Is this legal? Deactivated one NPC, now part of a new NPC.
 

Hey Everyone,
After going through recruitment on the other side finally, I was talking with a couple of my friends who transfered from State University to my Private University. There were telling me that one of their friends had gone through recruitment the semester before and had pledged and initiated XYZ sorority. That did not bother me, it was the fact that the girl was part of XYP sorority at State. Why didn't Panhel detect this? How can you find if a girl coming through was part of another NPC GLO without explicitly asking her or being told? I am confused and a bit let down by the system. I am wondering if any girls in my house have done that.

I doubt the law has any laws regarding sorority membership status. With that said, it is against NPC bylaws to join any NPC sorority after having been initiated into one. No ifs ands or buts. How many girls went through recruitment at your school? My guess is that panhel just 1) assumes that anyone who has been initiated into an NPC sorority would know the rules well enough to know that she can't join another and 2) doesn't have time or the resources to check the status of every single girl going through recruitment with 26 sororities to make sure that she wasn't initiated someplace else.

I haven't been a part of greek life for very long, but I understand that you are not allowed to initiate into one sorority, deactivate, then initiate into another sorority. This greatly confuses me as well as to how Panhellenic missed that.

I think it would suffice to say that someone who would break her oath in this way shouldn't be trusted with cleaning the sterling!

The fact that you've already heard about it makes me think that it's only a matter of time before everyone else finds out. Once her XYZ sisters at Private U find out about her XYP affiliation, they'll probably have no choice but to nullify XYZ membership because of the NPC unanimous agreement forbidding dual NPC memberships.

Not only that, but she'll most likely catch a lot of crap from XYZ for even being dishonest with them.

As cuteASAbug said, there's no real method in catching girls who do this, but people do find out.

Only thing is, now that girl knows two rituals. Deactivated or not, she's not gonna forget what she's learned. I thought a sorority's nationals really checked up on that stuff though?

Panhellenic and/or the sorority's nationals wouldn't really have any way to check, other than to rely on the word of the PNM.

Each individual NPC group has some type of database of individual members, but we don't have access to each other's database - its members only stuff. NPC doesn't keep lists of members across all groups and campuses either. In absence of rumors or gossip indicating that there is reason to suspect the girl of attempting "dual membership", the only way for Panhel or an individual sorority to "catch" something like that would be to run a check on every PNM. Can you imagine the administrative hassle that would be? :eek:

What this girl did was dishonest, and I am fairly certain that her new group will terminate her membership immediately as soon as they are made aware. (And likely her old group will terminate her too.)

If a woman has never attended any university but yours, then you're probably safe. (If she had pledged and initiated in another NPC group on your campus, Panhel and the other groups would be able to detect that.)

If its a case of someone who transferred from another university, the only way you could tell is by doing some investigating yourself. (Following whatever procedures your national endorses.) If you have a PNM who transferred from XYZ University and you have suspicions about whether or not she was in an NPC group there, you could always call that university's Greek Life/Panhellenic office - they may be able to assist you.

Maybe it would be wise for College Panhellenic Councils to check out EVERY transfer student prior to Recruitment. I don't know how many that would entail on most campuses, but it can't be more than a fourth of those registering - and I for one would like to be sure that people are who they say they are.

It could be just one more step, as registrations come in. Transfer students put in one pile, and alumnae or whomever could spend the time checking out their status. They could then check them off and put them back in with the rest of the applications.

You know, to this day I suspect that one of my close friends from freshman year (who initiated my chapter Spring semester, then ended up transfering to a school closer to her home in the Fall) tried to go through rush at her new university.

We stayed in touch over the summer (were supposed to be roommates when she came back in the Fall), and then she told me that she wasn't coming back to school in the Fall. She mentioned to me that the university she was transfering to had a chapter, but she didn't feel like she fit in with the girls there. I think she was trying to hint that she was going to rush again, and I casually tried to make the point that she could always choose to remain alumnae and not affiliate with the undergraduate chapter at her new school. We lost touch shortly after that, and I wonder whether she tried to "sneak" through rush to this day.

In retrospect, I should have contacted the chapter at her new school to give them the opportunity to welcome her to campus ;) ...even if she decided not to affiliate, at least the word would have been out and she would have been busted if she tried to go through rush. (But this all happened the summer between my freshman and sophomore year, so I didn't know how to handle it at the time.)

If any of you were at Towson State University in 1993 and encoutered a PNM who transferred from Michigan State University, PM me and I'll tell you her name. It still bugs me to this day that I never followed up on it. :(

I think what that girl did was very dishonest ... not just to the old group but to new group as well. I'd want her terminated if I was part of the XYP chapter.. but that's just me :)

If she's only been through them once or twice, unless she has a crazy photographic memory, a lot of it she will forget.

I don't know if its my orgs form or a schools form but I remember seeing a statement on a recruitment registration form that says something like... "I affirm that I am not now, nor have I ever been, an initiated member of a National Panhellenic Conference sorority" and they had to intial the statement. And then it said something about "If you have ever accepted an invitiation to join an NPC sorority, please list the sorority here." It had some other things too, about financial responsibility etc. but the point is NPC recruitments should include a form which asks these questions. Sure people can lie still, but if they are caught, they can't say they didn't know the rules.

No there is no NPC database and no people don't check--back in the day you used to be able to trust people and take them at their word. I guess not so anymore. Suffice it to say, when people are found out, they usually lose membership in BOTH organizations.

I don't know if it would be considered a privacy issue, or some so called great burden to do so, but would it be possible for the NPC to unanimously agree to request all colleges to include the girl's affiliation when it forwards her transcripts to the new schools?

Privacy issue? No.
Burden that universities wouldn't care to deal with? Yes.

A better idea would to actually have that so-called database that we like to joke about.

honechile's idea about the local Panhellenic checking up on transfer students isn't such a bad idea either.

Checking on every student who goes through recruitment would be burdensome (and probably a waste of time if the majority of PNMs on that campus are 18 year old freshman). But doing a quick check on the transfer students wouldn't be too bad.

In this day and age, it would be simple to maintain. I would guess the start up might be a tad daunting.

Name: Doe, Jane
SS#: 123-45-6789
NPC: ABC
Initiation Chapter: XY
Initiation College: Big State University
Initiation Date: 01/31/2007

That much info wouldn't even be necessary...


Just have each group load SSN's under their name and if there's ever a "hit" the NM Ed. can contact the other group to confirm name, etc.

Do we provide SSNs to Panhellenic when signing up for Recruitment? (It has been 15 years for me, so I don't remember anymore!)

Maybe not for recruitment, but when you send in your NM paperwork, it's there. I realize that's a little late to catch people, and someone else could have had that spot, but it's better then not catching them at all.

Yet another good reason to use the sponsorship system. Your sorority's alumnae from the candidate's hometown checks her out and writes the sponsor (AKA recommendation) form or letter. More than likely she will turn up whether the girl has been an initiated member of another NPC group. Not to say that some will slip through the cracks, but it would be another check. I personally would not give Panhellenic my social security number.
I really don't think it is that big of a problem. Now, I'm not saying that NO woman has EVER been initiated in 2 NPC orgs. People forget the rules. Perhaps the transferee really misses her sorority experience and wants to continue it. But I don't think it is that frequent a problem.

Really? I'm not so sure that's standard practice for everyone.

I'm not in favor of a giant database for all -- I don't think it's necessary.

seriously - its nothing an excel spreadsheet, or even an access file cant handle. find a sister/soror who knows their Excel and put them to work!

ETA: yes, i know the feasibility of the upkeep would be monstrous, esp between semesters and between 26 orgs. but there has to be a better way of stopping stuff like this happening. or maybe HQ's on a whole figure they have bigger issues to worry about?

You know, these days with facebook, I'm sure it wouldn't be too hard to find out. Seems like if they were in another organization, there'd be a picture or two here or there of them in letters or with sisters in letters...enough to give you reason to confront them.

Of course, it would be nice if people were just honest. And if they respected their own organization...I can't understand abandoning one and joining another...it defeats the purpose of sisterhood and reduces it to just a "club" status. But then, I guess some people do regard their organization as a social club.

Wow.. y'all are scary.

First off, if someone's going to lie about being in a different organization, why would they tell the truth about their SSN?

Secondly, why can you not take your new members' word that they haven't been in another organization? Is that not good enough?

Because when they give their SSN, they probably aren't planning to quit, unless they're really bonkers.

It's sad that you can't trust someone's word, but a lot of us have been shown (in real life and on here) that you can't. Also, sometimes I think that it is innocent - the women who joined a second group weren't properly educated during their pledgeship on sorority and NPC rules and regs because they were too busy opening their million gifts. But that is another thread :) .

Yeah, honestly, I imagined there would be some kind of database to check out these kinds of things. I can't believe in this day and age there's not.

Ummm . . . Kevin, didn't you tell me that IFC rush is often shady and entire organizations will lie in their rush materials? If so , you shouldn't be surprised that (very rarely) a NPC member would lie about her membership. Alas, it is a human trait.

Which is my point. Joining group #2, if she knows she's in the wrong applying to group #2, why would she provide her real SSN?

The problem cannot be widespread enough and serious that enough to merit the time and expense being proposed here. A few might slip through the cracks.. Is it really such a big deal that we must now talk about keeping a data base full of social security numbers in order to prevent this?

Sounds like a lot of unnecessary time, expense, and invasion of privacy to me. Not to mention that from a liability standpoint, keeping all of those social security numbers can't be a good thing.

But this is pretty absurd for women who are from towns where most people did not join sororitys. I should be precluded from membership simply because most women in my town were anti-establishment hippies when they were in college? I find that troublesome.

I agree...every time I am asked for my SSN, I want a very specific reason why. This does not seem like a good one.

The student has to be registered at the college in order to pledge. Colleges routinely use s.s.n.s to identify students - I always have to provide mine to get transcripts. I doubt that many students would lie about their s.s.n. to enroll in college - it would make it too difficult to get employment later. So, some means of cross-checking with the # is probably feasible.
Having said that, I don't think it is really that big of a problem. In this case, I would notify both NPC orgs. Perhaps her losing both memberships would be a good example!

and again, considering greeks are at a university at their leisure, you think sschool officials have time to be cross-checking SSNs for every PNM during rush?

also, many colleges are moving away from using SSNs as ID#s. NYU had a whole big to-do about it a couple years ago. doesnt mean they still dont have my SSN.

You've got to think about the ROI here. First, creating a database that's going to hold information about probably half a million people. (I'm just guessing at a number here, based on an approximate number of new members we get in Alpha Gam annually, plus some, because we have fewer chapters than a lot of NPC's and multiplying by 26 NPC groups times four because they are in college for about 4 years). Someone has to add in 3000-5000 new members per year per NPC. This database has to be accessible by ___ ?? Who would be able to add members to it? Who would be able to check it? Would you have one person at headquarters designated to check for each chapter? When do you do this? During recruitment on all PNMs? During their new member period but before Initiation? So, you have to figure out who has access to this database with SSNs in it. THEN, you have to ensure that this database is kept really secure so that they don't end up having to pay for credit monitoring for half a million women.

I'm not sure all that is worth it to catch a handful of women who do this each year.

But those who are stupid enough to do it and are caught - really need to be kicked out of their NPC GLOs!

Yep.

ETA: I think the best thing would be for the chapters to carefully screen the new members that they get who are transfers before initiation. (Even the hometown sponsor thing might fail if your hometown was big enough to include two members who didn't know each other that you could ask for recs at the different campuses.) But once the girl is a new member, then before initiation, you call the old school's office of Greek life. If they don’t have good lists, you could call each of the chapters at the old campus. Worst case is that you’d call 26 groups if the old campus had EVERY NPC group, which seems unlikely. Considering that you probably didn’t pledge that many transfers, it would seem worth it to protect your ritual.

Also, how do you know the SSN's are real? If a girl is going to lie about being initiated elsewhere, why not also give a false SSN?

True--if someone is going to be dishonest about her affiliation, why would she be honest about her membership in another NPC sorority. However, I am of the opinion that NPC should have some sort of database to show membership. I know that each has its own website with membership info for alums and collegiates, so why not just merge the two? :confused:

I don't think you'd necessarily need an SSN anyhow - in most cases, name, birthdate, and hometown/HS should be sufficient to do a check. (What are the odds of 2 Jane Smith's both born on 3-14-89 both from City XYZ? And then what are the odds of them both going through NPC recruitment? In the rare event that a duplicate match might happen, a procedure could be established for a deeper verification.)

Many of us already gave our SSNs to our own NPC group on the new member paperwork. (I won't go so far as to say that all NPC groups collect them for their pledges/new members, but I suspect a lot do.) However, I wouldn't be in favor of an NPC database that contained them for all 26 orgs members in one location. Too hard to control for who has access and to big of an expense to develop/maintain.

Jeau??? Is this how kids spell "Jew" these days??? First, it was "azn"...and now this.