Lost Traditions
 

Does anyone else's chapter have lost traditions that you personally wish could be brought back?

I wish that we could bring back our "Lambda Jackets". Basically they were black satin jackets with our name in red and white on the back. The front had our letters in red with our nickname underneath. I guess that they were given to pledges after they crossed. For some reason they quit doing them in the 90's :( But, I'm asking for one for Christmas *crosses fingers*

Instead of carrying paddles during pledging the pledges would carry painted bowling pins :p But of course that ended when Rio became VERY anti-Greek and called that hazing :rolleyes: Get this, one of our future pledges seen an old pin I had (given to me by a former advisor) and told me instead of a paddle she wanted to carry that....so... :D

Scavenger hunts. :(

Other DZs will know what I'm talking about when I say the Loving Cup...I wish my chapter would do it. Some alums got us to try it once when I was a junior, I think, but we haven't done it since and I think it's neat because not every chapter has one.

coming back to the campus after graduation

*sigh*

Our chapter of SAI for years had the Sigma Alpha Iota Sextette. It was a group of sisters who would sing at various things and perform and such. I'd really like to bring that back!

We're 2 years old.. so uh... nope:D

They've actually stuck with all the little stuff we've done over the years almost completely. Guess we started things right :D

Let's see:

Post-I dinner with actives and alumni at Royal York or Granite Club (very posh).

Alumni Wine & Cheese night during homecoming.

Sunday Tea Seminars; lecturers invited to talk at house about a subject, past participants included Marshal Mcluaughan, Northrup Fyre, and Umberto Eco.

a real Greek Week that the whole community gets involved in.

I wish we could have held over more of my local sorority's traditions. For example, each pledge class got matching letters as initiation gifts; that went away when we went national. There are other traditions that my local had that I can't share.

One tradition we had that did carry over was going out to IHOP after turning in our bid lists on pref night. A bunch of beautiful women in long black dresses, makeup, and up-do's trailing into IHOP at 12 midnight or so definitely turned heads. :D That IHOP isn't there any more, though. :(

1. Our toast. I don't know it, I just know we have one. Nobody wants to do it because they think it's cheesy.

2. Our crest. They had one made up, and now a former member (not an alum, but someone who disaffiliated) has it, and we don't know how to contact her - No one even knows what it looks like.

3. Another one concerning initiation that I can't share.

I hope we NEVER change our tradititon for big/little reveal.

Being able to live in a real house instead of campus housing. All of Bethany's sororities used to have beautiful places off-campus. It would be nice to see that brought back.

When I used to look through old scrapbooks, I wished that we did scavenger hunts. The clues were so funny and the pictures were hysterical!

I don't know if my chapter does the Loving Cup anymore, but Dana is right, it is a worthwhile tradition :)

I wish pledges were still allowed to interview the active sisters. I did it, and it really helped me get to know the older sisters better than I would have otherwise.

TKE209Sweetheart - You sound like you're on a super anti-Greek campus :( Did I misunderstand, or do the powers that be not have a problem with pledges carrying around paddles; only pins?

1. Wet Rush (ended in the late 80's)
2. The Worm Song
3. The dynamics of the color nights.

the worm song? is that the same worm song im thinking of?? :)

The Worm Song
 

I think so!!! ;)

Mid-Term Grades:

\Steak and Bean and weenie dinner> guess who would get the beans and weenies!!!
\
Now Hazing????

KR, yep, I'm on a pretty anti-Greek campus :( I guess that Rio was bascially ran by the Greek System until the late 80's. Get this, in one of the older Rio yearbooks there were pictures of pledges chugging beer and doing other activites..now look at this school :(
I heard that the administration is trying to get rid of the paddle tradition now. See, in the "pledge book" (which it is titled and also what the SCHOOL gives out, but hey, isn't "pledge" hazing also? Hmm.. :rolleyes: ) it says we can't -force- them to carry/wear/blah blah blah anything, BUT is doesn't say a thing about if the pledge wants to carry/wear/etc something... ;)

I thought of another one! :) When our chapter advisor was an active in the early '70s, all in-house members would gather in the living room by the double doors that open into the dining room and sing the Delta Zeta Grace. That isn't done anymore, not even on chapter meeting nights, but I always thought it would be sort of neat because our Grace is so beautiful.

-Pledge/Active Tea at the Ritz
-The mysterious Kappa handshake that somehow got lost and reinvented. I want to know the original one.
-the annual "Rock the Kappa" dance. It stopped in the early 90s, and we want to bring it back.

There are so many that my chapter no longer keeps, and I think they're losing out (with some of them, anyhow!)!

*During finals, we would keep a huge coffee urn of hot water on the entire time, and have coffee, tea, & hot chocolate out. Of course, sugar, sweetner, & creamer, too - and if someone had cookies, even better! We'd put a sign in the elevator to come take a study break with us from 11-12m (no men allowed!), and it was a great time to relax from the tension. People showed up in bathrobes, sweats, whatever.

*A lot of good traditions went down the chute with the strict anti-hazing rules. I see nothing wrong with teaching New Members to answer telephones, ask alumnae if they'd like something to drink and basically learn some common courtesy.

*Our meeting now ends slightly different, as the New Members are excused. I miss that last little bit!

*The chapter no longer completely understands how a Housing Corporation works, and this is one tradition that MUST change! HC can be your best friend!

Well, it might be and it might not be. It is a song specific (so far as I know) to Phi Mu Alpha. It was a song sung by pledges (as we called them then -- they are "probationary members" now) wherein a pledge would admit: "I am a worm . . . to the men of Phi Mu Alpha."

Use of the song is pretty much officially forbidden now (and understandably so), but there are still those of us who can sing it in our sleep.

Honey, i love that idea!!!!!!!!!!! wish we could get our girls in Amos to do that again!

I get on them every year about that! It only makes sense to do that on 10 (you can do your laundry, too!), and we always make sure that they have all the goodies to hold it. Some of my finest memories are from those finals sessions - especially a certain time when the Tri-Sigmas & the ADPis were almost arrested...!

One thing I really miss was our spaghetti dinner during I-week before initiation. The Wednesday night of the week, the new members would get tied to their pledge moms at the wrist with a handkerchief (mom on the left wrist, NM on the right) and then go on to eat a full supper (salad, spaghetti, bread, dessert-you only ate what you wanted, of course...) one-handed. It was supposed to teach us to work together. My pledge class was the last one to do it.

After switching to our new NM program, we also discontinued family titles (mom, dot, grandma, etc...) which was kind of sad--it made our families more cohesive!

I really wish we could bring back some of the songs that got lost over the years, or even the original versions of some of the songs that evolved.

I just have to add another one :(

I guess we used to have some really raunchy chants and all *sighs*. But then I guess some super conservative girls came in and basically trashed/rewrote them. *sighs again*

However, during my pledge perios I decided to revolt...I wrote the new Lambda Chant which is rauchy as can be..*sighs happily*

Look in my sig, that's one of the lines of it :D

Oh, geez, I just choked on my soup! We actually had "The Official Underground Song Book"! I can't find mine, and I'm hoping it's not lost to the ages - it was a work of love!!

Aww that seems like its a really neat idea. I think something like that would be alot of fun! too bad its probably considered hazing! BLAH!!!


Nichole

It was alot of fun, and I think we discontinued it because it was in the grey area of hazing :rolleyes: Oh well...

Fortunately, our "dirty" songs still live on!!! :D :D