done.
 

im done.

A. Spend more time in English class. I'm too hungry to get my red pen out.
B. Stop hazing.
C. Keep your dirty laundry off the internet.
D. Talk to your active and alumnae sisters and brainstorm.
E. Search the threads here. If you think your problem is unique, you're probably wrong. Learn from the mistakes of others.

PS (Are you Omega Delta Pi?)

^^^ No, she's not.

Probably Omega Delta Phi.

http://omegadeltaphi.org/

So you don't want alternatives to hazing, you want harder-to-detect hazing?

What are you gonna do? Stop hazing.

You don't see nothing wrong with treating your pledges like second class citizens? You can have a tough and challenging pledge period without treating them as less then your self. Forcing menial chores on them, and setting them aside from members is not needed.

How about one night a week, hosting a movie and snack night at the house, and before or afterwards, having an educational meeting? sit them down, teach them your history, your philosophies, and treat them as sisters, instead of treating them less than that. If you treat them as equals, you won't be hazing them. Other GLOs do it all the time. You can too.

Thanks!

Gosh, where have I heard this before?

If what you're asking them to do doesn't either help them learn the history and operations of the sorority and Greek community or help them get to know its current and alumni members, I would call it hazing, and I'm more lax than 95% of the people on here.

There are plenty of things that you can do within the above limits I've mentioned, and not feel as though your pledges have skated their way to sisterhood. Have weekly quizzes on the history, etc and require a certain % of correct answers to pass. If someone continually is falling below that, ask if they're having any sort of issues or if they're just blowing it off. If it's the latter, terminate their pledgeship. I don't see the point of the phone answering or the door thing. Colors day is fine once a week (when all the fraternities and sororities are wearing letters, I assume your school has an official or traditional day like this) but constantly throughout pledging is a little ridiculous.

Everyone else: this is not an NPC sorority. They're not considered sisters from the moment they accept their bids. Please do not apply NPC standards to non-NPC groups, it just doesn't work and is borderline bigoted and narrow-minded. If you want these girls to have the same standards an NPC does, call up your HQ and ask them to colonize them.

This isn't what distinguishes hazing from nonhazing for every GLO and nonGLO. A lot of methods have been used to help (read: make) pledges learn and encourage/instill sisterhood and brotherhood. When pledges learn and are close with each other and the actives, people say "look, our methods work!!! There's no other way to do this. Anything else is skating."

I agree. :)

However, even a colors day once a week (which I hope no one considers someone working their way into an organization LOL) is considered hazing and can get chapters in trouble in some organizations. It is a way of identifying and unifying pledges that has no clear purpose beyond that and the aspirants are usually not participating by choice. Sure, they got dressed by choice and look willing but saying "no" wouldn't go over well and they know that.

With that said, anything that chapters do must be done in line with their organization's and school's regulations. They need to know when they are breaking the rules versus thinking that everything that sounds wonderful and harmless is acceptable. We can complain about the definition of hazing and how strict it is all we want, but it doesn't erase the fact that such regulations exist.

I take exception to the use of the word "bigoted" here.

But there's a difference between treating pledges as sisters and treating them like your personal slaves. I'm not going to sign on to the latter just because they're a local.

Even what you suggested, reacting to poor scores with a caring concern, seems to be out of the immediate experience of this poster.

If you're trying NOT to lose recognition, don't sound like you're trying to think of "secret hazing" techniques, especially if it is all over campus that you (apparently) haze already.

I figured as much. She needs to stay off of GC. Seriously.

Why would you even want to do such childish, immature things? Are you not young women preparing for the workforce? Perhaps you could attempt to be adults and your hazing troubles will be alleviated.

There's a middle ground though.

Well, it depends how far "colors" day goes. If your colors are pink and blue and you wear a pink shirt and blue jeans, and it stops there, that's fine. But if your colors are purple and green and you must dress in them from head to toe (including undies) that's over the top. And as I said, at many schools there's an unofficial day where the whole Greek community wears letters. If it's part of that I don't see a problem with it (as locals usually don't let their letters be worn until initiation).

Definitely the impression given by your post.

Serious question: Who says having pledges enter through the back door, having them dress in house colors or having them answer the phone is hazing? I'd be amazed if your state law does. Does the school classify these things as hazing?

If yes, then you need to be having a conversation appropriate people at your school about how to construct a pledge process that does not include what your school would classify as hazing. What are other sororities on your campus doing?

If no, then it really doesn't matter whether another org would consider these things hazing. But you really need to ask yourselves what constructive purpose is served by things like making the pledges answer the phone or use the back door.

Having a colors day itself is considered pledging and/or hazing for some organizations and is therefore against the rules. It doesn't matter what that entails.

The Greek community wearing letters, colors, or symbols/pins/badges is not the same thing as "pledges" being asked (read: made) to do so.

(FYI, NPHC orgs generally also don't let our letters/symbols be worn until initiation.)

It all boils down to what is in agreement with school, state, and/or national organization regulation. The OP is in a local so she needs to be concerned with school and state. There is little room for personal opinion. What makes sense or seemingly "stops there, that's fine" doesn't matter. All forms of hazing originally began with personal opinions and "stops there, that's fine."

bwahaha. this made me think of something. ima pm you.

You should've never come here in the first place. Despite 50 years and your supposed confidence over your pledge program, you created this thread. You're young in your organization so remember that you aired your local's pledge laundry with this thread.

It important to me to respect women who are seeking membership in our organization. If I don't believe an aspirant is mature enough to be successful in the sorority without any effort on my part to break her down in order to build her back up, I will do everything I can to make sure she isn't in the position to join in the first place.

:confused:

Cuz,

Sounds like someone has already judged that your activities likely constitute hazing.

Not to mention letting us all know she's from Spring 2008. :(

So, sound the alarms!!! The local ODP (that makes me wanna sing an ODB song) is hazed and confused.

You force them to come in through the back door and do menial tasks for you. How in the name of all that is holy is that NOT degrading?

And I would turn the argument on its head and say that if the pledges are not allowed to feel as though they are participating in the official or unofficial activities of the Greek community - i.e. being told "OMG, don't wear colors all at the same time on letter day or we might get busted for hazing" - THAT is hazing in itself. If I would have been told as a pledge that I couldn't wear letters or some show of my affiliation on Fridays - when all the other Greeks are sporting them with pride - I would have been extremely upset.

ETA: answering the phone is slightly annoying, but I would hardly consider it a "menial task" like cleaning the house or washing cars. I'm kind of surprised that there are places that HAVE house phones any more, quite frankly.

But I think there's a difference between telling someone, "You HAVE to wear our colors/letters on Friday," and "OMG, whatever you do, DON'T wear our colors/letters on Friday or we'll get busted for hazing," and simply mentioning, "Every Friday, everyone in the Greek community wears their colors/letters," and allowing new members to do as they please.

I know there was a thread on here about a chapter accused of hazing by their national because their NMs didn't want to wear letters before initiation, of their own volition, because that was the school custom. The NMs were basically forced by the national to wear letters - IMO, reverse hazing.

Shit like that makes me crazy. Don't go in as the lone NPC to a longtime locals-only culture and buck it at every turn and think everyone's going to have a come to Jesus moment and see things the way you do.

This isn't about personal opinion and what individuals would say. Schools and national headquarters have heard every explanation/excuse/response in the book from actives. This is about regulations. Chapters need to know whether their practices violate rules and regulations.

Was it that one or a similar one where it was pointed out that presenting the option to the NMs to vote, with the pressure of tradition behind it, makes it less of a 'by their own free will thing?' Without even knowing what language was used to present the option, it's hard to say.

If that sort of thing was all the OP's chapter was doing, I sincerely doubt that the school would be on their asses and there would be campus rumors about what was really going on. If you're worried about losing recognition you're doing something really wrong. Especially when your response is to find something you can do that no one else will "see or hear" not "something that isn't hazing."

This isn't coming from actives. It's coming from pledges/new members/candidates/whatever you want to call them, the very people that "anti-hazing" statutes are supposed to protect.

It wasn't the school that was on their asses, it was their national HQ. The example I gave had nothing to do with the OP's situation - it was a tangent the thread went on.

Oh, and congratulations everyone for chasing the OP off, and making her even more resentful about having to create an anti-hazing pledge program. That will really help the girls joining this group next year.

That reminds me of a girl in my chapter who we jokingly said would "haze herself." I think it was mainly because she was so clueless about Greek life, and she would do things that we wouldn't ask of her, or she would ask seemingly innocent questions which could be taken the wrong way by others.

Even she laughs about it now. But at the time, we would worry. She could have asked something as simple as, "I can't wear letters until initiation, right?" (even though she could). But even if we said, "No, you definitely can," to an outsider, it might have made it seem as though we wouldn't allow her to do so, and that we were trying to cover something up.

I will admit that at times, it does become tiresome trying to watch every little thing you do... especially when you sometimes have no control over the situation.

Actually, my first paragraph referred to your example, my second to the OP.

So it's our fault she left after asking us to help her haze in a way that could not be "seen or heard?" Not my job. Her group shouldn't haze, the new members shouldn't put up with it, and that won't change until her perspective does. She pretty much ignored everyone (from whatever conference) saying that you could pledge without hazing and complained about how they couldn't haze anymore.

Sorry, not buying it, not helping it, not feeling bad because it took its ball and went home.

It often doesn't matter what the "pledges" say and whether they claim to like and/or appreciate what they have to do.

Imagine a world where GC determines outcomes.

Thank you.

Exactly my point. The nationals/schools/anti-hazing advocates get on their high horses and say it's to protect the pledges, when often they aren't thinking about them at all. They're thinking about their own good PR.

How many posts have we seen on here from girls who have been through NM education, are now members of their groups and are CLUELESS as to how to operate in their org and about Greek life in general because they didn't learn anything, because "pledging" was nothing but 6 weeks of touchy-feely and presents? What did they pay those huge fees for?

Actually, the crux of her post was her asking for an efficient way to help pledges learn information. I gave her a simple non-hazing way and also pointed out that some of the things they were doing weren't necessary.

The "not seen or heard" was in reference to people reporting that they heard things and included a ;) after it - in other words SHE WAS JOKING.

Seriously, anyone who comes on here with local letters gets assumed to be one of two things: 1) horrible hazers 2) a "joke" GLO. It's fucking annoying.

Your interpretation and mine are quite different. The only reason I think they have a hazing problem is because she said they did. And the ;) after it could mean " ha ha not really" or "wink wink you know what I mean." I interpreted it to be the latter and still do. Sorry.

Her responses to the posts, including the different specific things she mentioned, only confirm my impression.

LOL. But, the opinions of "pledges" shouldn't matter. There are "pledges" who for some reason enjoyed being paddled and look forward to doing that to the next group of "pledges." Sure, having to wear colors isn't the same as being paddled but there's a thin line when you are putting "pledging" in the hands of people with a potentially vivid imagination and a gatekeeper mentality. The end result is that we have to realize that these strict regulations that prohibit things that seem meaningful and harmless exist because people don't know how to quit when they're ahead. Imagine being a regional and national entity that has to regulate hundreds of chapters and thousands of members.

I always frame it as, Greeks used to have a lot more freedom. But some people had to blow it and that's why you have a 10pm curfew and can't date til you're 17. Sucks? Yes. But the collective "we" showed we can't be trusted.

Right and she thanked you. What are you complaining about? LOL.

Greekchat is not a place to be babysat. I'm actually amused that you feel this way considering your rant about "touchy-feely" processes. The OP has her letters and should know what to do with them regardless of what GCers type.

She should save that joke for the Greek Life office. They would slap their knees in laughter.


:confused:

There ya have it.

People break the rules (often the rules they think prohibits the meaningful and harmless stuff) and they do so knowing that getting caught has a consequence. Cause and effect.