Same-Semester Initiation for Fraternities
 

I'm an IFC Advisor at a small, private university. As of right now, the university requires same-semester initiation of new members and does not allow any carry-overs. I am interested in revisiting this requirement and looking at whether or not to make some changes. I can't just say that we're going to do it, though. I need to have done some research and go to my Associate Dean with information.

I am a proponent of this requirement on campuses where hazing is a problem, and most people I talk to share a similar opinion. At our campus, however, we don't have a hazing problem, and we don't have a setting that would promote it (no chapter houses, lodges, etc).

1/4 of our new members this semester, who have already been initiated, would not have been if grades had been posted before initiation. They didn't meet national organizations' requirements, and they would be deemed ineligible to sign a bid if they were to go through recruitment again. Chapters complain about this as well as the financial burdens that some have, trying to come up with an initiation fee by the end of the semester.

I would like to see if there are other ideas or opinions out there-especially from other campus personnel or hq staff members. What would be pros and cons of making a change or keeping things as they are?

I know that half of our chapters here at Otterbein (sororities and fraternities) are rushed, pledged and initiated in the same quarter (we work on quarters, not semesters...10 weeks per quarter). Our girls are rushed and pledged during winter quarter. If all goes according to plan, they are initiated one week before finals week, to allow study time. THe other half stop pledging activities one week before finals, allow the n.ms to study, then after spring break, they finish pledging and are initiated usually the 2nd week of spring quarter. It's either a 6 week or 8 week pledge period. However, we did have one fraternity just initiate their n.ms about 2 weeks ago...which would make it about 10 weeks for them. It's their perogative though.

However, the initiation date should NEVER be set in stone. I don't know about NPC/NIC chapters, but we have the option of extended an entire class' new member period (sometimes called "plactive" (somewhere between pledge and active) status) in case of a) chapter emergency b) conflict c) schedule conflicts d) class unpreparedness. The bottom line is that we do not want to initiate members until we are certain that they will be able to act together as responsible, mature, and contributing members of the active chapter.

I'd be against having a campus rule on when we must initiate members for that reason alone..it would force chapters to initiate members who are not ready and take the decision away from the N.M. Educator and exec boards. Ultimately I think it would have the potential to be detrimental to chapter membership...new members who didn't quite get the mechanics of cooperation, togetherness and other chapter values during their pledge period could make for dysfunctional chapter interactions.

Just a thought.

Why control that aspect?

I really don't see the point. Let the organizations decide when they're ready to initiate. My chapter, for example is the only one that I know of that always waits until the next semester to initiate -- we want to make sure that the pledge class makes grades as they are our #1 priority.

I strongly disagree with initiating anyone in the same term they pledged for the single reason that you haven't seen their grades yet, so you don't really have any proof of their level of responsibility (people can say they have straight 'A's all they want, but need to be able to put their grade report where their mouth is). A number of pledges of my chapter who might otherwise have been initiated were depledged on the grounds of not putting school first. Students are at the university to get an education first; everything else is secondary.

That having been said, I also strongly believe in promptly initiating those who do meet all of the requirements (i.e. right after grades are posted, presuming no other requirements for initiation are pending).

(ETA: looks like ktsnake beat me to posting, but I agree with him)

er..I should mention that my school does deferred recruitment...not until winter quarter. So we have first quarter grades to go on.

If you think knowing grades are important prior to initiation, then I'd say deferred recruitment (Spring semester) is one of the better options.

I know if my pledge period had been extended over the holidays, I probably would have dropped. Waiting that long makes people lose interest or feel like they're never going to get to be part of that organization.

Phi Alpha, SAEAlumnus!

I am from a chapter that was a test pilot for the Minerva Project, now the True Gentleman Initiative. One of the main premises of this involved same semester initiation, and it bit my chapter in the rear. We were initiating goose eggs. My home chapter has since gone back to waiting for grades before initiating.

I agree with AstroAphi, though, in that some of the zeal is lost. Isn't it a more realistic, though, for a chapter to not vote someone in due to bad grades than it is to expel an initiated member because of them? I know that waiting can lessen the excitement, but if you want to go through with it, isn't it worth the wait? This helps get rid of some "dead weight" before the chapter has extended full membership and privileges.

What about the finances piece?

By the way...we have deferred recruitment for freshmen with less than 12 hours. We require a minimum previous semester and cumulative of 2.0, but they're not all making that during their pledge/new member semesters.

If they're not making grades during their pledge semester but have made grades previously, then perhaps the organizations are expecting too much of their pledges.

I'm not saying that you should be challenged somewhat to join a GLO, but we are at school first and foremost for grades. We don't want someone in there who doesn't take school seriously, but we can't ask too much of someone either.

Alpha Gamma Delta requires that new members are initiated within 8 weeks of their new member ceremony and I've had women ask these kinds of questions often. There are things you can do to ease the financial burden, such as: Figure they will be members for 7 months and therefore owe dues for those 7 months too. Rather than requiring the new member fee, Initiation fee AND the first 3 months dues prior to Initiation, make sure you get the new member fee and initiation fee from them on time and split up the total amount for the 7 months of dues over the next semester. That way it's more spread out and won't hurt quite so much.

If you are continually having trouble with new members making grades, select members with higher high school GPAs, pair up study buddies with new members and initiated members to help make sure they will succeed and/or ask for progress reports. They could have a form that they need a professor to sign a week or so before Initiation indicating that they are earning at least a 2.0 in each class. Also, make sure that you are focusing enough on scholarship during their new member period and not overscheduling them. Find out their test/paper schedules and put them on a big calendar and avoid doing a lot in a week where many of them are swamped. We do this for members and new members and call it a crisis calendar. We then avoid planning events when more than a certain number of members have tests/major papers due. Engage them in workshops on good study habits, note taking, etc.

We can carry over a new member under certain circumstances as long as we follow the proper process for doing so. I can't see holding over an entire group because some of them must have met the requirements for initiation. For us, delaying Initiation would also mean delaying elections which could also cause problems in registering for our leadership conferences, which usually has to be done in early December. You have to know who the officers are to figure out who is attending. Eliminating the opportunity for the new members to be officers greatly reduces the number of women who get to serve in leadership positions.

I am from a day when it was delayed in the fall semester but not in the winter and I do understand the desire to have grades in but I respect our new rules and try to find ways to help the chapters work with them.

Dee

I believe the NIC passed the Genesis project initiatives which included a ten week (it may be 12 weeks) maximum pledge period. (On a side note, at our national conference this last summer we had a business session that lasted until 3am debating whether we would go from anywhere from 8 to 12 weeks programs. We went to 8 after several hand counted votes. It took forever.)

If grades are such a big issue for not implementing this, the easy thing to do is have 2 active members take a new member to each of his professors and ask what kind of progress the student is having so far in the semester and then give a best estimation of a grade.

If the kid comes back with all A's, he's probably not going to have a problem. If he is on the line of the required gpa, the chapter has the choice of holding him back or allowing him to initiate. If, after final grades are posted and he made it, then initiate him the next semester. There is no rule (or at least shouldn't be) that you can't do more than one initiation a year.

now here's a question...would you hold back an individual, or the whole class?There is of course "all or nothing"...they either all initiate or no one initiates until the class is ready, thinking that it is important for the group to work together to get their requirements met. Letting individuals initiate would create animosity and discourage team building? Or, initiate on an individual basis , based on each individuals performance in the group and in their own projects?

You realize that this concept is completely foreign to NPC sororities. We would never be allowed to do either of these based on their pledge performance.

INDIVIDUALS WHO DON'T MAKE GRADES OR WHO DON'T PAY OFF BALANCES WOULD BE THE ONES HELD OVER AND POTENTIALLY INITIATED AFTER SPRING SEMESTER. ALL OTHERS WHO FULFILL THE REQUIREMENTS WOULD BE INITIATED IN EARLY JANUARY, AFTER GRADES ARE POSTED.

SORRY...REPLIED TO THE WRONG ONE.

INDIVIDUALS WHO DON'T MAKE GRADES OR WHO DON'T PAY OFF BALANCES WOULD BE THE ONES HELD OVER AND POTENTIALLY INITIATED AFTER SPRING SEMESTER. ALL OTHERS WHO FULFILL THE REQUIREMENTS WOULD BE INITIATED IN EARLY JANUARY, AFTER GRADES ARE POSTED.

Our chapter has had new members over winter and summer breaks. In the past two years we have had COB events after spring initiation, and we initiated the girls we got from those COB events at the very beginning of the fall semester. This spring we had one girl who had a family emergency the day of initiation and had to rush home. Clearly she wasn't initiated with her new member class and will be initiated the first week in September with our other new members who just received bids. This past year we had COB events between Thanksgiving Break and Winter Break. I'm not sure how this worked, but even though they had bids, their new member period did not start until the end of formal recruitment in January. They went through everything with the girls we got from formal and were initiated in April.

I couldn't imagine not initiating someone because of grades. I thought that's why the chapters received grade information on each of the PNMs. Then it's the chapter's fault if they decided to bid a girl and take a grade risk.