Fun Rush Article - Texas Girls Take a Look!
 

Here's an interesting article about sorority rush from an alumnae perspective - excellent reading for you southern gals!

it was a cute article...except that they referred to the alumnae as former members. these women seem to be active as they mention that they write reccs. it is just weird...must be the person who wrote the article.

It is likely that they refer to the women as a "former XYZ" because UT and other Texas universities don't use the term alumna/e/i, they use "former student" or "ex-student". Coming from Ohio/ Michigan, I find it strange to see car stickers proclaiming someone to be a member of the "Texas Ex-student Association" and not the "Alumnae Association". I don't think the author was making a statement regarding dedication, or involvement but was simply using local terminology.

Yep. If any member of XYZ violates any NPC FR rule, the entire chapter gets a rush infraction... at least that's how it works at my school. That's why we stress how important it is to be aware of & follow the Panhel rules. :)

One statement that confused me in the article was "Dallas girls will pledge anywhere".. I find that a little hard to believe. Most schools up here are just as competitive as others.. esp. at places like TCU, SMU, and Baylor.. where they have girls who will only want to pledge certain houses. As amazing as it may seem, there are even some like that at UNT (and most of UNT's students are from Dallas or the surrounding area)... and UNT isn't really a huge greek campus either.

I thought that pretty well described recruitment around here. At my school, dirty rushing definately happened alot every year. It frustrated me because the bigger chapters were able to get away with it for some reason, while the smaller chapters were more likely to get caught. If you know anything about the greek system at A&M, you will probably know which houses I'm talking about. :(

I could be wrong, but I didn't think a punishment of "no new member" was allowed, through panhellenic. Green book readers, can you answer this?

That is correct - you cannot punish a chapter for a recruitment infraction by limiting the number of new members they can acquire.

hmmm that's strange!! for some reason I remember our recruitment ppl telling us last year that if we get so many rush infractions we could be "kicked out" so-to-say, of FR... maybe they were just trying to scare us so we could really know and understand the rules :p

I'm pretty sure they told us rush infractions do cause the chapters to get a fine though..

Just to be nit picky.........Does the writer NOT know that the plural of alumna is alumnAE and not alumnI?????

And is that our SMU house in the picture????

As a side note, I hate this rule, because chapters can "accidentally" take extra girls during informal, and nobody can do a damn thing.

How so?? On my campus, you could only do imformal if you weren't already at chapter total. And I definately don't see anything wrong with that. It give the smaller chapters a chance to get their numbers up.

Chapters cannot have the amount of members they take limited through the school's Panhel. However, I have heard of national HQs using this as a disciplinary measure (Panhel having nothing to do w/ it).

Chapters can be disallowed from participating in formal rush, but they cannot be prevented from taking new members completely - it infringes on freedom of association rights.

Do you just mean during FR? My understanding is this- EVERY chapter does FR and can get quota no matter how many members they have. BUT, once FR is over, only chapters below chapter total (on my campus this was around 185) were able to continue recruiting through informal and COR.

So, even though total at my campus was 185, most chapters had 200 or 250 because quota during FR was so high.

Worked the same exact way at my school as well!

Yeah, but if you have 2 spots, and give out five bids, you get to take three extra girls, and can't be punished for it the next time around.

Yes. You can take quota every formal rush.

Notice they said "alumni" and not "alumnae".

In reading this article it occurred to me that Greek Life is a unique sub-culture on college campuses and due to its elite stature, the average non-Greek is unfamiliar with sorority customs and terminologies. Hence, the story quoted alumnae and their perspectives on the process, but the reporter clearly doesn't understand it himself; hence the inaccuracies reported. Also, having worked with alum who have been far removed from the college scene for some years outside of writing recs, they are often out of the loop when it comes to terminology changes, recruitment rules (even on their campuses) and policies.

Great Greek PR though.

Back to the comment on NPC guidelines and not being able to restrict quota--

While I was in school, our formal rush was in early October. One group decided to hand out COB bids about a week before recruitment started. This particular group was already one of the largest groups on campus, and this enabled them to COB to total, then still take quota through formal rush (which they did). They ended up being WAY over total and the largest group on campus--and there was very little anyone could do.
Talk about dirty rushing!!

It was my understanding that if your campus has deferred fall formal recruitment that the PC can institute a bid freeze until the time of formal recruitment.

Second - PC can't kick you out of formal recruitment for infractions, they can sanction you if you are found GUILTY after a mediation and then J-Board hearing.

If you have two spots you should be giving out 2 bids!

Some of you guys need to read your green book (along with the new recruitment resolutions) and like I tell my groups speak up!!!

i totally agree with this. my campus...alma mater and now i advise there...has so many inaccurate things happening during recruitment. they have their own version of every panhel rule and of course have none of it in writing, but they are so engrained with incorrect info! you would be so sick if i told you some of the things that have been allowed to go on! oh, and no one wants to change it because they think they are correct!

The writer is obviously not that familiar with sororities. :rolleyes: She never spelled out Zeta Tau Alpha in the article, only calling us "Zeta". It is strange because our alumnae chapters have several items a year in there and it is a very small paper. All she had to do was check her own archives.

Yes, that is your house! Beautiful!


BTW...the Zeta in the article is in my alumnae chapter! Laura is super cool and is on our local housing board for the ZTA house at SMU.

YES!!! That's MY house and it is beautiful!!:)

What kinds of things go on there? And, is there not any way to get things corrected? I would think that if enough alumnae brought up the issue, things would be looked at more carefully.

Right C, that's what I meant - that kind of punishment wouldn't be for things like too many balloons - it would be a disciplinary measure for more serious things. PM me if I'm confusing you. ;)

More people do need to have access to the green book. That would help all around. I would guess that most campuses don't actually follow the green book completely since most collegians or advisors have not read it.

For example -- Silence is supposed to be limited to a 24 hour period. The new version spells this out a bit clearer and talks about panhellenically spirited conversation. But - if we polled this group, my guess is over 90% have a silence period longer than 24 hours.

Good news though! NPC is creating a separate book just on recruitment and rumor has it that the green book and the recruitment book will be an online available resource. This should help the situation considerably.

About the Green Book rules, aren't most of the statements in there "recommendations"? I know most of them are very strong recommendations and so we should be trying to follow them, but in the end we are each allowed to do what is best for our own campus. Correct me if I am wrong.

Correct .

Only the unanimous agreements must be followed. All the rest are don't. But, since NPC wrote the book (literally and figuratively) it is recommened that PH's follow those rules. As with everything though, not all recommendations fit all campuses - that's why they aren't unanimous agreements.

FYI - if you are not at total and/or quota you are always able to COR to get to it. The PH may limit who you can COR (maybe they have to have a certain number of hours), but they cannot restrict you from reaching total or quota. The only time that you are not allowed to do this is if they place a moritoriam (sp?) for either a struggling or new group. Usually each chapter has a few weeks after recruitment to COR and then they can do any more until the next semester - or whatever specific time period is specified.

Also, the link to the article doesn't work anymore. If you can find the correct one, please repost it.

thanks