University of Oklahoma Panhellenic Guides Will Not Disaffiliate Next Year
 

http://www.oudaily.com/news/ou-soror...5a2bba3f5.html

Good idea or bad idea?

UCLA was 1 of the pilot programs for Rho Gammas to not disaffiliate, Fall 2014. In our case, I think it helped with PNMs staying in Recruitment.

Example: For 8 party day, PNM Sarah Smart gets invited to only 4 parties. She is sad and considers dropping. Maybe Sarah didn't connect well with these chapters on Open House, but knows RG Sue Sorority is an XYZ and that's 1 of the invites she got back. She thinks this RG is awesome, keeps an open mind, giving those 4 sororities another look and doesn't drop from Recruitment!

I believe it helps Recruitment from the Panhellenic side for the Recruitment GUIDES to not be sorority-anonymous. The RGs are their sorority's Face/Sympathetic Ear/Counselor during the emotional rollercoaster of Recruitment.

I may be the only person in the history of recruitment who didn't really mesh with her Rho Gamma. She definitely played favorites with a few girls in our group, but to be fair, I never had a moment of emotional upheaval, so I was pretty self-sufficient and didn't need much of her time. But I remember when she handed me my pref invite, she specifically indicated that one of the groups was better than the other, and honestly, that affected my opinion - I pledged the house she didn't endorse. Not specifically to spite her, but I definitely remembered it.

Thankfully, she was from a house that dropped me after round one.

I see cases where it would be fine, but I honestly suspect it does more harm than good.

Sometimes it is so obvious, in posted online Recruitment Guide Reveals, which groups have fewer chosen Guides. I am talking one or two women chosen compared with 10-14 chosen for each other group.

Panhellenically speaking, for me the panhellenic anonymity of Guides is the better choice.

ChiOLu - did the RGs get to vote on the rushees at their chapters? Sorry if that's a house to house difference and treads on member selection.

I personally think that identifying the chapters that a rush guide/ counselor/ Rho Chi/ whatever you want to call them during rush is a terrible mistake.

Consider when a PNM has her heart set on a specific chapter that happens to be the same one that her rush counselor is a member of. That can easily lead to the PNM taking out her hurt and disappointment on the counselor, the helicopter mom coming down on the RC for an "explanation" of why her snowflake was dropped and pressure to get the PNM back on the invite list, etc. I can only imagine the horrific situations that could occur at some SEC campuses.

I think that not forcing RCs to disaffiliate is much easier for the chapters, the RCs themselves and the girls going through recruitment. RCs are taboo and verboten, at least at my school, between when girls return to campus for Spirit Weekend (polish weekend) and when recruitment ends. They're completely cut off from their chapters and essentially treated as social pariahs-we were told we were not allowed to acknowledge them, smile at them, or treat them as human beings while we wore letters lest we be called in for a recruitment infraction for talking to a disaffiliated member. At another school, I know that the rift between affiliated members and disaffiliated members became so great that fraternity members felt forced to choose sides and only speak to one group or the other before recruitment ended.

I think it's much easier for a girl to be convinced to stay in recruitment if she knows what group her RC is in and can hear her say, "Well I'm not an XYZ but I have some close friends who are and here's the great things we do with them" rather than trying to remain neutral and saying nothing significant about them.

33girl-I know for us, if you're not speaking to girls on the floor you don't attend voting, and I don't think it's MSS for me to share that. I was on the setup/takedown team this year and didn't meet PNMs or vote on them, and neither do girls on other support teams in my chapter.

My Rho Chi's chapter was easily my least favorite day 1 and I felt bad later when I found out she was in that chapter. However, she was very similar to the other members and the reason I didn't want to return. Looking back, I wonder if as an 18 year old I would have had the guts to list them last while knowing she was one...

Maybe a happy medium would be only disaffiliating for the week of actual rush parties and not blowing it so out if proportion if a RG's affiliation is found out.

I think there are pros and cons doing it either way, but I also think that it may depend on the school and whether or not deferred recruitment is in effect. There are probably situations where even best efforts to hide RGs' identities are futile.

However, the focus should be on providing the PNMs with the best environment to make honest decisions, and I would think that at least attempting to keep RGs' affiliations unknown would be the best way to do that. The last thing you want is for a PNM to feel guilty about her rankings, or SIPing, or crying over her RG's group being her only option on pref day, etc. The PNMs should be comfortable talking to their RG and asking for advice without feeling afraid or guilty about doing so.

And the RGs should be strong enough people to accept the job and understand that not everyone is going to be in love with their chapter. They should be the person that is known to smile when it's hard to do so, and provide the best guidance possible under weird/awkward/difficult circumstances. There are sisters that perform the job wonderfully, and then there are those that aren't meant for such a position who end up doing it anyway. But it's just part of the system. I don't think that revealing their affiliations up front would make the situation any better.

All I knew about my recruitment counselor was that I wanted to be just like her and she was IN A SORORITY. That is all... She was a sorority sister and she was happy and the system had worked for her. I wanted that for myself and when she talked me out of dropping when my heart was broken, I listened to her when she said that this same process worked for her and it could work for me.

If I had known what sorority she was in, I don't think I would have related as strongly to her story and I might not have hung in there with prefs and bids and that would have been a tragedy.

There is enough tent talk, mom chat, high school influence to go around. Can't we just try to keep recruitment counselors as unbiased as possible?

Being unbiased has nothing to do with being unaffiliated.

If EVERY sister - rho gamma or not - can't sincerely say "this girl is not what we want/we are not what she wants, but I think she would be a great sister elsewhere" then your Greek community needs some unity workshops.

I guess I think of rush differently - not as a "competition" to "win" pnms, but as putting your best and truest self forward so it's easy for women to find their home. If you are so weak of will that knowing your PX is an ABC makes you want to go ABC when you hated them otherwise, your problems are just beginning! Would "out" PXs tip some girls to their sorority? Probably, but if there's an even member of PXs from each group, so what? I'm sure some girls decide to put ASA down because they come home from pref, turn on tv, see a show with someone wearing a red and white sweater and take it as a sign. Har.

The school where I advise did this (I think most of the regulars know which one that is), and the women said

1) it is near-impossible to conceal affiliation these days, with all the social media in existence

2) each group has 3 RG's, so if you don't feel comfortable talking to one, you talk to another

That's a great idea and would allay my concerns, especially if the RGs cover a wide range of chapters in each group (strong recruiting, middle recruiting, weak recruiting). That way you will likely have someone you can feel comfortable talking to about your situation without offending the RG or thinking you might.

I haven't checked irishpipes's Recruitment thread to see when Oklahoma has their recruitment, but I was wondering if they went ahead with plans for the RGs not to disaffiliate?

Their recruitment has started today.

Today is day 2, Philanthropy Round.

I have to agree with DBB that it's become a fairly futile endeavor to conceal your affiliation. My daughter had 3 Rho Chis and that worked well, but one forgot to deactivate her Linked In account and her affiliation was listed there. It's probably time to give up the good fight and figure out how to make non-anonymous Rho Chis work. My campus goes overboard to keep up the anonymity (housing Rho Chis in a hotel, having a very long disaffiliation period, no conversation if you see a sister on campus, etc.). It's taxing on the Rho Chis. They're in a bubble.

I will be curious to see how it goes at Oklahoma.

I'm curious too and will ask my daughter when it's all over. My understanding is that the RGs don't advertise their affiliation and they stay in the dorms with their PNM groups. They do basic things like take their org name out of their twitter, instagram, and facebook profiles. They don't advertise their affiliation, and they do not participate in member selection. My outsider parental view is that the OU Panhel is well organized and my daughter says she doesn't see any huge issues among the various chapters.

My daughter is at OU recruitment. She knows the RGs don't have to keep it a secret this year. But her RGs are keeping their affiliations to themselves. I think my daughter likes that she doesn't know yet. But I am sure if someone really wanted to know, they could find out. So, from what I can tell, it is working well so far. I guess we will know for sure on Tuesday :)

This sounds much more realistic and practical. I agree that they should not participate in MS and the emphasis should be on offering support and impartial advice....but this has already been the norm, whether affiliations are kept secret or not.

Bid day was today at OU; not sure what quota was but I know Delta Gamma has 95 new members! Several Instagram pics featured Rho Gammas running home to their chapters. I think a dedicated internet sleuth could have found their Greek associations but it seemed that they made some effort to remain unaffiliated. I'd call this a successful experiment; If I hear anything different I'll post an update.

Wow...just curious, who pays for the hotel?

When I was a rush counselor, the hotel was covered by Panhellenic. Trust me, it is not a fancy, 5 star place!

I was a Pi Chi and I felt keeping my affiliation secret benefited most the girls. I had one girl who after having rough round would come talk to me frequently and she straight up told me one day she didn't understand why she kept getting invited back to this one house (which happened to be my chapter.) I had to hide my disappointment while explaining they must see something great in her, but we wouldn't have been able to have that conversation had she known it was my chapter. I think knowing your counselors chapter may keep them from being fully honest with you and can make the counselor job harder.
Also after every round my partner and I would have the girls guess and I enjoyed watching as no one could guess my chapter. I had a guess for every chapter except the newest one (they knew I was a senior and had gone through recruitment so I couldn't be one) and I believes that shows you really can't believe all the stereotypes for each chapter.
The only downside to disaffiliation came later when girls were stuck with two chapters they thought we bad because of tent talk and you want to tell them very badly that one is yours and it's nothing like they heard.
The only time I broke disaffiliation was after I gave a girl her t-shirt and she was very upset it wasn't the chapter she wanted. We were doing Pi Chi reveal next and I promised her I'd be with her all day and be right back with her.

Panhel pays, which likely uses registration fees to support the cost.

I think from a practicality standpoint it's just too outdated to fight to maintain. I think the rush guides (I like that term) should be able to counsel fairly even if it's not a secret. And if they can't then they are not Panhellenic enough to hold the position.

I don't think that the counselors are the issue. It is the PNM who might not feel that she can be honest about her feelings or reluctant to talk to the RC at all, if the issue involves her own chapter.