Rush infraction penalties
 

I am Panhellenic President and I'm sick and tired of this one sorority dirty rushing every single semester! Last year we nailed them with talking during silence and using PNM legacys to bid promise for them but they did it again this semester already with blatant bid promising. We're preparing ourselves to go through the proper steps toward filing the infraction & mediation but I'd like to come up with a greater variety of "penalties" for their infraction than social probation. I know according to NPC we can't fine the house or prohibit recruitment numbers. Are there any other suggestions out there?

They have to sponsor a speaker for the whole Greek community. This isn't fining but still has costs and will hit them in the wallet.

I think I've heard of groups not being allowed to do certain things at formal recruitment - for example, if most groups sing and clap when the PNMs enter, they are not allowed to do so and must just welcome them quietly. This makes the PNMs wonder "wtf?" and maybe makes the group not as attractive. This could also work with decorations, clothing, rooms used etc.

Correction or rather clarification, Panhellenic can fine but only for "measurable" offenses such as late bid list or parties running long, thus measured in time.

One disciplinary action our Panhellenic uses for Recruitment infractions is requiring community service hours. The new members are specifically prohibited from being the ones who do them since they didn't cause the infraction. The service project must be submitted and approved by Panhellenic. A representative from the service organization must be willing to keep track of attendance/hours completed. Then if the hours aren't completed by a specific date, the total hours needed is increased.

The problem with that sort of punishment is that the sorority can go turn it around and submit it towards campus and their group's national/international awards. It should absolutely come with some caveat that the service cannot count towards any local or national requirements and cannot count towards any rewards of any sort.

You might require them to sponsor a member of their National Council to do a campus wide program on recruitment infractions, covering the things they have been caught doing. That one worked real well for a chapter I advised!

Sorry for the lane swerve, but I have a slight issue with using community service as a punishment. Besides the possibility to use it for positive recognition, I think it sends a really bad message to say that community service is a punishment. Yes, it is a way to provide positive results from a bad situation, but at what cost? If our organizations are trying to promote a positive image of leadership, scholarship, service, and brotherhood/sisterhood we should not be doling out something we want to do as a penalty for rule breaking.

Just my two cents...

I see where you're coming from, but community service is used as a punishment far more often by our courts than it is by a Campus Panhellenic Council.

Also, OP... you might want to change your location and some of the other identifying data in your post (your position on CPC included).

there should already be stated penalties in your recruitment rules and those are the punishments that should be meted out. coming up with punishments after an infraction is committed is a little like changing the rules midway in a game of monoply. it's not right.

if you feel that the punishments are not severe enough, you should propose additions to the recruitment rules, but those would be in effect for the next recruitment period.

It's a completely different situation when used by the courts. In court-ordered community service, the message is intended to be "you have harmed the community by your actions, so you need to make up for it by helping the community with your actions."

Here, these same sororities will be using "look at our philanthropy/community service" as a recruiting plus to highlight the positives of Greek life. Using community service as a punishment sends a very mixed message: "Community service is a great and positive thing that we do because we care and it helps us make a difference. Or because we're being punished."

Reach out to your NPC Area Advisor for guidance. If this is a reoccurring issue with one chapter she may also want to talk with that chapter's NPC Delegate to get the issues resolved. In some situations the problems need to be addressed by both the Panhellenic and the organization's own support team.

That only works if their NC agrees that they did something infractionable. That's not always the case.

A Panhellenic event in which the recruitment rules are very specifically reviewed and punishments are covered is a good idea, especially if the sorority responsible sponsors it. It's often a handful of members that cause the problems, not the entire chapter so it might be worth your time to hold a meeting with some of that chapters advisors and officers to see if this is the case and to help them find a way to deal with these individual members so that their entire chapter isn't punished next year for bad behavior of a few. Building Panhellenic spirit is also a good idea. I've been on my campus Panhellenic council before and we agreed that the fierce competition and ill will between some of the chapters was an underlying cause because there was a general lack of respect. Having Panhellenic events and requiring chapters to attend could help women meet friends in other sororities and have more respect for one another so that they might actually feel some shame for cheating, which hurts the other sororities. Point out that cheating is for people that don't think they can win on their own merits and know they aren't good enough to win without undermining the competition.

My take on dirty rushing is that it doesn't matter WHAT you do, there will always be some girls that think it's worth the risk and will find a way to do it, and most of the time find a way to get away with it, too. Hopefully you can find a solution, but if nothing else, remember that it's likely a case of a few perpetrators or ring leaders and eventually they'll be out of the picture.