lane swerver alert/

Your response reminds me of what some people said in response to the NPHC ban on "pledging" in 1990, which is that something shouldn't be banned just because some people will violate basic guidelines. Instead of banning something altogether, have certain guidelines and educate the pledges and members about what to look out for and the proper channels to take if there's even a hint of a violation.

However, while that makes good darn sense, it doesn't really work that way most of the time and that's why certain rules and bans were implemented in the first place. Our organizations have to protect themselves from what can possibly happen with thousands of members within hundreds of collegiate and alumnae chapters.

/lane swerver alert

I wasn't allowed to talk to my biological sister when I went through rush. Luckily, we did rush (it was still rush then!) before school started, and it only lasted a week. She was in Monroe all summer working while I was in Baton Rouge, so we didn't talk much before I went to rush, either. (This was in the olden days before all you can talk cell phone plans when long distance phone calls cost an arm and a leg!)

I agree to an extent. It depends on the campus too. My reference is a campus where recruitment isn't until the last week of January and freshman move in in August. The rules are very strict, too strict in my opinion, and are not really explained to freshman until December.

If you are a freshman woman sitting in her first ever college class, and she happens to sit down next to a greek woman and tries to have a conversation with her, and all the greek woman can do is say "Hi" for fear of an infraction, I think it could be completely off putting to someone who may know nothing about sororities.

I believe that for campus's with deferred recruitment, there may be a push from national headquarters to "get to know" girls before recruitment starts. With this pressure and the rules put in place at a strict campus, it leaves the sorority between a rock and a hard place - either follow the campus rules to the letter or try to get to know freshman per their nationals, and run the risk of getting an infraction.

Do I think its wrong to bid promise, give a PNM gifts, take them out drinking, tell them that they should only rush XYZ - absolutely. But I also think it rediculous that if a PNM asks you for directions to get to their next class or to ask you to pass the salt you could also get an infraction for that.

It also does not help when you have sororities on campus that spend the first 5 months of school trolling to get other sororities in trouble.

But it's not in a PNM's interest report or ignore dirty rushing. A promised bid for them is a positive.

I think it would just lead to "enforced" getting to know the freshmen instead of silence and a lot more of the "buy drinks for the freshmen" sort of dirty rushing too. (When you're talking about non-deferred freshmen rush, not deferred or sophomore rush).

I also wish there was a way to address the idle gossip that is damaging; discussing a chapter closing when it isn't. To me that is just as bad as bid promising, and hurts the whole system.

Right, but most PNMs think their promised bid is real as you said.

I'm talking though that if there weren't silence rules at all, sororities could essentially put together their bid list before round 1 and have promised said bids to the PNMs. We've seen how even on relatively non-competitive friendly campuses rush can turn chapters nasty. With the current national emphasis on numbers (because they're needed to stay competitive) I don't see a more relaxed even fraternity style rush working. As long as quota must be achieved or else it's going to be pretty cutthroat.

This is why I do like a school that is organized and involved. UW (Huskies) and WSU (Cougars) have information on their pages about campus orgs. and their status. Though most incoming freshmen won't look, their parents might and it could make a difference. We haven't had issues while at my time at Idaho, but it seems we're open about RM issues as one can find it in the student paper with quotes from the Dean of Students. Smaller social issues are discussed, mostly men's groups, but I have yet to see it really hurt a chapter to have social sanctions.

Let's be honest, people will have socials even when they aren't supposed to, it hurts more when they can't participate in Homecoming and Greek Week.

I'll be honest - I'm not a fan of deferred recruitment. If you remember my rush story, ours was deferred, and I was dirty rushed all over the place. I even had people calling and writing to me over the summer prior to my freshman year! I was promised bids from the second party on, I could go on and on about dirty rushing.

FWIW, I'm also not a fan of the 6-8 week New Member period.

I like having a semester to settle into college, live in a dorm and make friends, join later, and have at least one semester of college complete. I think rushing and joining so early can be detrimental to a person who is going through the huge life change of college. What's wrong with having a panhellenic set up for majors where you can meet students who have taken your courses, go do a big philanthropy project, see the groups, and not make a decision before you step foot in a classroom.

If we're going to promote lifelong membership and involvement, we need to stop focusing on the first semester and showcase our alumnae and that we are not four years and something you do just in college.

You are onto something. We certainly have enough alums hanging around recruitment looking for something to do to help out, and if not, what better way to bring alums back to help out their local collegiate chapters!

I'm surprised that NPC hasn't thought of this before.