Alexandra Robbins, Authoress of PLEDGED, said:
 

The biggest problem with sororities is their national leadership, which is
often out of touch with the personalities of individual women and chapters,
Robbins said.

Sorority members should work with their national headquarters to reform the Recruitment process and make sororities less image-focused, she said.

"It shouldn't have to be about fitting into a certain mold," Robbins said.
"Question authority - fight to make sure your sorority values are things
you think are important."

For women planning to participate in Panhellenic Formal Recruitment, which
begins Sunday with the Philanthropy Round, Robbins recommended going in
with an open mind.

"Don't think about the labels of the house," she said. "Pay close attention
to the members you meet and if you feel like they're people you can be
friends with."

(I got this from an email of an article from Northwestern that somebody cut and pasted)

Thoughts?

Who Does She Think She Is?
 

Yeah-she came to Penn State too. All the NPC sororities had to go and listen to her for some insane reason. It was weird that we saw girls in the crowd listening to her speech who didn't receive a bid from ANYONE...so, I feel like it was not only supposed to be "helpful" to the sororities it was also supposed to be an outlet for people who were rejected by the Greek System at our school...I realize that not everyone is rejected because they are losers but, at such a big campus if you were rejected by all the NPCs (when we have such a large amount of greek orgs.) it was probably because you were rude, obnoxious, etc. I feel like Alexandra Robbins speech helped piss off the sororities that much more by blasting Greek Life (which-if you read the book...and I have...you'd see she does that) and make other girls who didn't get bids have another reason to hate Greek Life instead of trying again!

One of my sisters at her Speech got up and asked how she knew all the secrets of some orgs. without being a member. Alexandra replied, "How do you know I wasn't a member of those particular organizations as I wrote my book?" That tells me that she probably pledged or initiated only to write dirt on sororities...if that's the case-I think she helped make a mockery of the system by showing people you can join our Greek Organizations, drop them when you get bored and then write about their secrets, rituals, passwords, knocks, etc. without caring. If the girls in her book knew what she was all about from the beginning-then they should give up their membership. If I knew members of my org. did that-I would want them to relinquish their badge! Ugh-I'm sorry but, she just really upset me.

Eh...she was right on going into recruitment with an open mind...even I was told that before I rushed. But her book reads more like fiction...I would take it with a grain of salt.

Alexandra Robbins is not a subject matter expert on Greek Life despite what she may believe.

If she was a sorority alum, and worked several years at the HQ/EO or attended a groups convention (where a lot of key sorority policies are often discussed and voted on) then I think people might actually take her seriously.

Unless she's been on "that side" she doesn't know what happens behind closed doors at the HQ of our sororiites.

Besides what she may think, not every sorority woman in America fits a cookie-cutter-Malibu-Barbie mold. Not every chapter of every NPC is full of beautiful tanned blonde girls with teeth that are so white they may glow in the dark.

Yea, I think going into recruitment with an open mind is great advice, but any monkey could tell pnms that.

She's right to a point. Especially when it comes to things like dry housing, men in the house, etc. I think these deter a lot of women from pledging. Plus a lot of the time, women who are in national positions have been from very strong chapters (even if the chapter isn't that way now, it was when they were active) and they don't always understand the problems of chapters that struggle.

But NPC is set up to try to make things fair for everyone. The reason every sorority on campus isn't the same size is because people are different. There's always going to be a popular and unpopular sorority - that's human nature. The only way all the sororities could be "equal" is if women were randomly assigned groups - and that defeats the whole point of a sorority.

Oh, she's not talking about NPHC sororities.

You do understand what is problematic in this statement, right?

I would think it would be harder for her to try to infiltrate NPHC sororities since we have a tendancy to 'scope people out' before we invite them to join. ;)

We've been infiltrated and written about. Just not in this way.

What was problematic?

That she essentially calls women who are cut from ALL sororities rude and obnoxious (in some way inadequate) and then says that they should try to pledge again.

Not to start any arguments, but the post itself is problematic.

Wow,that is problematic. Either she was angry and furious or she really meant it.

Because you needed to be a full-time enrolled student working on her first bachelor's degree in order to pledge, Alexandra, and clearly you weren't at the time you wrote your book. So if in fact you were a "member" at the time you wrote your book, you obtained such status under false pretenses--- and thus your claims of being a new member or any member are null and void.

That's how we know she wasn't a member. And we know that any secrets she obtained were done under the guise of impersonating a member or gaining the trust of a disgruntled member, again under false pretenses, in an effort to get her "story."

I mean, if I believed that all of the women in a system thought that I was rude and obnoxious (which is the reason that I got cut), why would I want to be a part of that system. Why would I respect a system that held me in such low esteem?

I know she didn't put it across too well, but I think she was talking about 2 different groups of women:

1. Those who get cut by EVERY group (in this case, 19 of them) because they were so rude and obnoxious, who felt "validated" listening to AR spew anti-sorority garbage;
2. Those who got cut by one or two groups and were invited back to others, but dropped out because they were upset that their favorites cut them. These are the ones she wishes would "try again" but might not if they keep listening to AR spew anti-sorority garbage.

I'm more curious about the part where all the NPC sororities HAD to go listen to her speech.

Yeah, I read the book (checked it out from the library, didn't pay for it.)
If you've read it, you've heard what she has to say. Unless there was an NPC representative there to give a balanced presentation, I wouldn't have wasted my time.

I've read it, but I never let it influence my opinions on Greek life. That would be very stupid and silly.

Ditto! And...who on campus books her to speak and how much do they pay for this garbage?

Also she attended Yale and was a member of a "sister organization" to Skull and Bones. Or so she claims in her book on that fraternity. I doubt she was also a collegiate member of any other sorority then or later.

She mentions in the introduction to her book that she interviewed older alumnae and was just shocked at how they wouldn't reveal the secrets of an organization that many admitted didn't really have much to do with them any more. But SHOCKINGLY they wouldn't tell. So she was clearly fishing and got a few bites. But I'm amused by the number of inaccuracies that have been pointed out in her revealed secrets.

I would like to think that "highly urged to attend" would have been more valid about members of NPC sororities going to see AR. After all, it's easier to critique when you know of what you speak.

And as much as I would refuse to BUY a copy of her trash, er, book, I do think we need to know what type of nonsense she's perpetuating.

adpiucf & 33 - love both of your posts!

Exactly. Someone can't just slip in, get some info and go leave to write about it. They'd have to have been there a while.

If I were an older alumna, I wouldn't reveal secrets of my organization to anyone, let alone her. A secret is a secret.

Exactly, even if they didn't mean anything to (general) you anymore, there are plenty of active members who those secrets are important to.

@33girl Ah, I see.

The university where I advised had required Educational attendance percentages for each chapter (each member had to attend I think two speakers/seminars/whatever that were designated as Educationals by Panhellenic). While I understood the intent, I thought it was silly. Some educationals were good and relevant to chapter members, but others women just went to in order to fulfill the requirement and gained nothing.

Authoress?????

I understand requirements for educational speakers, but what College Panhellenic in their right mind would pay to hear this author??

I guess they felt obligated to. It probably wasn't their top choice, or something or other.

She was in Scroll & Key which is actually a competing society to Skull & Bones - it couldn't be a "sister" society as the majority of the alums/members are men.

Maybe this is more just my own experience with HQ communication, but I have never felt that they were encouraging us to recruit a certain image. Sure, maybe they wanted us to recruit women who had potential leadership qualities and had good grades, but that was the end of it.

Any image-focused drive I think comes more from the PNMs trying to peg the groups into some stereotype in order to pick the right one. I think the advice to the PNMs to keep an open mind is good, but I think that AR's book does more to close minds about sorority life than it does to open minds. I really think that AR should have looked at greek life on a variety of campuses before writing her book, too.

If you ask me, any campus would be better off having someone at www.phiredup.com speak to a campus about changing greek life for the better. Their I Heart Recruitment book is fabulous.

I kind of like it.:)

i agree, she tells pnms to keep an open mind about all sororities. i think she should practice what she preaches. if she really wanted people to keep an open mind her book would have reflected that, but it didn't.

I've got to get that book. :)

Perhaps I'm cynical, but I checked out that site and the main theme seems to be "formal rush isn't everything." Which...you should already know.

Well I just checked if they had it on Amazon, and they did...with only one review that is.

Just from the blog entries and pages of the books that were available. In other words (I think I'm paraphrasing James here) you shouldn't RUSH, you should truly RECRUIT. It's true, and I realize it may be a big revelation to some chapters, but if it takes a book for chapters to realize that our HQs are really falling down education-wise.

33girl: the website only gives a general synopsis of what is in the book... I honestly wouldn't have bought it either if all I knew was what was on the site. It was someone else who had read the book and gave me some of the advice from it that related to a problem I was having that "sold" me on the book.

And yeah, we all already know formal recruitment isn't everything. The book gives great, concrete ideas for chapters, though. They talk about chapters in every possible situation and give examples of what worked for those chapters. They also give ideas/critiques about why certain techniques for recruitment don't work and why others do. Sometimes you knew something didn't work, but didn't know why and this book helps you to get at what works on your campus.

One of the things in the book that I constantly remind myself of is to concentrate on helping and encouraging the members who are already excited and want to work rather than focusing on trying to motivate the girls who aren't interested and you have to push 5 times as hard and they still do very little. Why waste 5 times the energy? Hopefully, of course, the nonmotivated girls come around when they see how much the sorority is improving, but focusing on them will only set a negative tone.

Basically, I think the book helps you get into the right frame of mind for reevaluating and improving your sorority chapter's current game plan.

Well, that would make total sense.

I should make a disclaimer here... the review on Amazon is from me :-) The book obviously made quite an impression on me at a time I really needed inspiration advising my chapter.

my thoughts...
 

I think this is backwards. Sorority members and HQ should work to educate PNMs and those who don't join to make sororities less image focused (at least the recruitment aspect of things). While we still need to think about what image our group projects to others (let's be honest...some groups actually earn a negative stereotype with their behaviors), I think what continues to drive the image focused recruitment process is the expectations of PNMs and other students. Think about the conversations we have about expansion at Ole Miss...a lot of people believe that it would be very hard for a new chapter to survive there because the PNMs (and their families, to some extent) will refuse to join a "new" chapter with no "history" and "tradition", especially if they don't have a house that compares with or exceeds the other houses. The PNMs seem to be "image-focused", and I don't think we've figured out how to really fight that expectation yet (without spending tons of money doing it).

Once the PNMs join a chapter (any chapter) that offers a quality experience, they fall in love with the experiences they have. Unfortunately, I don't think we've mastered the art of communicating the meaning of those experiences during recruitment. And some of the PNMs haven't figured out how to really grasp that meaning when making a decision (it could be the stage of development that members and PNMs are in, I don't know). Some groups (and campuses) have, and you can tell a difference in how they go about recruitment.

I'm sure there are a lot of our organization leaders who focus on the image of a chapter, but I don't think they do it because they believe that is what is most important. I think they do it because for some campuses it's life and death for a chapter...and if we can keep a chapter open on a campus by competing that way then we have another opportunity to make a positive impact on the lives of women through our values.

If I were saying that sentence, I'd say "Pay close attention to the members you meet and if you feel like they're people you can no only be friends with, but who would also encourage and inspire you to become a better person."

PsychTau