Why can't they just call pledges "pledges"? Fraternities have no issue with this. Is NPC the one giving this PC order to call them "baby [whatevers]" or new members?

My nationals told us to never call our new members "babies" as it could be deemed as hazing... somehow. I believe the switch to "new members" over "pledges" was NPC, however that was before my time so another member could answer with more confidence.

I agree it's dumb and condescending, but the blog post I read (it was the Alpha Phi one) was against it because it "differentiated" them as well. I'm not against a name for pledges that differentiates them, because they ARE different. I'm against "baby" because it is stupid. I would have zero issue with a name that makes sense for the sorority (which for us, pearls does) but the problem is, you can't apply those across the board. If I say to someone "I'm a Pearl" or "I'm an Alpha" (for ADPI) they may not know what I'm talking about. So "baby whatevers" becomes the defacto term...since...

I'm from a very non-cutesy campus. The ZTAs were pushing it with the bunny stuff everywhere, let me tell you. ;) I can't imagine us all running around calling each other babies, but I look on the sorority FB pages from my alma mater, and there the girls are, doing it. As I said before I think this is a generational thing in that this generation seems to have a higher "cutesy tolerance" than mine did...but the fact is...if we could still call them "pledges" it probably wouldn't be happening.

Because it has been decreed by the NPC PC police that "pledge" can be used in a demeaning manner and sets them apart. NPC doesn't like "baby whatevers" either, it wants them to all be called "new members." Which is a misnomer, as I stated above.

Basically NPC freaked out because numbers were in the toilet in the 90s and decided to make it sound "not so hard" to get in/be in/stay in a sorority.

A freaking Men. This is why pledges don't understand the responsibilities of being a member. They have this period where it is (can be) all sunshine and rainbows and then boom they get all these responsibilities of being a member. They are now required to go to meetings, be involved, pay dues, make grades, etc. A lot of the new member period is just celebrating they are there: Bid day, Bid day parties, Big Sis Reveal week, Temp Big sisters for a bunch of weeks, Initiation week, usually a sisterhood retreat. I was on the new member education committee almost all of the terms I was a collegiate. I saw so many new members switch from "life is full of sunshine, rainbows and sprinkles" to "Holy Hell this is a big commitment". When I was a Rho Gam, I saw that happen to at least 75% of my PNMs. The other 25% were usually legacies who had been told what to expect/seen it with siblings.

I feel like somewhere along the line the idea of sorority membership gets lost. One is tied to the chapter and must work with other people to make the chapter great. It won't be laid out on a plater for you. Even chapters that are prestigious and really have their stuff together have members that keep it that way. There is a large commitment to be a member of any sorority. From the "top" chapter to the "bottom" chapter.

So true. Several of us on here followed the recruitment of a girl on FB last fall. She wasn't too happy with her result and the members could probably tell. Until she was initiated, her FB was full of members' posts saying, "We love you! You're beautiful! Can I do lunch with you?" I mean, her page was loaded with this stuff every day. She was eating it up.

After initiation, it stopped abruptly. I was betting that she would transfer or quit. I won.

So did she quit or transfer?

She's transferring, although I haven't seen anything related to her sorority on her page for awhile. This is totally a kid who might try to re-rush in the fall at the new school.

This is an example of why I think the new member period is too short. I think we used to have more time to figure out before initiation if the sorority we pledged was a good fit. Better to depledge than to initiate and terminate.
Just my two cents.

The thing is (and I know I'm preaching to the choir, obv.), it's also rewarding and life-changing to be in a sorority. I think that pledges also need to see THAT, and it doesn't really happen that way. Often, during rush and the NM period, we push the social aspect and buy lots of gifts and things like that. And heck, when I was 16 years old, that was the stuff that was exciting.

But how can a chapter show pledges that a group is BOTH hard work and rewarding, in ways that go beyond "hey, look, we're doing a mixer with XYZ fraternity this weekend?"

I think it's good to move away from cheesy letter gifts and put a bigger emphasis on getting to know each other during the NM period, but I feel like it has to go beyond that. We had, nominally, pledge class officers, but I don't know if they really did anything. Could pledges have more things they have to do as a group, or is that hazing? I don't think it would be unreasonable for pledges to plan and do a community service day, for example.

If all of this came about as a result of a drop in membership in the 90's, well they fixed that problem, and maybe it's time for a little normalization. Add 1-2 weeks to the pledge period, go back to calling them pledges, ask chapters to tone down (not eliminate) the gifts, have a test. None of that is a severe change but might subtly give some control back to the actives and the chapter.

Another thing about the gifts is that it puts a pretty big financial burden on the members that isn't really necessary. I've heard of people spending hundreds of dollars on gifts for their little. Not everyone can do that.

And I think puts too much emphasis on THE LETTERS and not on the meaning behind them. I have a problem in general with the unnecessary accumulation of stuff. When the gravy train stops, do the girls quit? Maybe not as a direct result, but subconsciously when Christmas is over it's time to pack it in. You definitely want the pledges to have some stuff (subtle marketing is a good thing) but do we really want such one-dimensional girls that their rooms, their bodies, their cars can only be about their sorority? It would seem to me a book bag, a t-shirt (sweatshirt, tank top, whichever is most appropriate to your campus), a teddy bear or whatever your mascot is and maybe a picture frame with your letters. How much more stuff do you need as a pledge to be given to you? You accumulate so much of that stuff over the 4 years of your membership, I think as a pledge you just really need a starter set. Again with the You're Not a Full Member Yet thing. You don't need to have the same amount of letter stuff as the seniors. That's a benefit of longevity.

I was raising a couple of kids in the 1980s and 1990s and wasn't very active (add the fact that I was 3 hours away from the closest collegiate chapter, and the alum group in our area had maybe 3 active members), but I believe the pressure to reduce the number of weeks in the NM period came from the universities, not the NPC.
From what I've been told, this was a push all over the country - an idea on one or two campi that spread - to shorten both fraternity AND sorority pledge periods.
I think the current 6 weeks (often pushed to 8) is just too short a time to learn enough about how the fraternity/sorority operates, history, policies. Making your grades also used to be a powerful motivator and a way to jettison those whose priorities were not, shall we say, academic.

I wish we all waited a semester to initiate. Props to Chi O for standing their ground!