stealing pledge pins
 

i just want to clarify something and i figured i would start this thread here cuz i don't know where else to put it...

At my school... stealing pledge pins seems to be a big deal... among all greeks. basically if you see a NM in a fraternity or sorority wearing her pin and you are an active member in either a fraternity or sorority, you have the "option" (I suppose) of stealing his or her pledge pin and the poor new member has to do something (within reason) to get it back. To clarify... fraternities go after sorority pins and vice versa. You won't see a sorority active going after another sorority's NM.
Usually if our girls steal a fraternity pin, we make them read a poem to us in our meeting, or have them seranade us or bring us flowers. One girl had some guy wash her car. And the guys do it.

I have always found this tradition to be... well... odd. People get hurt! I was just wondering if it is just our school that engages in this madness or is pledge pin stealing popular at other schools as well? Just an informal poll. And if you have had your pin taken... what was the craziest thing you had to do to get it back?

My father once told me of stuff like that they used to do in the late 60's.. Sounds as if it's hazing... If any organizations that participate in this are NPC or NIC they run the risk of losing their charters or getting in trouble for hazing.

Eh, I'm not sure I'd call it hazing.

We don't do it at my school. Kinda sounds like fun though.

Phi Mu... If you told a New Member to wash your car it wouldn't be hazing???

I'm pretty sure that if Phi Mu's definition of hazing is anything like what Sigma Nu's is than it would certainly be....

I guess there's a grey area when it comes to other chapter's new members...

However, I think that it was said best in Animal House when they said "Hey! Only we can do that to our pledges!!"

At my school, it was pledge books. . .it was rumored that any pledge who stole a book from the pledge of another organization would get extra incentives. But we never did it though.

There were three fraternities with pledge books: APO, Delta Sigma Pi, and Delta Phi Epsilon Professional Foreign Service Frat. APO was the only one who had to carry our pledgebooks in our hands at all times. The others carried them in their bags.

We pretty much left each other alone.

At my school it isnt mandatory or anything, but many a time the new members try to steal the big wooden letters that the fraternities keep in there windows, and vice versa. To get them back people usually serenade one another. This is completly optional, and many a time active members get involved too. It is always a lot of fun, and many a time sororities try to steal the letters of certain fraternities cause they will bring you flowers also.

Pi Beta Phi would consider that hazing so we don't do that. However, we do steal things from the only fraternity on campus (we only have one Fraternity and one sorority). They might steal something from our house, and in turn we steal something from their house. Just having some fun playing practical joke.


PPL

definitely
 

Yeah I'd have to say I've heard around here that if you steal a pledge pin from a fraternity they "have" to serenade the sorority whose member took it. Here sorority girls don't have to wear their pledge pins all the time but most of the fraternities do as far as I know... so it makes it harder to steal something when it's ON most of the time. So I guess the "justice" in making them do something to get it back is in the fact that they shouldn't have had it off or just laying around where someone else could get to it? I'm not saying that that's not hazing... because in a way it's just "hazing" of a sort to reinforce hazing of some other sort (if you want to go as far as to consider being required to wear a certain pin 24/7 hazing).

I think it's generally considered "all in good fun" though, as at many schools I'm sure.

At least as far as that goes, with the definition of hazing that I am familiar with this would not be considered hazing. You just can't require someone to wear clothing or other items that would not normally be in good taste.

That actually does happen at my school, but it is only new member girls stealing the guy's pledge pins. The guys never take the girls' pins.

Normally a guy will "accidentally" leave his pin on his backpack or take off his suit jacket and leave it on the chair, or he will leave it on his dresser in his dorm room or something...then the girl takes the pin. Of course, the guy has done this on purpose, knowing what will happen. Sometimes though, a girl will manage to get it detached from his shirt while he is wearing it, which is MUCH harder, so it is really rare.

Then the guy will ask what she would like for him to do to get it back and it is usually bake cookies, wash her car, serenade, buy her lunch, etc. If the guy is not willing though, you have to give it back when he asks for it but like I said, this is normally something that is sort of mutually planned, so the guy knows what he is doing when he leaves the pin around.

I think this is just a silly tradition. If the new member were actually stealing the guy's pledge pin or if she required payment to give it back or humiliated him, then I think it would be hazing.

Of course, Phi Mu doesn't haze. My chapter or otherwise. And yes, having a new member wash my car would be hazing.

I just think it's a shame that some of the old stuff that used to be fun has to get crossed off the list in the interest of eliminating all possible forms of hazing. I'm talking here about the mutually "agreed" upon stuff -- like with the guy who leaves out his pin purposely to give a girl an opportunity to steal it.

I think that people are getting a little overboard saying that this is hazing. Pin stealing is a tradition at Wayne State. All of the sorority girls try to get the pledges pins. And to get them back the guy has to do something for the girl, usually washing a car or cooking dinner. Now for the guys, one thing that we can do is take the girls pledge book. When the girls ask you to sign their book, they make you say "YES". That way you cant take it. If they ask you to sign it and you say " yeah, sure, ok," or anything else you can take it. We dont see it as hazing, it's all done in good taste and it's fun.

We used to do this with pledge books, but unfortunately it was deemed hazing here as well. I'm glad I pledged before all these stupid rules came into place... :(

Fraternities at my school were notorious for stealing pledge pins and trying to get the girls to do something for them to get them back. It got to the point where it was way out of control and it was extremely annoying. The used to steal them to get our girls in trouble so I went and talked to the guys and told them that the pledges would not be punished if they stole their pins and they would simply be furnished with a new pledge pin. Pins stealing is practically non-existent now...which is kind of sad because it used to be fun.

The fraternity guys carry around spoons and matchbooks. We gave them a little taste of their own medicine. Let's just say now they nail their spoons to their belts.

We do this at my school, but girls pins never get stolen. What usually happens is a girl takes the pin from the boys room when they're hanging out or whatever and then the pledge class for that house comes to chapter and serenades us. It's pretty fun! :D

stealing pins
 

In our system at the University of Utah, only new members are allowed to steal other new members' pins. New sorority members can steal a new fraternity member's pin if he's wearing it, but a new fraternity member can't steal a new sorority member's pin if she's wearing it, they can only steal it if it's on a piece of clothing that she takes off, like a sweater or something. We can't steal it while she's wearing it because of sexual harassment issues. Intiated members or active members can't steal each other's pins.

I don't think it's hazing, it's a fun tradition. No one ever has to clean another member's car, or stuff like that-when my pin was stolen when I was a new member, I would have to get all dressed up and go to the girl's chapter house before their chapter meeting with some flowers and serenade her with some of my brothers. Usually, it would be a bunch of the guys whose pins got stolen, so the girl(s) would give us bags of candy or cookies or stuff like that with our pin back.

It's a great way to bring fraternities and sororities together, I think-especially new members. It makes exchanges and mixers a lot easier, I think,

In Phi,
SigEp 653

Sigma Phi Epsilon-Virtue, Diligence, and Brotherly Love, the only three things that matter.

That wouldn't fly at our school. But we've had issues w/the local sorority hazing. They still make their NM on I-Night walk around w/bra and panties outside of their clothes all night singing nasty songs. they draw butt marks on the sidewalk. anyhow the point is that we are pretty careful, there is a lawsuit waiting to happen here and the admin is more than willing to pull charters (they've done it)
Anyhow, have a good day!
Tau Love
Lil E

we do
 

we do this at our school, just for fun, we are told not to wear our pins around frat boys and if we do to watch them. the boys do the same.. its kinda like a game... like taking paddles or banners.. its a status symbol.. who got the most gets mad props... we keep them for awhile but we ALWAYS give them back, its like the unoffical rule, and i have never heard of making someone do sumthing to get it back...
ashes

What the F*&K over?

Da on this thread!

If I was a New Associate of LXA and someone tried to steal My Associate Pin there would be a real Problem!

We have uses for our pins in the Ritual!

LOL!!

"what? HUH?" Do you get that alot cuz I can never understand what the hell you are exactly trying to say.

he's just being Tom... :)

This is something that used to happen on my campus. Some of the other sorority chapters would punish a new memeber whose pin was stolen by a fraternity pledge. This was mainly a fraternity should try to get a sorority pin, but occasionally a girl would steal a guy's pin. One year, one of our Phis decided to take a friend of hers pledge pin while he was in the shower. He brought her some ice cream and sundae toppings and she gave him back the pin. This was however, not required by either organization.

The big thing on my campus was stealing banners. We would make banners and hang them in the main plaza. The fraternities would steal the banners like mad! (Note: My chapter was the only sorority of the 4 on my campus that did not haze.) All of the other sororities required their NMs to "guard" the banners around the clock. The funniest thing ever was when these 4 women from XYZ were sitting below their banner which they had attached to chains and hung on the plaza and these frat pledges totally stole it right in front of them.....and they didn't even notice. I must say that was HILARIOUS! Usually the president of the frat pledge class would call the president of the sorority's pledge class to say, we have your banner, and these are our demands for you to get it back. They usually had the NMs sing or something. It wasn't much fun to steal our banner because we were like, great, we will make a new one. They usually left our banner alone because we would not "play."

One of our traditions involving stealing revolves around homecoming.

Every GLO makes a big set of letters. We conspire to steal as many sororitys' letters as possible and display them on our float during the parade.

It's tough because they usually have them fairly well guarded. You have to be damned sneaky (and usually miss a bit of sleep) to get them.

At Nebraska, the thing we do is steal Composites of houses of the opposite gender. Then the house must find out who stole their composite and set up a time to serenade them. The "theives" in the mean time will decorate the composites with all sorts of sexual innuendos and the like. Sometimes the decorating gets down right mean, and I've heard stories of some Frats putting things like "slut" or even the number of guys in the house that girl has slept with or worse.

It is difficult sometimes to do obviously carrying a huge composite down...(hmm that's not suspicious at all ;)) but it's usually a lot of fun. We tended to do it anytime, but mostly on slow nights during the weekend when we didn't have a party or anything. Most Sororities will do it as part of their pledge Class sneak, where they try to get as many as possible. KD I think are the queens of composite stealing, as I often see ads in the Paper saying whose composites they have...

We did similar stuff at my school, but with the pledge manuals. It doesn't really seem to go on much anymore. I remember when I was pledging, one of my pledge sisters left her backpack unattended in the library and one of our own sisters took her pledge book. She freaked out!!! That sister taught her not to leave her pledge manual unattended :) But all of that is hazing, even though it can be fun.

yup!
 

At my school we do that as well. It's really, whatever you can get from the fraternity or sorority.

It's funny when you think about it, but there is always payback time. We steal trophies, paddles *are a must*, and anything that would have their name on it, or means a lot to them. Obviously we give it back, maybe 6 months down the line, but it's fun when it's going on.

I would like to announce that Xi Delta Theta Sorority has a ACACIA pledge pin!!

yeah we try to steal fraternity things all the time..it seems to be a game..although I KNOW for a FACT that the Beta's have our stuff!!

At our campus, we steal stuff from our favorite fraternity all the time. All in fun, and it's a big game. They stole an award from our wall, we stole all their darts off their dart board. And then we get real surruptitious about stealing it back and it's HILARIOUS. And sometimes the pledges get into it and want to go steal stuff back. and I'm not going to tell them they can't if they WANT to. Because to me.....if the definitition of hazing is "Forcing someone to do seomthing they don't want to do" (which is what I read as the Pledge Educator) then in my mind keeping them from doing something they want to do is just as much "hazing".

We have this HUGE stuffed lion that covers the hood of the truck we use in our homecoming parade, and AEPi always tries to steal that. They stole our grill off our back porch once....And twice this year so fat PKT has stolen our rock out front. But it's all in fun getting it back. Usually we'll just steal something from them, and have a trade off to get our stuff back. Or if we ask nicely, they'll just give it back.

But stealing pledge pins is also a game at our campus. Ususally I've rarely heard of anyone actually stealing it from someone's chest...they get it when the pledge is sleeping, or he leaves it on his dresser like someone said before. And the "rule" is that girls have to buy the guys beer to get it back, or the guys have to buy the girls flowers to get it back. I've never heard of a pledge getting punished for losing her pledge pin...although I'm sure it has happened.

I understand pledge pin protection, but stealing them is a bit outrageous. I also understand having them taken away as a pledge class (I have many friends who this has happened to), but not individually.