My daughter happily pledged a sorority at UT! We are from out of state, and she ended up at the sorority where she knew an active member from her HS (and met many of her friends from the sorority over time). Connections are key at UT - just about everyone at UT graduated near the top of their class, so hard to distinguish yourself there. For future PNM's, get your recs, and try to meet current sorority members ahead of time (whether that is through friends of friends, etc.). Also my daughter has 2 sophomore friends who successfully pledged - they made lots of Greek friends last year, and that really appeared to have helped.

Thank you for all the advice here on GC!

Are you kidding me? It's sorority recruitment, a VOLUNTARY event. No one is forced to go, no is forced to say in the house during dance party. I'd be beyond bothered that my university's president is so involved in Greek affairs both as a member. But also as an alum, the president has far more important things to worry about.

KD took 66

And again - slippery slope. If he sticks his nose in this, it sets a precedent for him to stick his nose in everything. Not to mention, harassment by the president might make this chapter into martyrs for "free expression" - which is the LAST thing anyone wants to happen.

Here is the organization's statement on hazing, you can determine if separating PNMs and talking to some and not others creates an environment of superiority/inferiority:

Hazing is prohibited.

Hazing is any action taken or situation created, organized or conducted regardless of intent by any new and/or initiated member of XYZ or their agent(s) for any other individual where participation may be voluntary, forced or coerced that occurs, regardless of location, that has the potential to cause or actually results in emotional, mental or physical discomfort; illness; injury; consumption of or opportunity to consume alcohol; that may create a superior/inferior relationship between the participants; and/or may reflect unfavorably upon the individuals, chapter or Fraternity. Permission or approval by a person being hazed is not a defense.

Any chapter or individual member whose actions or attitudes are not in accord with the Fraternity’s policy against hazing will be subject to disciplinary action by the chapter and/or by Grand Council. Acts of hazing may result in civil and criminal liability on the part of those individuals engaged in such activities.

Chapters and members must follow all applicable federal, state, local and province laws and university policies regarding hazing.

The elimination of hazing is the responsibility of each collegiate and alumna member of XYZ.

This isn't your fight, it's not even your organization. This is a matter for UT Panhellenic, Nationals and maybe the NPC.

Honestly, butt out. I'd find it so odd to get a report of hazing from someone who isn't in the organization or even at UT. It's like stirring the pot.

If the system wants it to change, then the system will change it.

And you presume I don't know people who had to be part of this. All I did was post their statement, relax. If people don't like being talked about, then don't give people a reason to talk about you.

Wow when I read this, it really does sound like hazing. It would be one thing if they did the dance party with ALL the pnms but to only do it with the ones they don't want definitely would cause mental discomfort and a superior /inferior environment.

Has anyone reported this to NPC? If so, what was their stance?

The fact that this is happening makes all Greek organizations look bad: Whether it's fair or not, guilt by association is a real thing. There are many people contributing to this thread who aren't a member of the organization in question, nor are they connected to UT. This seems, to me, to be an appropriate place to have this discussion.

Regarding your last sentence, I would assume that the system does want it to change or else they wouldn't impose a fine on this chapter. Is there another reason the fine would be in place if the goal wasn't to attempt to put a stop to their behavior?

That wasn't my point. This site is the perfect place for the discussion and I never said otherwise. My point was that I don't think people who have no ties to UT or XYZ should be writing the school or the organization about it.

Oh.
It's hard to see that point since neither your post nor the post you quoted made any reference to writing the school or the organization.

We are greek. We are members of the NPC umbrella. We have a right to talk about something when we see something that doesn't feel right or just. I never said I was going to e-mail the president of UT, and I have no such plans. Calm down. You seem very scared that people are even talking about this.

I'm not saying don't talk about it. I've never said that. And if you had been here more time you'd know I'm not someone who shys away from the tough questions or the taboo topics.

But somewhere in this thread it was suggested to write the University president of UT. I don't agree with that.

We'll have to just agree to disagree.

Then why didn't you address the person who suggested e-mailing the President? That wasn't me.... I merely posted the organization's statement on hazing and expressed my feelings about the behavior.

And while you may not agree with e-mailing the president, you have made it very clear that this is nobody else's business except for those who are part of this organization or UT panhellenic. Well, unfortunately, this type of behavior effects all organizations, and feeds into the negative stereotypes about greeks. And attempts or pressure to silence people from addressing it in whatever fashion (e-mail, discussion, whatever) comes accross as defensive.

Especially since Bill Powers is on his way out the door.

I look forward to learning the response from the president to your letter.

Here's the problem: that definition of hazing covers virtually EVERYTHING. You can't separate PNM's by room because some might feel bad? Okay. Now you can't have the president say hello to some PNM's and not others. Now you can't make PNM's sit in the back row during the skit. Now you can't rank PNM's on your bid list.

I disagree that it covers everything. If PNMs were separated randomly, it would be ok but they're not. They're separated by girls they want and girls they don't want.

The problem isn't even really that they're separated. I'm sure that happens everywhere to some degree. The problem is that the one's they want are put in a room for conversation. The ones they don't want are put in a room with creepy jumping up and down that is called a "dance party".

1. No one has provided any proof that there is a different room for desired PNMs where they are rushed rather than having to dance. I have it on good authority from a UT Member of said sorority that EVERYONE dances.

2. It may be rude to some, but obviously some people like it as they continue to be very successful.

3. Conflating this with "evil" or "hazing" is ridiculous. Every chapter has a personality and does things differently. This is tasteless and tacky but not evil.

4. Things will change when returns for this chapter are adversely effected and not before. They have no incentive to change.

5. As for them making ALL Greek life look bad...if having a dance party and not talking to PNMs makes everyone look bad, why do women still go through recruitment at UT every year despite this "tradition"? It makes that one chapter look bad.

Look to every big recruitment school, SRC use rooms to separate the PNMs they want from the rest. It happens. All. The. Time. Is it wrong? No. It's their system and can have it's benefits, like introducing those women to the movers and shakers of the chapter. Do women who aren't in those rooms get bids? Sure, but they aren't the PNMs that are being fought for by the chapter's big competitors.

Except that there are TWO other chapters at Texas that show/designate their "chosen" to the other PNMs at the parties.
Read last year's Texas Recruitment thread.

And, before someone says that I shouldn't be commenting on this unless MY group is involved ...

It is clear to me that UT has seen this "dance party" as an infraction and fines the chapter as a sanction. The chapter builds these fines into their recruitment budget. Lots of chapters do that for various things they want to get around during recruitment(extra decorations, piece of jewelry, etc.). What is so stupid is that the Panhellenic council, Greek life, or school administration has not nipped this mean, rude, and hurtful behavior in the bud. I also call bulshit on it being a part of ritual. My campus got rid of mid party singing years ago (excluding pref of course) and hasn't looked back. A semester or year long of social probation as a sanction would force these girls to change their behavior. Your alums can't buy their way out of that and social probation doesn't look so nice to a PNM that wants a fun experience. Plus, Nationals would have to acknowledge a probation sanction and the infraction. A rush fine just gets swept under the rug.

I wholeheartedly agree. It isn't wrong to separate PNMs and go out of the way to introduce top candidates to the movers and shakers. But that is different than just not talking to them altogether and ignoring them.

PNMs already feel vulnerable, do we really need to make the process more stressful engaging in different behaviors for different groups?

But they do it to all PNMs, no matter how "desirable" they are. If a PNM can't look at the party and decide those girls are rude, write them off and move on, she's got bigger problems for life in the future. Not everyone will always be nice. I find it distasteful that this chapter would rather do this than actually talk to people, but no one is being singled out.

I totslly agree with AOPi Angel. It is what it is. The other chapters on that campus don't give it 2nd thought. Trust me, they have a RTP list as well and are savvy with their selection process. The losers in the process,however, are the pnms who go through the process not being savvy enough themselves to know they haven't got a chance with these groups and drop out when they are released. I believe I'm right that less than 75% of the girls who started the process ended with a House this year and well of 95% still had a chance with a groups that still had them in the mix.

A lot of that probably has to do with the perceived need to be in one of the top 6 groups. Bama is better now because so many OOS students now go through and don't necessarily care what the "traditional" strong groups are. This has been a problem at every Southern university with predominantly instate students. Tent talk precedes recruitment. People come in with a goal to be XYZ not Greek.

/swerve:

AFFECT. Please, thank you.

that is all, return to regularly scheduled programming.

/end swerve

I think there has been fall out from this accepted behavior. Texas is a very large very competitive school, but the Greek system is not nearly as large as otherwise comparable schools. So yes, the dance party doesn't keep all girls from rushing, but it could be keeping 200-300 highly qualified girls from exposing themselves to such humiliation.

Humiliation? Really?

But hasn't UT's Greek system been appreciably smaller than most comparable institutions for a very very long time? It seems more like (as someone said upthread) they offer more types of groups that can confer a similar social standing as GLOs.

Don't they have social houses that are basically off-campus dorms privately owned and operated? A UT alumna I know said they have always been popular.

Like this one:
http://www.srd.org/

I think we've also talked here before about the sports booster club thingys...I can't remember what they are called. Spirit clubs or something?

It's been a while since I've been in college, but SRD is just a private women's dorm and not really seen as a "club" so to speak. A lot of those women join sororities. Same as Hardin House.

And yes, there are the Spirits, which from what I remember was 1/2 sorority women and half not. I think you couldn't join until the spring semester, so some women that dropped out of formal recruitment tried getting into Spirits.

There are tons of other organizations like service fraternities, other spirit groups that support various sports, Orange Jackets, etc.

I think another factor is that the UT Greek system doesn't get support from the administration comparable to your average SEC school. Plus land for housing is extremely expensive.

UT
 

I think in a lot of ways UT has become a lot more like UCLA or maybe Michigan than a traditional SEC school bigger in size on a very urban campus much more diverse. The administration does nothing for the Greeks.Greek Life is still big at UT but its part of a very very big pond.

Just heard from the young lady for whom I wrote a recommendation. She is a very happy new member of Pi Beta Phi! First woman who let me know the results of her recruitment!

DaffyKD