up her membership in her new sorority. We never really got to find out what would have happened because it didn't get that far.

After that happened, word got around, and the women were suggesting what you had in your post.

The issue is, anything that is in a student file is subject to privacy issues, so even as the Greek Advisor, and as a member of an NPC Sorority, I can't disclose to students anything that is in their file to Greek Organizations.

We had to do the same thing with GPA. Years ago, we used to give the Greek Organizations a list of grades of grades at the end of every term, we can't do that anymore. If the sorority has a GPA minimum, all we can verify is that they meet their minimum, but can't say an individual student has a 3.4 intead of the 4.0 they put on their application, when their minimum might be a 3.0. I've seen it, and I can't say anything about it. I can, however, say something to the student, but I can't force them to be truthful.

Just keep in mind, that it's not limited to transfer students. Many freshman have flunked out of another college and start again at another school as a "freshman". If they are not receiving financial aid, there is no way to catch it.

When the drinking age changed to 21, people who were already "legal" under the old law were grandfathered in. So, they didn't lose a privilege that they already had.

I was very young at the time, but I had several cousins who were right around the age of 18. About half of them "made the cut" age wise. I remember vividly one of my cousins being so upset because the law changed a week before his birthday...if it had changed a week later, he would have been grandfathered in also. Instead, he had to wait until 21 to be legal.

Would you be permitted to answer a question like "was so and so ever a member of an NPC group?" Simply a yes or no, not even which one?

Can students sign a waiver for certain items? (I believe this must happen at some colleges because they generate GPAs and comparative lists for NPC groups which are availabe on the Greek Life page.)

We went around and around with this issue a long time ago. Our recruitment registration forms have a statement, evaluated by our campus Registrar (who is also our FERPA Compliance officer), that basically states the PNM verifies the information is true and correct, and that she authorizes release of the information included on her registration form to the Student Life office, Panhellenic, and the chapters that belong to it. My office (Student Life) then reviews GPAs, past pledging/initiation data we have on file, and verifies if it's true or not. The PNMs are made aware of this entire process from the start, so we rarely get misinformation from them.

Regarding puddintane's concern about the grade report, I'm willing to share how we work our grade report process if you want to PM me. Again, it's approved by our campus Registrar and FERPA compliance officer as well.

I'm not in a sorority so if what I'm about to say makes no sense or is irrelevant please correct me. Fraternity rush is quite different obviously. But to me, as an outsider, it seems like:

a) This isn't really a widespread problem, I can't imagine a chapter would make several members check up on all the random transfer PNMs (particularly at a large school) when there is so much else to do at rush for the almost non-existant chance that somebody is trying to pull this off.

b) I would think that the girls currently rushing would be able to catch it...I know that at my campus, which is a competitive campus not in the South, girls pretty much stalk the PNMs going through rush as soon as they get their applications doing everything from reading their Facebook walls and profiles to see if there are "problems" (ie slutty comments or drug references) and doing "pre-rankings" based on academics, involvement, talents, etc. If a girl is transfering they try to find out how she carried herself at that former school. (They shouldn't have really told me all that to be sure but it gets out). I would think that if a girl was initiated before at another school a simple Facebook search or word-of-mouth would reveal it, but then again maybe I'm wrong.

So in your case, if the campus Panhellenic wanted too, you might be able to add to the recruitment release a release for transfer students and information about membership as well?

It's interesting how much it varies from campus to campus. At the school that won't release any information from the student file, I guess the only way a future employer can verify information about an applicant is by getting a transcript sent. (I doubt many employers verify extracurriculars anyway, but I never really thought about how people could completely make up everything on the first resume other than the GPA, but I guess at that campus, they could. )

Well, if they already do the stuff listed in part B, they already do check out the transfer students, so it might not be that much more time consuming to do it formally.

Just out of curiosity, if a girl were shut down her profile completely, would all her previous tags, comments, and wall posts also disappear immediately or would she have to go through one by one?

(The amount of background screening that groups try to do at some of the really big rushes is really pretty amazing to me. Especially with their network of alums, for some groups, I think, in the south especially, there are rarely any unknowns on the final bid list. )

If a girl shut down her profile you couldn't search for her tagged pictures, comments and wall posts, but if you looked at, let's say, her friend's profile you could see pictures that her friend tagged of her, comments she made on her friend's wall, etc. (and trust me, I know girls that will go to that extreme to find the dirt on PNMs). It's also as easy as calling up a girl you may know from that girl's hometown/high school and being like, "Did she volunteer in high school? Is she well-liked? Sleep-around? Good grades? etc."

I am also amazed by the "pre-recruiting" these girls do...it really amazes me. My friend was telling me last night (admittedly in breach of membership selection secrecy, but that's a whole other story) that the recruitment team will go over EVERY single PNM's application and school history (and there are usually like 800 of them) and then flag those with recommendations, legacies, connections (if they already know girls) and those with stellar academics, involvement, talents, volunteerism, leadership, etc. and then focus on those rushees during formal rush.

In my fraternity, we admittedly do a lot of "pre-recruiting" as well (ie, looking up guys from our hometowns, having alumni compile lists of stellar rushees from their hometowns, etc) but the amount of work we do is nothing compared to the sororities. Sorority rush just fascinates me (at least at the really competitive schools).

Last year the Phi Mus at a large school called one of my AOII daughters, who's at another school, to find out the background on a PNM. She knew one of the Phi Mus, a girl who had gone to a different high school, and was really surprised that members of a different sorority would call her. They wanted to know if it was true that this girl had done some really wild stuff. I have also gotten calls from numerous other sororities about PNMs, although mostly to find out about the girls in general. One sorority at a nearby school called my oldest daughter and me to ask if one of their legacies whom we'd worked with was the wack case they'd heard. (Yep, she slapped one boss and scored another one with her fingernail.:eek: )

There's a lot of intersorority help going on around the South, even though gossip would have you think that each group is out to annihilate the others. Most sororities will warn the others if they know about a PNM who's got serious problems.

It's done differently on many campuses. Each University has to decide for itself, how much information it is willing to disclose to any student organization, regarding a student's file, and has to weigh that with any potential liability issues that may pop up.

Our school has adopted disclosing information on a "need-to-know" basis, but that doesn't necessarily include everything that a student is willing to sign away.

Grades, there is a reason why a minimum GPA must be achieved. This benefits the college as well as the Greek Organization. Joining a Greek Organization involves a significant amount of a student's time, and we want to make sure that only those that can manage their time well, can take on additional responsibilities. School comes first, if you can't manage school, you can't join certain groups.

Our college, has a minimum GPA for all organizations. The organization is able to set it for themselves and set the bar higher (and we will help them in that verification process), but with us, if you are on academic probabation, you must terminate your membership, Greek or not.

The only exceptions are honor societies and scholarships, where a full transcript is needed in order to make award determinations.

Now, back to your question regarding someone being initiated into a sorority twice, and if it was in their file, could I say anything if asked.

If the situation at our school 8 years ago, repeated itself today, the answer would be no. The reason is, it doesn't fall into a "need-to-know" basis. It only benefits the Greek Organization...the school doesn't care one way or the other. Not disclosing it, doesn't raise any liability issues....disclosing it, if the student does not wish to disclose ALL of their previous organizations on their personal file, can raise a huge liability issue for the college.

I'm in no way saying that "this is the law"...it's not. This is just the way our University has chosen to handle student information.

Hum, I think the institution is mistaken in it's impression that the situation only benefits the Greek Organization. I tend to think that your institution has to believe that the overall effect of Greek Life on the university is beneficial or you would terminate your relationships with the GLOS. A healthy balance of the university helping the GLOs and the GLOs helping the institution would be good overall. If the university takes a only "what's in it for us" attitude, I think you'll have more problems between groups and that will spill over into campus life at large.

I can see the liability point on some level, but after a person appears listed as a member in a yearbook, it's hard to make a claim about privacy. There would be ways around the idea that you got the info. only from the confidential student file.

From an administrative point, we have to look at all student organizations the same. We can't pick and choose which ones we will protect the student's privacy on, and which ones we won't. It's an all or none deal. The only reason schools even have a Greek Advisor is because it tends to be the largest of all of the organizations, and it takes someone who has participated in the system on how it works. Other than the sheer numbers? They wouldn't bother with the staffing.

I cannot think of a single reason, how a couple of students every few years, that may initiate in in two NPC sororities, is going to destroy Greek Life as a whole at our University. In the instance that it happened at our school, more people knew that it happened rather than know who it happened with. Our school is so large these girls sometimes disappear between semesters and over the summer....they just don't re-enroll.

You make a good point regarding the yearbook, however, it has to be initiated by the students not by me. I cannot launch a campaign to apply the rules on the students that I know about. I have to be fair to all. I don't look for ways, "around the system"...we follow the rules that are handed down to me by my superiors, that is how I keep the lights on.

We have to consider all of the groups, not just Greek Organizations.

With us, even the yearbook isn't a good source. Less than 25% of the student population bother to show up to have their picture taken.

On student applications for recruitment, there is only one "status" classification: Your Class (Freshman, Sophomore, etc.). So unless a student mentioned it, you wouldn't know she was a transfer. She just puts down which class she is a member of. We participate in deferred recruitment, so Freshman have to be verified at completing a minimum of 12 semester hours in order to be considered "second semester" Freshman.

As far as my job is concerned, and my role in the process, I am not willing to put the University, or myself, at risk and gamble on whether or not someone can make a "claim" against the University.

You don't have to win a lawsuit in order to permanently tarnish a University's reputation, all you have to do is file one.

The OP asked about NPC sororities. There is an NPC unanimous agreement saying that once you join one NPC, you cannot join another.

It's not quite black or white for fraternities.

I'm sorry for not being clearer: it didn't mean that you personally should be looking in the yearbook, just that sometimes that things that the university is presenting as matters of privacy, aren't. And I wasn't thinking of the listing of individual students, but the listing of members on the GLO pages, which I imagine most GLOs do participate in, but maybe not at your campus. The college yearbooks I've looked at list members. They may not have every member, but a girl being listed on a group's page would be reason for further review to see if she had been initiated.

I also wasn't thinking of strictly the very few students who try to join more than one group when I was commenting on the "what's in it for us" attitude; I was thinking about how ineffective that seemed to be as a leadership philosophy with Greek organizations. There's a lot that the Greek Life office really needs to handle that the only benefit to the university is the resolution or prevention of conflicts among the groups.

Other campus organizations deserve attention too, but I think it's rare that there are as many that feel they are in direct competition for members or status, etc. I suspect it's rare that they need as much supervision in terms of alcohol violations and housing issues.

It's rare, as far as I know, that as many other student orgs. have relatively powerful and wealthy national and international groups with lawyers.

Sure the cinema club may really hate sharing an office with the Objectivist society, but I'd be surprised if either were going to sue or get their alums to make a lot of noise with the fund raising folks.

The university, it would seem to me needs to handle the Greek groups well and pro-actively, so the junk doesn't blow up big.

I agree that the issue of girls joining twice isn't likely to be the think that causes the system to fall apart, but it's an area that might be important to the groups in which you've decided not to help them. In the long run, their believing that you aren't there to help them could be a big problem.

Oh, honey, that wasn't even a rude reply. She was just clarifying that the NPC was different. Please take the tone as straightforward and explanatory. You'd know if it was rude.

ETA: This is kind of putting words in your mouth again, OTW, and I apologize. But I couldn't help but think, Oh no, a rude reply would be much different.

I'm not appealing to you to release GLO membership, but surely this is no way to run a university: setting your standards based on not what is right or legal, but avoiding the filing of suits?

Sure, don't invite lawsuits, and I think that's what you are trying to do with the "need to know" policy, but really, with the number of sue happy crazy people in the world, things are going to stink really badly really quick if they learn that your are motivated mainly by avoiding suits and staying out of the press. Will any rule stand up to a challenge and the suggestion of getting a lawyer at your campus?

I apologize that I misunderstood your post.

You are correct, from a practical standpoint, I am very surprised with information technology, that there isn't a collaborative database, that simply lists a member's name, school, Greek organization, and their birthday.

More information is listed in the local phone book, so if I were working in National Headquarters, if they are concerned about privacy, that would be the argument I would use.

You are absolutely correct in the 'need to know' policy being used to temper our practices with a litageous (I probably didn't spell that right), society. You are right on the money with that one :)

There seems to be an astonishingly wide spectrum of university policies regarding Greek life. Different campus cultures demand different methods. I hope that what you are doing works well on your campus.

It would seem to me that confirmation of membership by name, date of initiation, and campus would be reasonably "safe," and although it seems to me that each campus could maintain this information and make it available if a student agreed to sign a waiver, maybe it does need to happen at the NPC level rather than the university Greek Life offices.

(I'm thinking of an additional form that a transfer student could fill out and send back to her previous office of Greek Life and Campus activities, so of like an activity transcript release, and the old campus verify she had never been a member at the old place.)

All of it may not be worth it in terms of the number of people who attempt to join more than one

There are just so many problems with this whole thing.

Clearly many colleges and universities simply won't bother with compiling all of the extracurriculars of every student. Whether or not someone tries to join two different NPCs means nothing to them. Even if they did keep the information, a student who was a member of an NPC at one school who knows they're transfering to another school without a chapter of their NPC or with a "weak" chapter that they don't want to affiliate with (and they plan on going through Recruitment again) simply won't sign a waiver to disclose their affiliation. Why would they?

My earlier response to the idea of a giant NPC database may have seemed flippant but I honestly believe it will never happen. An NPC group can't just hand over personal information about their members to someone else even if it's the NPC itself. Can you imagine how many thousands of irate women there would be? And I'm not talking about Social Security Numbers either.

I joined Kappa Delta not XYZ and as far as I'm concerned XYZ has no business having my personal information. NPC would have to pass a resolution in order to be allowed to compile that kind of information. Oh, and that would only entail contacting a few hundred thousand women and asking for their permission and receiving it. It will never happen!

You have tools today such as Facebook, etc. that we didn't have back when I was a collegian. These can help you with getting "the dirt" on PNMs. What it comes down to is doing your own leg-work. If you're really concerned about this issue then bring it up with your chapter and your advisors. There simply isn't going to be an easy solution here.

I hate to double post but...

This has been an interesting thread and one of the only ones on this topic that hasn't turned ugly. However, considering the number of times this issue is brought up, don't you think it might warrant a sticky either in the Greek Life section or in Sorority (and Fraternity) Recruitment?

It could be quite simple:

Dual Membership

Two NPCs - not allowed
An NPC and an NPHC - not allowed
A local and an NPC - allowed but you may have to drop your membership with the local, ask about it
A service sorority or fraternity and an NPC - allowed

etc., etc.

When someone asks again, they can just be directed to the sticky. End of discussion.

Just a thought.

Should be stickied and could be etched in stone...but for some reason I doubt it'll be known unless it's broadcasted next to the GreekChat banner on the top of the page. :)

lol So true! :)

I don't really think the logistics of it would even have to go that far. If you are a member of an NPC Sorority, that makes you a member of NPC. If such a database was created, NPC would have to create it, and they wouldn't necessarily need to ask for your permission to have it.

Women who are members of a sorority, that want to access the database, would simply register just like they do on their home sorority website...they could have a cross-check database to ensure that Suzie Q, was actually Suzie Q of XYZ Sorority before granting access.

I don't think it would take hardly anything to create, but again, it all boils down to numbers: How often does it happen? Enough to spend the money to create it?

I suspect that the reason we haven't seen one, is because it's rare.

In my thinking, the failure of a transfer student to sign a waiver would basically say, "hey, everyone, look very carefully at this girl because she's hiding something." From there, groups could do some investigating or just not offer a bid if they can't find out what the deal is.

Almost any other transfer, I would think would sign a waiver saying that the Panhellenic at your old school has permission to reveal if you were a member of a sorority on that campus because they would know that the answer would be a legitimate "no."

I'm actually really curious about this.

I just visited the NPC website and one of the things I noticed was that one of the publications they offer has chapter listings and it's specifically noted that names and addresses are not included. I don't know whether this is because it would constantly have to be updated (probably) or because they don't have the info or because they can't release the info.

I called KD and asked if they keep SSNs, anyone else want to step up to the plate and contact NPC to ask about this?

Conference Office Contact Information:

Mailing Address:
8777 Purdue Road, Suite 117
Indianapolis, IN 46268

Phone: (317) 872-3185
Facsimile: (317) 872-3192
EmaiI: npccentral@npcwomen.org


BTW: I was wrong about the number of women involved. It's actually 3.6 million.

Good point!

They can check on your membership.
 

I know of a sorority where they pledged a woman who transferred in from another school from another NPC sorority. It was policy to check every woman who was not a freshman, not just this woman. Right before her initiation, they ran her against some data base and found out that she had been a member of another NPC sorority.

It really sucked because this woman was a junior and had been elected pledge class president at her new sorority, lived in house, made friends with the other members and then got found out. No one really wanted to be her friend after that. Maybe a few. I heard of other stories on campuses where other sororities didn't check that much. My recommendation, is don't do it or do it at your own risk. There are ways of checking.