alternatives to the word "pledge"
 

For the NPC members, when did the term "pledge" (or other term specific to your GLO) stop being used in favor of "New Member?"

For the NIC members, do you have a different term that is used instead of "pledge?"

am sure someone will jump in with the exact year but it seems like about 10 years ago??? Around the time of the advent of RFM

We started using "pearls" around 20 years ago in ASA, now it's supposed to be "pearl member."

I think it was in the mid-90s.

The correct Phi Tau terminology is "Associate Member".
However; I am "old school" and sometimes refer to them as "pledges", sorry!!!

I guess some habits are hard to break...

In the early 1990s, I pledged a local sorority. I was a pledge. My pledge sisters and I were initiated ~6 weeks after pledging.

At the time, there were 4 NPC sororities on campus. One of them referred to their new members as pledges, and held off initiation for a full semester, for grades. The other three called their new members "new members" and initiated them within a few weeks.

When my local became an AEPhi colony, we were "new members", not pledges, and we were initiated after ~6 weeks.

In NPC-land, I believe all new members are called "new members" these days.

I don't see anything wrong with "pledge" or "rush" but I'm an old fogey, what do I know?

I was a freshman in 1991. We were pledges. My senior year, fall 1994, our chapter went to "New Member" and the shortened pledge periods. Our chapter was one of the last in my organization to convert, but only the 2nd (out of 9 at the time) on my campus to do so. I think by 1997 all on campus were in the new terminology and shortened pledgeships.. except ChiO.

ADPi was the first on our campus to convert, and they did so in 1992 or 1993. That was the trend at the time for their organization too.

So, yeah, early to mid 90s.

Provisional Member

Know the feeling all too well!

Alpha Delta Pi went from pledge to Alpha/New Member in 1992. At first, the newbies were the Alphas, the initiated sisters were Deltas, and the Alumnae were Pis. You can only imagine why so many alums didn't go for the "Pi" appellation.

Bwhahah. That's why AXiDs don't like to be called Fuzzies. lol

I recall being told, when I became a province officer in, oh, 1998, that the change was agreed to by all NPC groups.
Personally - the old terms are simple, one syllable, and everybody still uses them. I think we should go back.
But that's just my opinion!

Not NIC, but Sinfonia uses "probationary member" (sometimes shortened to "PM" or "probate"). We were transitioning from "pledge" to "probationary member" when I pledged* in the early 80s.


*We still use "pledge" as a verb to refer to the act of becoming a probationary member.

This was 40 years ago: sometimes pledges in our group were called neophytes, an appropriate term but somewhat unusual terminology within an NPC group.