I'm honestly a little appalled.
 

So I'm at a new school for graduate school right now and it has a large Greek Life segment. A couple weeks ago, I was walking around campus and saw a girl with a shirt that said "PIKE and Alpha Chi Omega Pre-Game Party 2010" and on the back, a picture of a tipped over beer pong cup with the phrase "One down, nine to go!". I was SHOCKED. I know there's still a lot of drinking in letters, etc that goes on behind closed doors but I did not realize it was so blatant. My undergrad was very strict on these things and if you were drinking in letters, OTHER Greeks would tell you off.

Is this standard at larger schools?? I am seriously appalled.

I'm with you - sorority letters should NOT be on a shirt celebrating drinking. I'm actually not a fan of ANY GLO having their letters on a shirt that would seem to absolutely feed into negative stereotypes.

(I'm now off to shake my cane at the crazy kids and get them off my lawn.)

I'm not sure it's a larger vs smaller thing as it is the culture of the campus in general. What's more appalling to me is the wastefulness of making a t-shirt for something as everyday as a pre-game party.

ETA: I'm guessing the shirt meant "pre-game" as in, a registered party that occurred before a big football game, rather than "pregaming" before going to an alcohol-free mixer or other event. No one can be THAT stupid (please God, don't prove me wrong).

I think it's obnoxious and I would personally have a problem with it (I'm all for having a good time and I've had a lot of good times, but not in my letters), but it's a campus culture thing. There is no way in the world that would EVER happen on my campus, but I've definitely seen similar shirts from other schools.

At my school, the sororities would be racing to turn each other in over it. At places like U of I or UK, it would be completely fine.

We are supposed to get tshirts and banners approved by the Exec Board BEFORE they are purchased or displayed.

Yea, like that really happens!!:rolleyes:

Never happened in the existence of my chapter as for as I know and I bet it never will.

Exec Board of what? The sorority? They're collegians like everyone else, I don't see how that would matter. Or do you mean Exec Board of Greeks or something?

PS: I think turning other Greeks in for things like this is on the same petty lines as turning sororities in when a PNM walks out of rush with glitter on the bottom of her shoe. If it's something that's deemed morally reprehensible by the rest of the campus, the punishment will take care of itself. If it's something that the campus as a whole deems acceptable, you'll only be screwing yourself, and is it really worth it to do that to your chapter just to get someone else in trouble? Save it for important things, like witnessing hazing or alcohol abuse.

I agree.

zomg. College kids playing beer pong?

Say it ain't so.

Playing beer pong - eh.

Associating your GLO with beer pong - ill-advised; tacky.

This shirt wouldn't be a big deal on my campus. There may be one or two sororities that wouldn't wear it, but I don't see it causing a stir at all.

My chapter had to run all t-shirt designs by our advisor. She definitley wouldn't have approved.

It might not have been socially acceptable on your campus, but there's no NPC rule that bans drinking in letters, and my org doesn't ban it either. It might come off as trashy, but let's face it, so is much of greek life.

Regardless, different stokes different folks. As an alumna, however, it's certainly not something that you should get your panties in a twist about - it's different everywhere and you're not in a position to do anything to change it.

Ditto. Every campus is different as is every organization and every chapter of every organization. Years ago on my campus, AOII, KD, Phi Mu and Sig Kap ALL wore there bid day shirts (including stitched letters most years) to Pikefest where we competed in various games and drank lots of alcohol. No one thought anything of all of us "drinking in letters" on that one day even though we wouldn't be caught dead in a bar in letters. If you asked that girl about the shirt, I'm quite sure she could justify it while assuring you that they don't drink in letters.

All of the chapters at my school used to do that. It takes a major Risk Management incident (or Nationals stepping in) to change that.

See, the thing is, in this particular incident, there is no actual alcohol being depicted on the shirt, is there? A cup and a ping pong ball? Open to interpretation, technically.

!LOL!

Tacky.....I'll give you that but shocking and appalling.....not at all.

Bottom line...

But it's not your undergrad school. Every campus has a different culture. Let it go.

I think I'm going to have to invest some money in the pearl industry now. The cost of pearls is bound to go sky high soon because people are going to need replacements due to the all the wear and tear happening to their necklaces from pearl clutching in this thread.

lol

Heh. Honestly, you guys might think I'm overreacting, but I was under the impression that a shirt CLEARLY about drinking was against NPC rules. You'd just think they'd try not to be so...obnoxious about it.

It's the use of the word appalled I think. This is similar, to me, to the individual who was going to stop a jogger in another sorority and admonish her for wearing her letters while she was jogging.

You're learning that your campus culture is not the same as other campus cultures and that the rules you learned as 'THE RULES' were not actually 'THE RULES' for national orgs or the NPC. When it comes down to it, it's not surprising you went :eek: at first, but continuing to be horrified and appalled is where the overkill comes in.

Also, I do agree that this was probably a pre-game T-shirt, not a T-shirt about 'pregaming' before a party. Because who does that, seriously?

One person's appalling is another person's "meh."

The biggest thing is to only be concerned with your own GLO. When it comes to Delta, it doesn't matter if it isn't my collegiate or alumnae chapter. What every chapter does matters when wearing Delta symbols. I can't instill my chapter's protocol on every chapter and every Soror. But Delta has already instilled what is not appropriate with Delta symbols.

Don't individual sorority's rules trump NPC rules?

Is this really an NPC "rule" or a myth like the "brothel law"? When I was an undergrad, fraternities and sororities at both my schools drank in letters. At my first school, where most people lived on campus (we didn't have houses but a lot of Greeks lived in clusters in the campus apartments), the people hosting parties (usually members of a fraternity) were always wearing letters. Sorority members did, too. To this day, I'm pretty sure it's the same way on campus, at least from what I've seen in recent pictures.

Generally NPC rules involve things that the sororities collaborate on -recruitment or expansion, or they've all agreed to the rules in advance so there aren't conflicts.

However I don't believe that the NPC has any rules about T-shirts. The Panhellenic council on some campuses might, but again that's campus specific.

Yes, you're a little right. It's a TOTALLY different type of school in all ways from my undergrad. But it's not like I said anything to her, and I wouldn't; I just wanted to see what y'all thought.

The shirt did specifically say "Pre-game party".

See, that is interesting, though, because I was under the impression that ALL NPCs were required to be alcohol-free (e.g. XYZ cannot have alcohol at rush if they are part of NPC, they cannot have parties in the house if they are in NPC, etc).

Different strokes for different...schools, I guess.

They are encouraged to lay off the sauce, but not required. It's truly a campus culture thing. While fraternities at my school often drink in letters you'll rarely if ever see a sorority woman drinking in letters, and she gets the stink eye if she does. There would never have been a shirt like this made by any sorority on campus. But I've got plenty of friends that were active at far larger schools with huge party reputations and it was a whole different ballgame...which is why the shirt, while very tacky IMO, isn't exactly a shock to many people.

I didn't think you were hunting her down to yell at her ;)

And while the NPC does have rules about dry houses and recruitment, they do not require the GLOs to be entirely dry. Said rules are unanimous agreements if I recall correctly. If it was a recruitment T-shirt saying "Come get sloshed with the Sigma Lambda Omicron Sigma Etas!" I'm fairly certain there would be a problem. But as an 'event' shirt, it's up to the chapter/org.

The girls at my school would change clothes or turn their lettered sweatshirts (if outside) inside out before drinking alcohol. I always thought that all sororities had ruled against drinking in letters.

This is why I always pitched a bitch when people would say things like "we are a dry sorority/fraternity." Maybe your HOUSE is a dry environment, but to be TRULY dry, a group would have to prohibit drinking by all members at all times. That doesn't exist in the NIC or NPC. This is another reason I pull my hair out over people using the term "house" when you mean "chapter" or "group." The physical structure =/= the chapter. (There ARE local/regional groups out there that are truly "dry.")

The shirt in question doesn't say that any alcohol is being served in AXO housing, or bought or consumed or even contemplated by AXO.

Most of the NPCs have tepidly worded rules like "members shall not act in a distasteful manner" or something of the like. As we've seen in this thread, that varies GREATLY from campus to campus. Chapters might try and have rules against drinking in letters, but I honestly question how they would hold up. There are NO NPC rules against drinking in letters - that would assume that the NPC as a freestanding unit knows the meaning of every group's letters and can legislate members' conduct when wearing them. Which of course isn't the case.

And if they do, more than likely it began because the administration/PoPo was targeting Greeks in some fashion and they want to take the heat off, not because the other groups were morally appalled. I mean I could care less if the Delta Zetas want to have a shirt that says "DZ Does Zoolander!" with a picture of the girls drinking with Ben Stiller. That's their thing, whatever works for them. But if I hear that 4 girls were staggering home from a party and the only ones that pubic safety stopped and wrote up were the two in Greek letters (this actually did happen at my campus), then yeah, I might want Panhel to pass a policy like this, just to cover my and my NPC sisters' asses.

You might want to change the word that's before "safety".

I think a beer pong set up and play on "pre game" is pretty clear. It's super tacky, but like many have said, even if it did have a written reference to alcohol it very well might be totally "sorority legal" since it depends on the organization/chapter. I don't find it surprising that this is fine on some campuses. I suspect the small size of the school and the student body's attitude towards Greek life is why this would never, ever happen on my campus. At larger schools where "everyone" is partying and Greeks don't have to watch their backs as much, there's no real repercussions.

The rules chapters have about drinking in letters hold up just fine, and honestly I don't see a problem with these rules. We (at my chapter) weren't supposed to smoke/drink/curse in letters...and while the cussing was always a problem for me (I tried, but occasionally it would slip out) smoking and drinking never were. The other chapters on campus have similar rules. Campus culture.

No carnation, that's the word I wanted to use. LOL.

By "hold up" I mean that I seriously doubt that a member or a chapter could be disciplined or dismissed for something like that alone - kind of like the law we have here, that they can't pull you over for not wearing your seat belt when you're doing everything else OK, but if you're speeding or something else you can also get an additional fine if you're not wearing your seatbelt. In other words if you send a termination into your HQ with the sole reason being that Sally was smoking and drinking in letters, and she's doing everything else right, it's highly doubtful it will be approved. Ditto if the chapter wants to "discipline" her on it.

Personally I've never heard of that happening. I've never even heard of everyone being punished in any way besides dirty looks for drinking in letters...it's just having the decency to respect the chapter's rules.

My point exactly. Rules that have no consequences for breaking them are silly IMO.

It's more about having respect for your letters and sisters than punishments and rewards. Sometimes people have more complex reasons for their actions than "this is good/this is bad".

But that's just it and that's what this whole thread is about. It's not coming from the top down that wearing letters while drinking is "disrespectful." It's a campus culture issue. It could be that at some campi, putting across a social, partying image is good for a chapter's reputation and helps to increase campus cachet & numbers, and therefore ultimately is a "respectful" gesture.

To sum it up, different strokes for different folks. The only problem comes when people get it twisted and think that chapter rules are national rules...or that customs (on any level) are the same thing as rules.