Weird Campus Rules Regarding GLOs
 

I interviewed a woman who graduated from the University of Toronto back in the 1940s and she told me an interesting GLO fact about U of T back then. While the NPC groups had houses at the time (or at least hers did), the girls weren't allowed to live in them. Instead, the rooms were rented out to female GDIs (so no, it had nothing to do with blue codes regarding more than X number of non related females living in a house). Did/do any other schools have weird rules regarding GLOs? I have heard of schools in Canada (not U of T) where you can't have more than Y number of people in one room wearing the same letters.

Currently, the poster rules at my school are stu-pid.

On every poster
1) The Clubs Logo
2) The FSAC (our greek governing "club")
3) A disclaimer (due to some contraversial clubs on campus)
4) The letters of EVERY group FSAC represents. Why? I don't know. I have the feeling that if we made a stink about it, we'd find out it's a rule someone just made up but no one ever officialized.

sororities are not allowed to have houses.

currently, they are working to overturn this tho.

yipeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee (although its too late for me)

We aren't allowed to use RIF's.
-M

Reading Is Fundamentals?

seriously, what's a RIF?

Really
Intoxicated
Freshman

We used those all the time.

-Rudey
--Girls, of course.

RIFs are Recruitment Information Forms.. alumnae can write these for potential new members and send them to the chapter.

Chapters can use these to help find girls that alumnae feel meet the fraternity's membership requirements and will be a good asset to the chapter. They are just a part of membership selection.

oh in other words, this is the politically correct term for a rec form? :)

My answer was better. :p

Use of RIFs is part of a chapter's PRIVATE membership selection process and universities (although they would like to) have no right to know or interfere with the private internal method of membership selection. They cannot dictate that you NOT use RIFs if that is what your HQ requires. They can refuse to release lists of who is going through recruitment, their names/ addresses/ GPAs and all those details that make obtaining RIFs easier (having been the RIF chair for my alumnae group, I've gotten those late night calls with 40 names that were just released... and pref is the next day) but they can't tell you that you can't accept a voluntary RIF.

You are right dakareng, they can't dictate private membership policies. But, the university wishes for chapters to keep their autonomy, and the chapters have agreed to it in order to be on campus. Our ISC constitution reads:

"5. The selection process must support Stanford's policy of local chapter autonomy. Specifically it may not involve letters of reference or the gathering or use of information from any source outside the University for purposes of deciding whether or not to select, or consider for selection, any particular student. The selection process may not in any manner involve persons from outside the University for the purpose of influencing either the decisions or students as to whether or not to join a particular chapter. "

Basically, we have to consider girls on their own merits, not because so and so's parent's, cousins or whatever are important people. It's really not a big deal, since no one bothers to turn in recs. If my chapter ever got an RIF, I don't think we would know what to do with it!

Hmmmm...so I guess when Stanford hires people they don't ask for references?

I can see this is going on a tangent, but whatever. If Stanford places so much importance on local chapter autonomy, why doesn't it get rid of national GLO's? I mean we all have standardized pledge programs, that pretty much shoots the notion of autonomy in all chapter operations out the window.

I'm not saying Stanford is wrong, far from it, but I just wonder why they take this stand.

$$$
Thou shall not piss off affluent alumni.

What is someone *inside* the University is a member of a GLO? Are they allowed to provide a reference? And what about Stanford alumni? And can alumni be considered part of the university? For example, serve on alumni advisory boards or part of alumni development etc.

Down , killer!

It's really not a big deal guys. Honestly, I don't think the chapters would want the bother of getting recs. It's a lot easier for chapters, advisors, and the university to have this small small teeny tiny rule. I mean, if a chapter got a rec, they wouldn't be punished! Also, since people are so anti-greek here anyway, if PNM's thought that they need reccommedations it would scare them off.

As for making the chapters local, you are all on the national side of that debate, so don't play stupid.

Duh? ;)

Seriously, I'm sure they don't want to get rid of nationals and piss off alums, but I can understand why national groups that make great use of recs (as the groups there all are) would be a little agitated at being told they can't.

Um, a member of a GLO is responsible for picking membership, so yes to your first question. As for alumni, if an alum really wanted their little sisters best friend to be a Theta, I'm sure they could contact Theta and make their opinion known. However, Theta would need to evaluate the girl on the characteristics they know the girl has (we rush in April, so this isn't tough).

As for alumna of the chapter, advisors are critical to the selection process, and actually do the bid matching along with the University's greek advisors and the computer program. This clause makes sure they follow what the membership wants when dealing with all that stuff. However, the head advisors know that and have the interests of the girls at heart always.

So... I don't really understand the uproar. Most of the chapters don't even know this rule exists, since most members don't bother to read the ISC constitution (I didn't until I started tohelp out the advisors). All they know is that we don't scare PNM's by using recs. Like I said before, a lot of PNM's would drop if they thought they were required, it would have scared me for sure!!

The rule of providing recs for each girl isn't sacred, and a lot of times causes chapter advisros to run around trying to find someone who will write a rec for someone at the last minute. Especially at a University where no one would get them on their own, this makes a lot more sense.

From what I know about Stanford the greek system is small enough that not being able to take recs isn't really a big deal... I mena it's an old university so there are quite a few alums and things.... but having grown up 5 minutes away from Stanford and going to school 40 minutes away I can tell you Northern Cali is a fairly liberal area where GLOs at MOST schools around here have to work pretty damn hard to get people to want to go greek anyway... so I really dont' think Stanford's rule is hindering them...


BTW RIF and REC are *slightly* different in my mind, at least at my school Panhell. is in charge of getting the RIFs from the girls and distributing them to chapters, recs would be seperate forms direct from an alum. It seems Stanford's rule stops both of these however.