So where does the money come from for the Pi Chis to stay in the hotels? Do the Pi Chis pay for it out of pocket? Does it come from a fee that every chapter pays per Pi Chi? Does PHA pay for it?

I don't think it's necessary to have the Pi Chis locked up like nuns in a convent during recruitment week. Is dirty rushing really that huge of a problem? Tons of schools have their recruitment counselors live in their normal accomodations (even in their chapter houses if that is where they live) without problems.

Back to the original topic, I would be really surprised if the Rho Chis at Towson and any other chapter members honestly had no idea that they were not supposed to be drinking on bid day. I think the problem stems more from the fact that because it was a "tradition" that had gone unpunished in the past, no one (including the Greek advisor) took the NPC Unanimous Agreement seriously until someone got a concussion. I am just wondering why anyone would want to drink on bid day. It's one of the most fun days of the year/semester that one does not need alcohol to enjoy herself.

/someone who pledged after the truly fun bid days of the past :)

LOL - I'm glad someone else said it so I didn't have to incriminate myself...:D

My school always put the Rho Chis and the exec members that disaffiliated up in hotels. It wasn't so much to prevent dirty rushing as it was to keep the PNMs from finding out their affiliation. After all, if you saw your Rho Chi walking into a sorority house after class, it would be easy to figure out her affiliation.

Back in the day (1993) we paid $25 for rush. Each chapter had 3 Rho Chis (11 chapters) plus 1 member of exec. So 44 women to put up in a hotel. Each Rho Chi group was assigned to a room (3 women from different chapters in each group). So figure 14 hotel rooms for 1 week (okay 8 days). Most hotels (especially in a college town during a non-event week) will give you a block of rooms for a lower price.

We had about 50 girls per Rho Chi group to start out with, so with each of them paying $25 you have $1250 per group, the hotel cost was about $75 a night for one room- you would need that for 8 days- so your cost is $600 for the week in the hotel. Plus you still have $650 to pay for the exec room, the favor given to all rushees on pref night (a water bottle the year I rushed) and other incidentals.

It was completely doable.

As for the not drinking on bid day, well it's a good thing they didn't have facebook when I was in college (but at least we waited until AFTER the official stuff was over)

I don't know when the rule started prohibiting drinking on Bid Day...we were never told there was a prohibition. Actually, the fraternities used to throw bid night parties to celebrate the event. All of the sorority members would show up in their bid day shirts and party. My bid day was the last year this was allowed, so maybe 1994 was the cut off. Of course, at the time the drinking age in Louisiana was 18 so the problem of underage drinking was not so big in our state. I was only 17 so I guess I broke the law.:p

Random, and probably dumb question, but are there any campuses that have the Rho Chis live in other sororities houses? As in, if there were 5 XYZ RhoChis and 5 ABC Rho Chis, the XYZ Rho Chis would live in ABC's house and the ABCs would live in XYZ's house?? I know there are all sorts of logistical problems with that scenario, but I can't say that it would be completely impossible.

and the npc rule now is no alcohol or boys.

I couldn't find a source on the official NPC website, but a Google search on NPC+alcohol+bid day came up with a word document from the College of William and Mary's Inter-Sorority Association from 2005.

If the website is indeed factual, then

I'm sure the date's somewhere in the Green Book (for whoever has a copy handy).

They've got this Towson story on the local news. Talk about bad PR. You think the cameras will show up when the groups do their campus philanthropies?

ETA: Well they did show a brief NPC-wide jeans give-away for those in need ( I guess) of jeans. They also interviewed a Phi Mu sister who stated that GLO members contribute the most service and raise the most money for the community.

Has bid day changed that much since 2004?

The chapter houses are not close to where most PNMs live, but if they wanted to camp out and see who lives where, I suppose they could. With the advents of facebook, google, etc. if a PNM is absolutely determined to find out a Rho Gamma's affiliation, she'll find out. A couple of mine figured me out because they found a picture of me in the Sigma Kappa Triangle (obviously something I had no control over). A few more figured it out because they saw a picture of me in a scrapbook. My face was covered, but they could see my hair and they were like "You're the only RG with short brown hair."

What's the point of even having Rho Chis if there are 50 of them in a group?!?!:eek: That defeats the point of having any personal attention!

It has changed monumentally since 1987.

Our sorority houses are across the street or down the street from main campus buildings including several large classroom buildings, so non-greeks are constantly walking past the houses.

As for 50 PNMs in a rush group- we had three rush counselors in every group, so that is about 16 PNMs for every Rho Chi/Gamma/ Chi. So we had plenty of personal attention.

Plus, since the Rho Chis were staying in hotels, we were given their phone number and we could call them at any time (this was before cell phones).

I'm surprised to hear this was changed in 1991. Our Panhellenic advisor was a major stickler for rules, but she didn't make us change until 1994. After that point there were no boys or alcohol on bid day, which really made bid day more about sisterhood anyway. Also, this is a very vague rule..."sponsored celebrations" leaves a lot to the imagination. This doesn't sound like it forbids individual sisters of legal drinking age of imbibing if they do not "sponsor" the celebration with their other sisters. Of course, the Towson situation involved drinking on campus which is a completely different rule.

In the olden days, most of the sororities on my campus had a mixer on pledge pickup/bid day - we preferred to have a party as then if the girls had boyfriends or other people they wanted to share the event with them, they could invite them over with no problem. I've always thought it was kind of silly to go straight to a mixer with a bunch of dudes you don't know - I think this was the main reason NPC got rid of it. It took the focus off sisterhood and put it on OMG THAT SIGMA CHI WITH TEH BLUE SHIRT ON IS REALLY CUTE.

But of course, as far as parties or mixers are concerned - all they have to do is wait until the day after Bid Day to hold it.