After Initiation Chapter Shut Down... Now What?
 

I joined a sorority at one school out of state. When I was pledging, my sorority was under social probation (which no one was told about) and maybe two days after my pledge class was initiated my sorority went under investigation for a supposed hazing incident over the initiation weekend. No actual hazing occurred but because blind folds were involved that is considered hazing 101!! (Others please note this: blindfolds even if the girls put them on themselves is considered an act of hazing don't be put in an unfortunate situation like my sorority was)

I no longer go to that school, I moved back to my home state and am transferring to another school. I have looked in joining another chapter in my home state unfortunately there are only 4 chapters in my state and they are at schools I am not interested in going to or crazy out of reach (One of the top three schools in the country).

Here's my problem:
I was not an active member for more than 48 hours before my sorority was shut down, the only Greek activity/event I have ever attended was my own Bid Night, Initiation, and Founders day (which was the same weekend as the initiation). I paid for an entire semester's worth of membership and a pin and did not receive either. I can get a full refund and my membership and alumni status will be removed but although I will no longer be a member of that sorority does this still prevent me from joining another sorority?
Is there a by-law for special circumstance?

For all of those out there that are going to be negative and say I'm turning my back on my sorority, please be understanding to the fact I never got a real sorority experience. Any sorority experience I did receive I owe to my Big Sis and I love her dearly for trying her best to make sure my sorority experience was the best considering the cards we were delt.

If you did not get your membership pin you should contact your sorority headquarters. Since they handle badge orders they will be able to help you get yours.

You are in the same situation as any sorority member who transfers to a campus which does not have her chapter.

No, if you were intitated into a NPC sorority you cannot pledge another. That's the rule, and there is no getting around it. Check to see if there is an alumnae group near your preffered schools. There are undoubtedly many other organzations at your new school - you can still have a terrific college experience even if you are not able to be active in a chapter. Good luck.

I can not imagine how a chapter could be totally shut down for blindfolding pledges during initiation.

I assume she meant during pledging. Most initiations use blindfolds, as the freemasons did as well, which is where the root of most come from.

Because you've been through how many initiations?

To the OP, I'm sorry for your experience, but no, there's no way to get around the initiation rule. You should try to make the best of a bad situation, and become active in an alumnae group. Don't select your next school simply because they have a chapter of your sorority.

Yeah - that might have been a straw that broke the camel's back type of deal, or the OP is lying.

And I hate to tell you but I bet most NPC sororities are NOT using blindfolds these days. This strays into the conversations about what is and is not hazing and they've unfortunately had to take a tough stand. But blindfolding is an easier call than, say, making pledges have phone duty when the actives don't have to, or study hours that the actives don't have to.

And the OP as a pledge and BRAND new initiate probably wouldn't know all of the background dirt. A sorority is not going to shut down a chapter over blindfolding but if there was that, drinking in the chapter house, appalling grades, member retention problems, and an ongoing problem with various levels of hazing, I could totally see it. Unfortunately 18-19 year old girls may not really believe "one more incident and we're shutting you down."

It's REALLY too bad you were caught up in a bunch of stuff that was in no way your fault, but that's just the way it is. Other than taking a closer look at the schools you're not interested in I guess your other option is to join an alumnae chapter and move on to the next phase of sorority life.

And I know the service fraternities are not a substitute for NPC sororities, but they can offer you a lot that you might be missing and in general (I can't speak to any specifics) I think you can be a member of both.

But definitely talk to your sorority headquarters about your pin. It could easily be as simple as not knowing where to send it.

I think you need to talk to the HQ of the sorority into which you were initiated. If they are offering a "full refund" and such, there is a very slim chance that they are treating this as though you were never a member.

I totally agree about the OP not being privy to all the dirt leading up to revoking the charter of her chapter. To Deal the cards, I'm sorry this happened to you and you NM class. It really sucks. Unfortunately, getting a refund won't help after you've already been I initiated. All that will do is take away your lifetime membership and leave you with nothing. I'd contact HQ and get my membership certificate and pin if I were you. It's yours, and after everything else that has happened, having that in hand may make you feel better.

This happened at a college in my state about 4 years ago and for the same reason.(blindfolds). I feel so sorry for the new members who get swept up in the 'clean sweep' of the chapter when something like this happens. If I am not mistaken, at the school I am referring to, the pledges were also unaware of the probation status of the chapter. Of course, that is not confirmed.

It would seem, though, that the chapter(and'/or) national headquarters would be obligated to make new members fully aware of their status, including possible outcomes of violation of the probation, etc. Does anyone know if the green book speaks to this?

btw - I am pretty sure blindfolds are no longer allowed in most sorority rituals.

Maybe, maybe not.
Maybe, maybe not.

Right right I don't assume the OP knew everything. My point was that they were probably already in trouble prior to the blindfold incident (which the OP might not have known since New Members generally don't), or the blindfold incident was a lot worse than just using blindfolds (which hits the "OP is lying" bit).

It sucks that New Members and new initiates get caught up in this type of thing.

I'll take this as a satisfactory answer. Perhaps some still use it, some don't. Freemason initiation, from what is public knowledge, involves blindfolds. Many of the founding members of Greek letter organizations had masonry background. If that translated into the sororities as well, I would not be surprised.

Really? Was that given to you in writing by an Officer of the Fraternity/Sorority?

Jumping on the bandwagon and agreeing with many of the posters who've replied. Please contact your sorority's headquarters. Each sorority has its own Constitution and Bylaws and they will answer your questions.

IMO DeltaBetaBaby may be right; but we here on GC don't know. And once more I agree with MysticCat.

Looking into the future, I see all sorts of potential difficulty for the OP. She's already been through one New Member period and Initiation. No way I would be convinced that she'd never talk about that with anyone for the rest of her life, should she pledge another GLO. I know one GC member who was a pledge of one GLO, was not initiated, and subsequently pledged and initiated another (I've read her story) but she did not initiate into the first GLO. Quite a different set of circumstances.

Bottom line, this is messy.

Yeah, my line of thinking is that there is a (very small) chance that what took place was not a "real" initiation. The whole thing is obviously odd, from the details we've been given, so contacting HQ is the only way to sort it out.

I think that the difficulty arises with your statement "most initiations use blindfolds" because you cannot possibly know about every GLO's Initiation practices. It's a pretty sweeping statement and connects dots in a fashion that assumes facts not in evidence. The majority of posters will restrict themselves to commenting on what they know to be true, and that typically translates to their own GLOs (without divulging ritual or other private/confidential information).

With regard to blindfolds, if that's really the reason your organization shut down the chapter, that is totally and completely ridiculous.

Frankly, it's not even really all that believable.

Yes, many fraternity founders had a masonic background. Many others did not. Sometimes, rituals were written by someone other than the founders, and sometimes those ritual writers had a masonic background and sometimes they did not. Sometimes they had background in other fraternal organizations, sometimes they had familiarity with liturgy or cultural ceremonies, sometimes they had familiarity with classical mysteries, and so on.

The point is this: While it might be reasonable to speculate that, at least as to rituals written by founders and others who were masons, those rituals will bear signs of masonic influence, this is still speculation. It is equally reasonable to speculate that masons would avoid too much masonic influences in rituals they wrote so as not to lead to speculation of similarities. As AzTheta says, unless you are familiar with rituals of orgs other than your own, then you are only guessing. And unless you are familiar with "most" rituals, then you really can't make statements about what happens in "most" rituals.

As for sororities, I see no reason to automatically assume that masonic influence would "translate" to their rituals.

Jazing, the freemasons are not the first organizations around the world to use blindfolds in rituals.

Some traditions (which may or may not include rituals) of NPHC sororities and fraternities (founded in early or middle 1900s) are often directly and indirectly linked to African traditions, freemasonry, and what Black men brought back from the military.

Just food for thought.

I'll go on record saying Alpha Xi Delta does not use blindfolds, unless someone is hazing, and of course that would be against FHQ policy. Regarding the sequined cat suits and the levitation machines, I plead the 5th.

Which GLOs do or do not use blindfolds is really not the point. The point is that it is probably safe to assume that not all GLOs use blindfolds. I strongly discourage GCers from announcing what their GLOs do or do not do everytime someone makes a statement such as jazing's. That is a slippery slope as far as I am concerned. There is a difference between the running joke of killing goats and sequined cat suits versus feeling the need to dispute other statements.

As has been said numerous times on GC, different GLOs do different things and it is not automatically hazing just because "your" GLO (or conference/council) does not do it. Moreover, do random people really need to know what to expect or not to expect in a GLO's ritual or should that be reserved for members and those who will be initiated?

I agree, DrPhil.

jazing has been a brother of his organization for less than a month. He's still in the learning phase, so a simple "That may be the case in your organization, but..." should suffice when sweeping generalizations are made.

I wish the OP would come back and give us further info on her situation...maybe since she has posted, she has contacted headquarters, etc.

I plead the fifth in what I know. Thanks for the insight

Agreed! This is such an unusual circumstance, and I hate to see so much speculation.

OP, I'm new, too, but I agree-call HQ! They will, at the very least, break down your options for you.

If you "get a full refund" and lose your alumni status, you won't be an alumna member of your NPC and you won't be eligible for another sorority. You cannot join another NPC sorority if you have been initiated into one NPC sorority. One initiation per woman is the rule. I wouldn't do that.

Contact your Nationals to get your pin. It sounds like it was lost in the shuffle.

If you transfer to a school that doesn't have a chapter of your sorority, you can join a local sorority that is not affliated with the NPC, a service organization, a professional society, or other extra-curricular group. You should check out what other options there, because there are a lot of them.

Be careful if you plant to join a non-NPC social sorority. Some (including my sorority) will not allow you to join if you currently hold membership (including as an alumna) in another social sorority, NPC or not.

However, (for my organization) you are allowed to resign your membership and join. You just can't concurrently hold the memberships.

This is my thought.

"All generalizations are false. Including this one."
- Mark Twain

That was one of Mark Twain's dumbest quotes.

First off, I refuse to comment on the "which NPC groups use a blindfold?" issue.

I agree with the members who believe it was "the straw that broke the camel's back" type of thing. While it has been some time since I've been a new member, I do remember not really being fully aware of how the chapter worked as an active or what issues we were currently working through, let alone any potentially sordid drama that could lead to such an investigation that occurred or was rumored to occur in recent years. Let me preface this by saying that I hesitate to assume anything in particular. That said, chances are, in the flurry of an investigation/shut down so shortly following the OP's information, combined with her transfer from the school, I would bet that the OP is fairly unaware of the whole story. It may behoove her to call her nationals/internationals to clear up the membership issue at least.

Obviously, if it turns out that the OP was a member, it is too bad that she never will be able to enjoy collegiate membership. I could easily lament on how unfair it was to the chapter to misrepresent their probation or disciplinary issues, but we've seen that before, and yes, it sucks. Perhaps it really did catch most members off guard; I remember when a chapter was shut down on my campus my senior year that it did take many of their members (as well as the Greek community) by surprise. Of course, if the OP was pledging and unaware of the issues at the time, it is likely that she was granted alumna status and will be allowed to participate in an alumnae chapter. Not the same, of course, but something. Good luck.

This is true. I know at least one other that has that as a rule.

OP, ask your nationals if you can join a non-NPC social sorority.

Again, any updates? I'm really curious how this kind of situation would play out.

I am so sorry that you weren't told about your chapter's status- that is absolutely horrible! but you were clearly drawn to your organization for a reason, remember that and try to make the best of your alumni experience... your chapter's sisters may not have upheld the ideals of your org, but that doesnt mean you shouldn't keep them close to your heart.

May I ask a really odd question? I'm sure someone here has had this experience (the one I'm about to describe, not the OP's!): what happens to the girls who still attend the school when the chapter closes? What do they usually do? This scenario came up in my novel, and I'm having a difficult time figuring out what to do with the characters who haven't graduated.

There are two paths I have observed from when I was in school.

1. They take things underground. One of the sororities at my first school was shut down a few years prior, and has/had been operating underground and actually getting women to drop out of Formal Recruitment and just rush them, because now they don't have to abide by National rules and only pay $$ for dues. :rolleyes:

OR

2. They cease all sorority-related activities, including holding meetings, sponsoring events, and on some campuses, stop wearing their letters. There's a Myth (I say myth bc I don't know if it's true or not) prohibiting two or more people of the disbanded organization from wearing letters at the same time because then they become "Gang-type" behaviors, but I have never seen absolute evidence of this.:confused:

When I first got on campus freshman year, I had seen one girl wearing letters to a sorority I didn't know existed on campus. Turned out the chapter folded a few years prior and she was the last one to graduate. So it was really odd seeing her wearing those letters.

Just my personal experiences.

This happened a few years ago at my undergrad university - a very large and popular NPC chapter was shut down just days before the initiation of their new member class (which was lucky for their new members, as we see from the OP's troubles). From what I saw, the sisters and pledges went three different directions:

Some of them were just through with the whole business - either they were never very invested in the chapter or they were extremely invested and fought to try to save their charter, and when they finally lost it they wanted nothing more to do with the group at the undergraduate level. They kept the friends they had made but pretty much cut ties with the national org (although they may have gotten involved as alums later).

Two of the new members who were never initiated (out of 40+) eventually joined other NPC sororities. There was talk of a whole bunch of them joining another sorority en masse and making it the "new XYZ" but that never happened - they never rushed and even if they had, I doubt think the other groups would have bid them with that intent. In the end the women who ended up joining other groups did it because they really and truly wanted the NPC experience and leadership roles - one joined my sorority and held top leadership postions in the chapter and on Panhel, and one became the president of a colonizing NPC sorority.

And finally, some members formed an underground group which continues to this day under a different name, much to the consternation of the Greek Life office. A lot of them continued wearing letters for a while but I'm pretty sure the national office got after them because I don't think they were given alumnae status (some got it, but many didn't). Now they have a non-Greek name and they do have "lettered" items to wear around campus. I don't know how large they are at this point, but they still conduct recruitment, collect dues and throw off-campus mixers and formals. I believe they only bring in about 10-15 members per year so they're not competing a great deal with the NPC groups, but since I think they hold their recruitment before the university's deferred recruitment I'm sure a large percentage of their new members decided to forgo formal recruitment specifically to rush this group. I highly doubt this group will ever affiliate with the Greek Life office, which would love to shut them down, or any other national group, since the group seems to be mostly composed of the women who were happy the national charter was pulled because it meant they got to do as they pleased. Shrug. A lot of people thought the group would die off once most of the actual initiated members of the old sorority graduated, but they seem to still be going strong. It will be interesting to see if they're really in it for the long haul.

On a somewhat unrelated note, when I was new member chair we did have a new member who got almost all the way to initiation (or was she initiated? I can't remember.) and decided to drop out. She had payed her full first semester dues and I was in the difficult position of not only asking for her lettered items back, but telling her she couldn't get a refund on all that dues money. She was pissed, as I probably would have been - she didn't even go to any of the events all semester so she didn't get any real benefit out of it. But that was her choice, and at that point the money had been spent, and so it couldn't be refunded. I guess you chalk it up to an expensive mistake.

^ I'm almost positive I know the group you're talking about. I wouldn't be surprised if they kept going just to spite the Greek Life office and their former HQ. You recruit what you've got, and they were shut down because of some cold, spiteful people.

I have never heard of women not being given alumnae status. Is that when a chapter is shut down for risk management reasons? I am largely only familiar with shut-downs due to low numbers.

The chapter was shut down for RM after a failed membership review.