After rush ribbons? NM Identification
 

After reading the t-shirt thread, I was curious: Other than a rush t-shirt, what does your chapter give to your NMs afterwards?

For our campus, every NM was given a safety pin and it had ribbons (about 4in long) tied in a knot around the pin in their new sorority's colors. These were worn everyday on campus and to events. That way everyone knew who you were, and where you went. I mean, you can't wear your rush shirt everyday...as much as you may want to! Plus, it was too early to have received the new member pin, which generally wasn't worn with shorts and tanks anyway.

I was just curious if anyone else had some sort of 'New Member Identification Program'?

At my school, all of the nationals give their new members ribbons like that to be worn everyday as NM pins, and they only wear their NM pins when they dress up.

We all did the ribboning, too. In fact, I still have my ribbons from when I pledged! :)

To clarify: We wore them the first two days of pledging, on Founders Day, and the week prior to Initiation. ALL sisters do it, not just the New Members.

Many sisters save them to wear on their wedding day.

I still have mine too!

But yeah, we do the ribbon thing and they get their NM pins later.

We ribboned, and you wore them pretty much every day during pledging. You got your pins about a week or so later.

We were given our ribbons and our new member pins on the same day. We were told, however, that the only time we should wear our ribbons was on Founders' Day (and even then, we wore them beneath our badges or new member pins). I still have my ribbons, because we still use them on Founders' Day. Not exactly sure why we only wear them then, though!

My ribbons are securely tucked away in my scrapbook!

We wore our ribbons with our NM pins for 3 days after pledging in Quill attire (dress attire) in celebration. The chapter wore Quill with us to honor their NM's.

AEPhi new members are ribboned as soon as possible after accepting their bids. They are then pinned 1-2 weeks later. NMs are generally encouraged to wear their ribbons as often as possible until they are pinned, then to wear either ribbons or pins depending on how they are dressed.

When I was a new member, we were also given pins that read "I (heart) AEPhi" to pin to our bags etc.

I lost my ribbon when I moved :(

My chapter was a colony...
 

We got our charter this spring (near the end of the semester).

Because of this, we ribboned on Bid Day, and gave the new member pins at the end of the new member period (6-10 weeks). But technically we were all new members, until we got our charter, when we were all (except for spring new members) initiated at the same time (and earned our badges).

We got ribbons when we walked through the sorority room door on Bid Day, only ours were a KD pin (not an official pledge pin or anything, but silver letters) that held the ribbons on, which was kind of cool, since the other chapters who did ribbons only had safety pins.

Our NMs receive their NM pin at the NM ceremony, but since the pin can and should only be worn while in chapter attire, we give them ribbons of red, buff, and green to wear whenever they're not in chapter attire!

This is the same for Phi Mu.

Does this happen on a lot of campuses? I've never heard of it before.

Yes!! I always loved that about Baylor KD's ribbons. They alwayas looked so nice and classy. :) But yes, we had ribbons, I still have my little blue and white one. I always loved Pi Phis and Kappas and Chi Os, I just thought the colors looked really good together.

This is same for Pi Phi, although you can't wear the NM pin without the colors.

UCF doesn't do this. NM's get a Panhellenic ribbon on Bid Day, but once you get to your sorority house you don't wear it.

During initiation week, all members wear ribbons.

The only way we identify our new members is by getting to know them and giving them lettered items.

ive never heard of this...but I like it! Although the Owls usually give their girls a green ribbon to tie to their purse or something, but I don't know if it has the same symbolism or if they just kept it because it was pretty.

My chapter gives out ribbons on Bid Day, then we have the official "pinning" of our new members a little bit later. Most of us wear our brown and mode ribbons on our backpacks.

Our new members get their new member pins at NM ceremony, like jharb said. They also get wine and blue ribbons to wear with their NM pins; I still have mine.

For "everyday" wear, we have little wooden arrow pins for the new members called "woodies", which is kind of ridiculous but cute. They're about the size of our badge, and they're for the girls to wear with jeans or whatever since the real NM pin is only for "pin attire". Some classes rarely wear their woodies, but our new members this spring were all about them.

I've never even heard of this. All our sororites give bags (some are canvas, there's the occasional sorority that gives a vera bradley bag, and other good sized bags) that most of the girls use them as bookbags for at least a month, if not longer. Some soph/jrs still use their bags if they're still clean and what not. They're given on bid day and filled with different things. We give a composite, a embrodiered towel, and then different stuff each year. I know I loved carrying around my bag, proclaiming my greek-self. Plus it was easy to spot all your pledge sisters who you didn't know yet and the sisters could see their new pledge class and wave.

I'm jealous of the girls that get Vera Bradley bags on bid day.

I LOVE THAT IDEA (RIBBONS, I WANT TO DO THAT) !!!!! Would that have to be a panhellenic thing or could one sorority start it alone? I mean, it wouldnt be considered hazing or anything, right? Do initiated sisters wear them too (for a while) so as not to "haze" new members?

Can some one send me a picture (attached to this thread) of what they look like. I am picturing anything from little baby ribbons tied in a knot to crazy long ribbins (like homecoming mums or whatever). I am going to talk to our new member coordinator and get her to do that.

connie, it's just ribbon(probably 3 to 4 inches in length), usually grosgrain, maybe 1/4 to1/2 wide in your sororities colors, that are tied together in a knot in the middle-for us it would be 1 gray and 1 turquoise, or as close as we could come to turquoise. they would get them in a little ceremony at the house on bid day and then on another day shortly after that they would go thru their formal pledging ceremony, where they would receive their pledge pin. it would not be considered hazing, because it is to be worn until they receive their pledge pin, but they can keep the ribbons. they would get lots of bid day loot too.

The University of Toronto did this many, many, many years ago (I've sisters active from the 70s and earlier talk about wearing ribbons around campus during homecoming and the like).

ADPi has a ribbon thing in between the alpha pin and the diamond pin, but I want the NM's to have something the day they accept a bid, besides, > Bid Day T, ADPi stuff - bumper sticker etc. I would love for the NM's to have a "ribbon pin" to wear everywhere the first few days (week) so sisters know and so they can "show off" their greek affiliation.

It just seems like something I would have wanted as a new pledge. I would still like a picture or something.

Have a great day.

You can do it campus-wide, or start the trend yourselves (that's what we're about, remember? ;) ). We did it in two different ways:

Using 1/4" satin ribbon in azure blue & white, tied in bows about two inches wide, with somewhat longer ends (for unraveling) - this is the better way to go with New Members (and sisters should wear them, too, or else it WOULD be hazing), or

Take the same ribbons, and cut a length about 3" long. Fold them in half, but spread them apart a little, so they make a ^ shaped ribbon. These should be ironed, if you go this way.

At UF, all the sororities gave out ribbons to their pledges.

I still have mine...

We also received a gold lavalier with our letters

I have that too!

We didn't get "bid day loot".... but we had "pledge pockets" on a wall in the house. Everyday you came in the house, you would find the pocket with your name on it filled with little goodies from the sisters.. mainly candy... but other little items like stickers, pencils, etc. all with notes attached.

When a bid was accepted the new member was "ribboned" on the spot. The ribbon consisted of two 1/4" satin ribbons (rose and white of course!) tied in the middle with a single knot. This was worn where the provisional member or badge is worn.

She wears this until her pledging ceremony, when she receives her provisional member pin.

We also wear 1/8" ribbons tied the same under our badges for memorial ceremonies or in honor of a new colony installation. Rose and white is worn under our badges for rededication ceremonies.

I love my ribbons!!!!

We do this too! we decorate little envelopes on NM Night and during the first week we get little hints at who our big is, then we have a ritual to find that out, and then we get all sorts of crazy stuff related to our sorority... then we use the pockets to leave encouragement notes n stuff during pledge periods

we used ribbons-I have mine framed along with my member card and certificate.

aggieaxo, that's a great idea for new members!!

We get ribbons as part of our pinning ceremony.

As for wearing them on campus, as honeychile said, if everyone in the chapter doesn't do it, it's considered hazing. I know that seems silly when we are talking about a few pieces of ribbon 2-3" long, but I'm thinking about what ADPi Conniebama said about long homecoming style ribbons. Some people could get out of hand with it and make it look foolish. Of course this isn't the idea to begin with - it's to show pride in the our chapters by wearing our colors.

We always had a cow bell tied to the end of one of the shorter ribbons on our homecoming mums. I don't know if this was a Texas thing or not, but I can just picture Suzy New Member walking through the Quad with double blue and gold ribbons down to her ankle with a giant cow bell attached. :eek:

I don't understand why ribbons would be considered hazing if actives didn't wear them. On my campus at least, new members are given ribbons so that they can wear them whenever they want as opposed to their nm pins that they can only wear when they dress up. If it's like an nm pin basically, then how would it be hazing?

Under ADPi policies, requiring a new member to wear this ribbon throughout their new member period would be seen as hazing.

ETA: Even making it noncompulsory would still considered hazing for us. It has to be the entire chapter participating or none at all. We can't single out the new members for anything outside of their executive board and internationally approved new member education planning outline for their chapter. I can see where other groups would see this as extreme, but it's an international policy for the sorority.

We got hints about our big in our pledge pocket too! And our reveal was really fun. After dinner, each pledge was given a piece of yarn. She had to go to the top of the stairs in the house and unravel her yarn. It was strung ALL around the house-- and intermingled with the other pledge's yarn. You can just imagine the chaos!

You followed the yarn all the way to the dining room where it was attached to a balloon. When you popped the balloon, you found a slip of paper with the name of your big inside!

I thought it isn't mandatory.

Our ribbons are given as part of ritual and we encourage them to be worn every day until women are initiated and recieve their badge. The pledge pin is given about a week after the ribbons. Every active had ribbons and they were worn for chapter founding, nat'l founding, wed spirit days and other important events along w/your badge. I can't imagine if you give women the ribbons, as part of ritual or just bid acceptance, and encourage (not require) them to wear them as a symobl of their membership that this can be hazing.

From what I was told, the ribbons go back to pre-formal rush nonsense when 'rush' literally ment rushing the new freshman women from the train, bus, whatever, back to your house to be pledged. The ribbons were put on while you were rounding women up so you could tell where women were supposed to be going. With every org having different colors, it made it easy to distinguish who your ribbonees were. Maybe this is a myth but that is how I understood the ribboning to have started, obviously, since then it has taken on meaning for some chapters/orgs.

When our NM's (AXiD) are required to wear their pin and colors the initiated sisters are required to wear their pin as well. This way no one is doing something the other isn't. For us it's not a matter of hazing fears, but respect. I'm not sure if AXiD's nationally follow this, but they should (in my opinion).

When I pledged my women's music fraternity we had to wear our pins, etc throughout the whole semester because it was built into the "pledge" program. Personally, it drove me nuts! The reason is this.....if I forgot them one day, it wouldn't be an "oops! it's ok, remember them tomorrow" it would be let every sister see your book to doc you stars! God forbid hack someone off and they give you a dot! That, to me, was hazing.....then again, had I joined my NPC first, I probably would have know that WAS hazing and would have put my foot down. My music fraternity experience is why I'm so adament on NO hazing and ultimately do not support them as an alumna.

I don't think any chapter made it MANDATORY to wear the ribbons. If you didn't want to, you didn't do it. Of course, nobody didn't wear them! Everyone wanted people to see where they'd gone. Not to mention, as one of the very first 'gifts' from your GLO, it was something that was very special!