My chapter had never used paddles for any purpose, but with our last pledge class several of the Brothers did give them as gifts during the post-ceremony dinner. Two of the NIBs who had the same Big Brother gave her a paddle, the pledge class had gotten together to make a paddle for their pledgemaster, another older Brother gave a paddle to his Big. This made the whole event very special and I think everyone enjoyed it.

Gathering those signatures was a great way for a new member to get to know all the older members, and for them to get to know each new member. But...the member could make you do something before "granting" a signature. None of my sisters ever did, though. We had a big emphasis on not hazing.

I think calling them by a different name doesn't mean they still aren't a paddle. It's a part of a traditional Greek system - even my backwards campus had them! :p My paddle is proudly hanging above my dresser right next to my composite and some other Gamma Phi goodies.

As for people getting wacked with them, we'd never actually paddle somebody. When we presented them we'd occasionally give each other a little tap, but that was in FUN. I'm glad our IHQ hasn't gotten so uptight as to not let us goof around occasionally.

Oh, but they were...that's exactly what they were used for in the beginning. Certainly today, they a used as a momento, but we must admit that they still symbolize a very ugly aspect of the past.

Agree & Agree.

We've always made getting signatures a fun way to meet the members. For the pledges, if they just come to meetings and events they wind up meeting a majority of members. (that's how I did it as a pledge) We've also encouraged them to get signatures from Brothers outside the chapter they might meet, say if we are doing a service project and encounter Brothers.

Then we give a nice memento to the pledge who gets the most signatures.

We don't allow for Brothers to quiz the pledges or the like to 'earn' signatures' If a Brother doesn't want to give a signature, that's fine. And as we don't require 100% signatures, it won't affect the pledge meeting this requirement.

Other chapters go beyond signatures with doing interviews to get the pledges (and Brothers) to get to know each other. Those that do this develop interview guidelines to make sure they are done properly.

Our National Pledging Standarda has the point that the pledges should met the Brothers, and these are the ways most chapters do it. All try to avoid things that can slide into hazing, such as 'earning' the signature/interview.

Some have stated they feel that having pledges ask for signatures is hazing. I don't agree. Making them do stuff to earn it can be. Saying that since you won't make an active gather signatures so thus its hazing don't work for me. At our National Conventions we have a contest in which you are asked to met our VIPs and get their signatures. And I always take a copy of our current Pledge Manual to national events to get the signatures of everyone pictured in it as a memento. So yes, there are times that we 'ask' actives to gather signatures. :)

I meant in my chapter, when I was a member. I know paddles were once used pretty much as torture devices, still are in some places...I've heard the stories from my parents. Most of my friends who are in sororities, though, tell me that their chapters were like mine--paddles were gifts only, meant to be displayed and not actually used.

Previous paddle threads
 

http://www.greekchat.com/gcforums/sh...threadid=30764

http://www.greekchat.com/gcforums/sh...threadid=26104

http://www.greekchat.com/gcforums/sh...threadid=11751

I love deferred rush. GC rushes in the spring (just finished in fact), these allows the GLOS to get the students who want to be at Gtown. We still have students that leave after a few years, get married and leave school, or decide on going to a public school with their major, but for the most part deferred rush elimates the masive amount of students that leave second semester.

As to NM period... all NMs at Georgetown are to be initiated before Spring Break (whenever it falls) but most of the frats initiate after break instead.

As you can see I still use Rush. I understand the New Member thing, because with AGD they do have a certain vote and on special occations can hold offices. I don't always like that they have a vote on issues like alcohol at formals and officer positions (though elections are now held before winter break, so that doesn't happen as often now). They don't have vote on other issues because they aren't card carrying members yet.

Most of the brothers in my APO chapter would sign paddles, no questions asked. All the exec committee members did have requirements before they would sign, but they were the same things for everyone in the pledge class and not things that I would consider hazing. They were things like have someone take a picture of you and your big brother (for the VP of Membership) or attend a service committee meeting (for the VP of Service). Of course, that probably would be considered hazing these days.

We didn't have to get 100% signatures either.

Sigma Alpha uses Rush and Rushee. However, in place of pledge and pledge period, we use Membership Candidate (MC for short), who goes through the Membership Candidate Education process with a Membership Candidate Educator. She receives an MC pin versus a pledge pin. Although I have no problem with the term pledge, I do like the term Membership Candidate. It really denotes that the young women are candidates for membership. Once they are activated (our term for initiation), I call them New Members. I agree that they shouldn't be called a New Member unless they have gone through the education process and have been activated. It just doesn't seem right to call them a new member when they still have to complete an education process successfully before they are allowed full membership. We also do not activate an MC until next semester in order to wait on grades.

Well I KINDA see the problem with the term "pledge" but I see absolutely NO problem with the terms rush and rushee. I mean ... sure some people weren't really hazed by some of the stuff that is considered hazing today... HOWEVER some people were and although some of it is a bit overboard... (I mean Phi Sig won't even let us give our new member classes letters of the alphabet, you know like Alpha class or whetver) but if it keeps people from being hazed... I *suppose* it's a good idea.

Re: Let's bring back "rush"
 

I totally agree! Hell, I still say Rush!

Paddles
 

Yep, we had to make "paddles" for our big brothers and pledgemaster, but they wern't allowed to be even remotely close to the shape of a paddle. Instead, we designed "paddles" that actually had something to do with our bigs, using their hobbies, interests, or something like that.

For example, one that I saw in the house, for brother "Cleetus" had a picture of the hick from the simpsons saying "Hey Maw"...

This allows us to make something creative, rather than just a simple paddle. Yeah, it's the traditional greek symbol, but i'm just saying that there are other cool ways to go about this...

I have no problem with the terminology, but I did have an incident when some GDIs saw my paddle, and made some risque remarks about sororities in general. That's what made me "see the light" concerning their non-usage!

You can't kill the old terminology when it's so much easier to remember and say!

Plus, the whole "recruitment" process makes it sound like we're the military or a sports team or something.

I don't quite get the movement towards shorter pledge periods, either. There's a lot of stuff to learn about in those "new member education" sessions and it's a lot easier to get it all down if you have more time (and can spread out pledging activities over a span of time to allow time for, I don't know...school? sleep? eating?).

All the PC-ness seems really silly to me since our campus (and most now) are really strict on what Greeks can and can't get away with to begin with. Even if we wanted to, we couldn't pull all the "Animal House"-style antics and stay on campus for more than 2.5 seconds afterwards. It gets called rush, pledging, etc., because it's easier to say, girls from Greek families grew up knowing the old terms, and few people I know really associate those words with anything negative.

Besides, my pledge period was mostly getting pampered...oh, and getting to wear the awesome green and white ribbon pins (that weren't required of us as pledges, but "encouraged"...haha, wow). But am I the only one nowadays that associates "pledge" = presents? ;)