Carrying new members over summer
 

Has anyone ever recruited new members in the spring that couldn't be initiated until the fall?

The chapter I advise has three open spots and a senior class that is larger than what quota will likely be in (fall) formal recruitment. At this point in the semester, the new members couldn't be initiated until fall. I'm afraid that it will be difficult to retain new members over the summer and any effort we put into COB will be in vain.

Thanks!
Angie

One more time in slow motion? I am not clear on what the problem is. Glad to help, if possible.

Sorry. :)

Can a chapter expect to retain new members from the spring through being initiated in the fall?

If so, what special efforts might be suggested?

That's exactly what we're facing--if we pledge women after Wednesday, there won't be 8 weeks left for our NM period. Considering how busy the last month of school always is, I can't imagine compressing the NM period and being fair to the NMs.

Thanks so much for sharing your experience!

Does your org have anything in the rules about the members actually have to be in a semester?

Since you will have their Spring grades, is there an opportunity right before everyone goes back to school to have the ceremony(ies)?

I'm thinking will the chapter have enough energy after recruitment to have Init. practice, and/or ceremonies?

I don't if the formal recruitment is right after they start school. Wouldn't you want these new members to be able to vote?

The recruitment wrinkle
 

To further complicate this situation , this campus has formal recruitment about 6 weeks into the fall semester. This means Initiation would have to be squeezed in during busy recruitment preparation or NMs would wait until at least end of October to be initiated.

Thanks Lynn!

When I was the New Member Coordinator we had one girl held over from Spring to the fall, mostly because she pledged right at the end Spring semester, just like you are describing. Since we only had the one girl, it was quite easy for me to keep in touch with her throughout the summer and I think her Diamond sister (big sister) did also. When she was eventually initiated with the other new members we picked up in the fall, she was quite proud of being our chapter's longest Alpha member (new member). It showed her dedication to the sisterhood, even without being privy to all secrets.
I think so long as a concerted effort is made to keep in touch with your uninitiated new members, it is feasible.

PS: Where in Colorado are you at? I grew up near Boulder. :)

In the four years that I've been an adviser we've had 4 women plan to hold over from fall semester to spring semester, but only 1 successfully initiated. That is part of the reason that I'm worried we wouldn't be able to keep NMs engaged over summer break!

My pledge class was a late spring pledging and we were held over for the summer. It was actually fairly common on my campus because we were on the quarter system and our structured informal spring rush was always in April, at the start of spring term. It actually worked well because we always initiated these spring rush classes before school even started, during the first week of pre-rush workshops so the initiation week activities became a nice break from rush workshops and everyone was around and not stressed out by school for our initiation.

Some of the things we did to help keep these girls connected for the summer - make sure big sisters are assigned before summer break. Also if you have a house and the girls are moving in for the next fall, assign them to their roommates and make sure they're girls who will keep in touch with your new members over the summer. Also, if it's feasible, assign them to a rotation group for recruitment as well. Basically as many "groups" and people you can keep them in touch with, the more they'll feel a part of things. I got so much mail the summer I was a new member and it really did keep me feeling as if I was a part of the group.

We had several holdovers when I was in school, and we tried to keep them in the college area ("Why don't you take the class on such & such with us? It'll be fun!"). We had a weekly meal together, and basically made them feel as if they were already part & parcel of ADPi. We also got their addresses & had each sister write a note at least once a week during the summer. And of course, we included them in the standard fun things that we always did during the summer!

Bottom line is that you have to keep in touch with them and make them feel part of y'all as much as possible!

we also had holdovers back in the day, with formal recruitment before fall classes started-these girls all came back, and participated fully in recruitment as pledges.

i would encourage the chapter to initiate these girls asap and not wait until after formal recruitment. if they have fulfilled all the requirements of membership, then they should be initiated, no matter how busy with formal recruitment prep. the chapter is.

perhaps the new member coordinator could recruit some volunteers to send cards, small gifts, email and phone these new members on a regular basis over the summer break.

My impression: you have three open spots now and will have an even larger deficit in the fall due to a large graduating senior class this spring.

If you have already filled the three spots, get permission from your regional rep to speed up the new member education period and initate the members before end of semester. This is not an uncommon practice to coincide with a university break or exams. (You can set aside some special activities and events for them and the chapter prior to recruitment in the fall so they get some extra "love" from the chapter before the new members come in through formal recruitment). I also really liked the idea to send them notes and cards throughout the summer to keep them excited about being part of the sorority and to show them that the fall is going to be great!

There are benefits and risks associated with initating them now rather than in the fall. Assess what is best for your chapter.

But ... will recruiting only three members this late in the school year late help with your fall recruitment? You are going to have a significantly reduced chapter in the fall due to the large graduating senior class this spring... will 3 more women on the floor with relatively little sorority experience make much of an impact? Is the effort to recruit the 3 spots going to be worth in light of the business of the end of spring with graduation, members abroad, spring break, etc?

Um no.

There's nothing to make NMs feel more out of sync with the sorority than to shorten their pledge period and give the impression to the rest of the sorority that they've gotten a "pass" because of when they signed their bids.

And if you have to speed up their pledge period just because you're afraid they might not initiate, are they really the sort of women you even want in your sorority? They deserve the same amount of time to make the final decision as to whether they want to initiate that everyone else had.

But back to the original question.

If you have three women who the majority of the chapter knows well...who have mentioned pledging before but cringed at the idea of having to go through formal rush...who are basically "honorary sisters" - by all means, bid them now, start pledging, and hold them over to initate them in the fall. (I personally think it would be very inspiring and uplifting to initiate them while you are planning/practicing for rush - it would get everyone's minds back to what rushing is really all about and be a positive boost for everyone.)

BUT if you don't have anyone like that in mind, and you would be starting from scratch as far as COB is concerned - it's not worth the logistics and the idea of shortening pledging.

Adpiucf--you're right on the money about our situation. The concerns you mentioned are the same concerns that are keeping me from whole-heartedly advocating recruiting 3 new women at this point in the semester. I don't know that three new initiates will make a positive difference during fall recruitment.

My largest motivation at this point for recruiting additional women is simply to ease the strain on COB after formal recruitment this fall. This chapter is rarely successful with fall COB because everyone is tired after formal recruitment and already focused on their new members. If I could reduce the likely 6 members needed through COB to 3, it might be worth the effort now.

33girl--thanks for being so honest and frank. You make some great points that the chapter advisers and leaders are going to need to consider as we make this decision.

Angie, unless you're coming back to school with 7 members, 3 more aren't going to make a whole heck of a dent on the recruiting floor. Especially in consideration that they haven't had more than a few weeks to experience the organization. This doesn't mean they can't be good recruiters, but they need more time to experience the sorority before they can sell the sorority experience to PNM's.

In the fall, there will be a flurry of activity to get ready for recruitment and a pre-recruitment initation will just stress everyone out.

Check with your Greek adviser and regional sorority adviser to make sure that all your cards are in order if you want to extend the bids now. I wouldn't waste the effort on a CR this late in the school year-- if you have three women who would love to join, extend the bids now and have them over to the house to socialize, wear letters, learn about the responsibilities, pay the new member fee, and let them come to sisterhood events.

You can utilize them in pre-recruitment week to assist with preparations and have them at recruitment to help with duties outside of actual recruiting and membership selection (ie: run projector, serve refreshments, etc.)

Hope this helps. I empathize with wanting to feed their interest while its hot, but I think you're going to be stuck between a rock and a hard place-- being held over for 3 months may cause interest to wane and you'll lose them before the fall begins, and shortening the new member period to initiate before summer break may rob the new members time to evaluate if this is the right sorority for them, leaving you where you started plus more former members running around with knowledge of rituals.

If you're hard pressed for returning members in the fall, I'd opt to speed up the new member process so you have more initiated members on the floor and can utilize the new ones in other recruitment activities. But also consider the best scenario for keeping these 3 new girls around and motivated-- will it be worth the effort to keep courting them over the summer as NM's?

Conclusion
 

After meeting with the membership adviser and appropriate chapter officers, we've decided to focus our energy this semester on preparing for fall recruitment/COB.

Thanks to everybody for sharing your experiences and opinions. :)

I'm just curious after reading this post, about this '8 week new member period", I'm unfamiliar with this for some reason. I was just initiated this past thursday, and we did not have an 8 week new member period, in fact, we felt so rushed into everything that many members (myself including) were so overwhelmed that half of our 14-member 'pledge class' almost dropped.

Some girls signed their bids very late (or just started recruitment towards the end) and literally had 1 week to pick their bigs, then big lil week, then a week later initiation, so all in all, they've been in the sorority for less than 4 weeks and are now initiated. I was lucky enough to have about 4 weeks until big picks. It hasn't even been 8 weeks yet since I signed my bid and I'm initiated.

I was just a bit confused by this 8 week new member period because we obviously didnt follow it.

Most of the NPC sororities have a 6-8 week new member program. A school may require an even shorter program, to avoid hazing. Some chapters may hold over members longer to get grades.

When a chapter is having Continuous Open Recruitment they may decide, with permission from the appropriate National officer, to have a shorter new member period. This is so that the members can be initiated before the end of the quarter/semester or so that all members of the same class are initiated at the same time. It's a way to avoid "hold overs" and avoid losing girls over winter/spring/summer break.

Your experience is not common, but not it's not that uncommon either. The important thing is you're an initiated sister. Whether you new member period was 4 weeks or 4 months (like in the 1940s/1950s) you still have the same privileges.
:D

Different sororities have pledge programs of different lengths. However, if the shortened pledge period isn't working and it isn't a national directive, I would definitely get together as a pledge class and let the sisters know that it wasn't an enjoyable experience and many of you were close to quitting. Something that makes half of the pledge class unhappy is not a good thing to have in practice.

Yeah, a lot of the girls in my class let people know how upset we were. In fact, the night our big lists were due, I almost quit and had a one on one with the president about why I was upset and she and I talked for a while and she made me feel better about everything and how things get better and slow down.

I think a lot of our problem too was that our NM 'mom' was terrible. She ruined our big/lil by lil hunting herself, although she spouted nothing except how bad it was herself. She was so unorganized, scatterbrained, unprepared and everything else that goes along with it that we were constantly hanging on by a thread and we got to the point that she would email us at 5pm telling us we had a mandatory meeting at 6:30pm, which would mean half the girls had class or other commitments and most wouldn't even get the email in time anyway....oh well, that part of it is over now though.

we've done it in the past where we give a girl a bid towards the end of the semester, and girls hang out with her over the summer, but she becomes part of the pledge class we get through formal recruitment. that way, instead of being rushed through a new member period, she just gets to ease into a relationship with the sorority. if time permits, we invite them to the events we have at the end of the semester so they can meet more of the girls, and so they can see what fun they'll have the next semester.

I'm sure how well "holdovers" work depends on the school and the situation.
I was a holdover, signing my bid card in April, I think, and I wasn't initiated until December with the rest of the fall pledge class.
Aside from having girls who signed their bid cards after me being ahead of me in pin order (alphabetical), I loved it. I did not go home the summer after freshman year, but stayed in Minneapolis where I was going to school. I hung out with some of the girls from the sorority over the summer and got to know them better, so I was much more comfortable when fall came around. And, I got to help recruit my pledge class! There was another sister with me who had not been initiated in the spring, so at least there was someone else who was in the same situation.
So in my case, I loved being a holdover.

I knew a girl who held over her bid because she wanted to pledge with the large fall pledge class, and the sorority she was pledging had members invite her out during the summer (basically, so she wouldn't forget how much she liked it). Before formal recruitment, they asked her to help decorate, and during recruitment, they asked her to hold water/refreshments (since she could not vote and therefore could not rush people). This made her feel as much a part of the sorority as she could be before pledging. If you don't have time for the whole new member period, I would suggest doing something like what this chapter did.