Pledge Pins On T-Shirts
 

When I joined my fraternity a few years ago (while my chapter was colonizing), we adapted the common "all but the three Ss" rule about wearing pledge pins. However, that was pretty much the only rule.

With t-shirts and jeans being the usual attire, everyone just wore the pins on the collars of their t-shirts until they had a collection of t-shirts with holes at the end of their pledging period.

Recently, it's been occurring to me that wearing pledge pins on non-collared shirts is tacky in addition to being uncomfortable. I'm wondering if I should push for my chapter to "recommend" that pledge pins only be worn with collared shirts.

What are your chapter's policies on this? Do people wear pledge pins with t-shirts? Is it discouraged / prohibited?

This isn't IFC, but the Phi Mu Alphas I know all wore their PM pins with whatever they were wearing—whether it was a t-shirt, polo, or button-down shirt.

Our Tau Beta Sigma chapter does something similar.

In my own case, I only ever wore my MIT pin with a t-shirt one time—we had colony t-shirts and did a picture day after our pinning with the t-shirts and the pins. Other than that one occasion, my MIT pin was worn with concert attire or "pin dress" only.

Now, as for IFC, I don't believe it is prevalent where I'm from for the men to wear their pledge pins at all times, and the same goes for our Panhellenic ladies. The main occasions I remember seeing any sort of pledge/new member pins, the people wearing them were dressed up.

Yep. We have a national policy on this: "The probationary member pin shall be worn at all reasonable times (i.e. probationary members shall not be required to wear the pin during sleep, at times when it could cause injury, etc.). It shall be worn on the clothing over the heart and shall be plainly visible."

This is in contrast to the rule for our membership pin [badge]: " The membership pin is not intended for overt display, but rather is to be worn 'nearest the heart.' Tradition dictates that the pin is worn on dress shirts, vests, or pullover sweaters. The pin should not be worn on coat lapels, collars, ties, the watch pockets of vests, coat sweaters, or T-shirts."

Actually from my experience most NIC fraternities wear their pledge pins all the time. They just not be visible if they are worn on the innermost layer of clothing like we did in my chapter. They were also worn over the heart, not on the collar so it wasn't that uncomfortable.

When this has come up before, I think this has been the general consensus.


Slight nit -- we're not NIC, but on some campuses our chapters are IFC.

When I was an active, fraternity pledges were strongly encouraged, if not outright required, to wear their pledge pins except when engaging in the 4 S's (sleeping, showering, sports, sex). If you wore a T-shirt and jeans to class, you pinned your pledge pin onto your T-shirt.

New members of NPC sororities were also strongly encouraged to wear their NM pins. I pledged a local where we were required (flat out required, not just encouraged) to wear our pledge rings at all times. When we became part of AEPhi, we were strongly encouraged to wear our NM pins. The 4 S's were an exception, of course.

So it was common to see pledge / new member pins with casual attire. Badges, no - if you wanted to wear your badge, you had to dress accordingly, so badges were a rare sight in lecture halls and classrooms.

We went by the 5 S's (shower, sweat, shady, sex, sleep). Other than that, pledge pin on. By shady, I mean stuff like at a bar where drinking is going on, weather legal or not. Of course, we wore our pins over our hearts, I know some other groups wear it on a lapel, others on the collar.

Our membership pin has its own phrase, "dress the pin". As in, business attire you would wear to a prestigious job interview.

Is it possible that this is mostly based on the campus? I could have just never noticed, but I honestly cannot say I saw the NIC fraternity guys (and the Kappa Sigma pledges) wear their pledge/associate pins with just anything—usually when I would notice it, the person in question was wearing at the very least a nice shirt and khakis or dress pants.

Yes, I am aware of that. :) I'm just not used to it, as the local chapter is not a member of our campus IFC. I do think it's cool that individual chapters can make that decision, however.

If I recall correctly, my fraternity lets individual chapters make decisions about when and how to wear pledge pins, but anything that's not in the spirit of almost 24/7 is basically against unwritten rules.

I wish I knew about the awesomeness of good polo shirts when I was a pledge. I was forced to wear them daily as part of a uniform back in middle school, and I found those cheap ones so uncomfortable that I vowed to never wear one again when I got out. It wasn't until a month ago before I put on another polo.

I'm wondering if it's reasonable to push for a certain dress code with the pin just to get pledges used to dressing for success.

In both APO and ASA pledging, we were allowed to wear our pledge pins with casual attire (thank you, God). One of the sororities had a rule that they had to dress up when wearing their pledge pins - in effect, no jeans for 6 weeks, they had to wear 80s style dress pants or skirts and dressy shoes. And at a school where it rained or snowed 6.5 days out of 7. This was one of the things which caused me to mark them lower on my pref card and made me know I'd never really fit in with them.

If as brothers they will be dressing up regularly, then they should be doing the same as pledges. But forcing them to do it every day just because they have the pledge pin on can be a real turnoff for some people. How about designating one day of the week as dress up day?

I think aephi alum and I are kind of on the same page - pledge pin =/= the badge of the initiated member.

ETA: from what I remember, if guys were wearing t-shirts, they wore their pins over the heart. I don't remember guys putting it on collars of t-shirts. I think that's the part that looks bad, not that you're wearing a pin with a t-shirt.

Alpha Phi Omega
 

Our pledge manual includes among the Pledging Standards

Wearing of insignia. An appropriate period of
pledging includes wearing an official pledge pin.
Rationale: Chapter image, on and off campus, is
a vital concern of all members, new and old. The
prominent and proud display of an Alpha Phi
Omega Pledge Pin instills pride through identity
with Alpha Phi Omega, signifies the chapter’s
presence on campus and in the community, and
may also habituate all members to proudly wear
Fraternity insignia.

However, they also have example of chapter pledging guides there as well, one of which doesn't require it while the pledge is inside their own dorm and bans it at any event where alcohol is served. I've known other chapters that quite openly use the 4, 5 or 6 (take your pick) S's in regards to when you don't have to wear the pledge pin. My undergrad chapter had a service project helping with youth at a Regional Mental Hospital where both brother pins and pledge pins had to be removed as well as all Jewelry. (The main APO brother pins are about the same level of fancy as the pledge pins).

Unless there's been a change I'm not aware of, Sigma Chi pledges are not allowed to wear their pins on a t-shirt. It is only allowed on a collared shirt.

If you were wearing a sweater, you were required to wear your pin on the (collared) shirt under the sweater.

We were told by a visiting LC that ASA's pledge pin policy was the same as the badge. We had been wearing them at all times "upon request" - since I pledged after forcing pledges to wear pledge pins was considered hazing by some. So, we only wore our pledge pins on badge days (Mondays) and whenever we happened to be dressed up. We still had our pledge ribbons that we could, and did, wear.

Yes, that was one of the changes made when we went to a national program. Wearing the ribbons without the pin was a pain in the ass and resulted in people losing pins all over the place.

We didn't have regular badge days. The weather was too sucky and we were too sensible.

We were told to wear out pledge pins with nice outfits church type or business casual, no jeans. Had to wear them to formal dinners Wednesday nights.