We are exaggerating. Please don't take it literally. :rolleyes:

Oh no of course but I've heard of schools widdling down their new member periods to a week.

Theta Phi Alpha is not a Christian/ Catholic sorority. It’s not only open to all faiths, it does not have a faith affiliation.

Just because a sorority is open to all faiths does not mean that it wasn't established with a religious group in mind. The historically Jewish sororities are open to all faiths, but were founded to give Jewish students a chance to join Greek organizations at a time when Jewish students were not accepted in Greek organizations.

Likewise, "Theta Phi Alpha was originally founded to offer Catholic women the experience of sorority life, as other sororities did not include Catholic women."

The founders of any GLO will draw from their own experiences in the formation of their organization. I don't know much about TPA, but I would expect that their Catholicism played some role in certain aspects of the organization, even though TPA is obviously not a religious organization (no NPC sorority is).

For example, one thing I did notice is that TPA has St. Catherine of Sienna as a patron saint. No other GLO has a patron saint, and the idea of having a patron saint is something I would personally consider to be associated with Catholicism.

FWIW, as far as I can see, any post which has disappeared was deleted by the author.

*changed my above answer because it is possible that if someone was banned, all of their posts may have been deleted and I couldn't see that.

Yes, I indicated that. It was founded as a Catholic sorority, but became open to all faiths (as well as races and creeds) in 1968. It is not a "Christian" sorority. Likewise, AEPhi and SDT were founded as Jewish sororities, but they have been open to women of all faiths for many years.

To be more precise, it was a "Christian" sorority at the time of its founding, but it no longer has a religious affiliation.

Sigh, Cookiez, no you haven't or if you have heard such rank misinformation, you should have known better than to believe it. This is not true for any NPC group. And we are specifically talking about NPC here.

She may be thinking of those fraternities that initiate right after bid acceptance (?).

Yes. I saw several threads where fraternities were basically putting their new member periods to a week in an attempt to curb obviously harmful hazing. I know new member periods vary from campus to campus but from what i've seen most average it to end between 6-8 weeks.

New member period lengths are not decided upon by the school. They are decided upon by each NPC sorority's headquarters. The way that the new member period length and curriculum are decided may vary from sorority depending on their internal rules and processes (e.g.: the executive board makes the changes or it's voted upon during convention etc.), but the school has nothing to do with it. I don't understand why you'd talk about fraternity new member periods in a thread devoted to NPC sororities and not even mention fraternities.

It's very nice to see a young and relatively new sorority member so enthusiastic about our organizations here. However, as several have mentioned to you previously, you need to dial back on spreading what amounts to gossip and conjecture.

Back in the day when dinosaurs roamed the earth, pledge periods lasted an entire quarter/semester. Those of us who put on our best animal skins and ambled over the sorority cave for our pledge meetings feel that we were much better prepared for initiation. We had a thorough knowledge of our orgs and histories, as well as the other orgs on campus. We learned the greek alphabet, the names of the other fraternities and sororities on campus, the abbreviations of those names, their badges and pledge pins and had to be able to recognize them on sight. We even learned where each fraternity and sorority on campus was founded and each founding date. Then a couple of sororities decided to shorten their pledge periods, and the other orgs joined suit-many, or all, without consulting their constituency. So we get new members who have a "skim the surface"knowledge of his/her org's history and initiates who are surprised to find out that their chosen orgs had a distinct religious persuasion.

I still can't figure out why anyone thought that was a better thing. There were those who spouted that it prevented hazing but I have never seen any proof of that.

My pledge class felt cherished during that time.

I was told (truthfully or not) that the shorter pledge program was for better retention of each pledge class. Well, yes and no. Pledges did have to learn everything that FSUZeta mentioned above, keep their grades up, and get to know their chapter sisters & pledges. For some pledges, that was a deal breaker, and they would depledge. Others thrived on this system, getting to know their sorority on a more personal level. Some of the ways we learned are now considered hazing, such as pledge books - things that most who had to have them enjoyed. I never heard of anyone who was punished for not having one, but I'm sure that there are bad apple chapters who did.

I can't help but feel that in most cases, the bad apple chapters ruined it for everyone.

So... now we have New Members who don't understand the whys behind their own rituals, and they want to change things to suit them. It doesn't - and shouldn't! - work that way!