Sig Ep Article
 

My biggest objection is the comment about 'learning arcane fraternity history'. I don't think learning the history of your fraternity is hazing or arcane. I think it is important to know why our Founders began our organization.

I was interested in this statement: "At Missouri, four of the 28 traditional Greek fraternities have eliminated pledging. The change isn't new on campus — Lambda Chi Alpha took that step nationally more than three decades ago." I'm really not trying to pick a fight here or anything, but is this really an accurate statement?

I know that Lambda Chi was one of the first if not the first fraternity to abandon use of the word "pledge" in favor of a different term. (In Lambda Chi's case, the different term is "associate member.") And, of course, many fraternities have tried to refocus or change the way that the period between bidding/pledging and initiation is done.

But to say that fraternities have "eliminated pledging" says to me that those fraternities (1) have eliminated any distinction between those who have been initiated and those who haven't, and (2) have eliminated any kind of education/acclimation program prior to full initiation.

Many fraternities have changed how they do pledging and have changed the terms and practices associated with it, but I don't know of any fraternity that I would say has "eliminated pledging" except for Sigma Phi Epsilon, and then only in its Balanced Man chapters. Are there others?

From the Zeta Beta Tau website:

During the 1980's, every Greek-letter group continued their efforts to stop hazing. Despite ZBT's best efforts, hazing continued and increased in frequency and severity. ZBT concluded that all efforts to reform the institution of pledging had failed; pledging was the problem. This was because pledges were considered second-class citizens, with no rights and no chance to refuse even the most outrageous demands of a Brother, unless he quit the Fraternity. In 1989, in a last-ditch effort to eliminate hazing, ZBT eliminated pledging and all second-class status from the Fraternity. In its place, ZBT established a Brotherhood Program, with minimum standards (Brotherhood Quality Standards), as well as programs of education, bonding, and earning one's Brotherhood status that applied to all Brothers of ZBT.

http://www.zbt.org/ZBT/About.asp

I remember hearing that they only go through the Brotherhood Program for a very short period of time. But, I may be mistaken.

that's what struck me too - i'm all for getting rid of hazing, but knowing your organization's history is NOT hazing.

Thanks, Lane, for that info. I didn't know that about ZBT.

Still, though, that's two. To give one concrete example (because the article specifically cites it), I wouldn't say, based on what I know, that Lambda Chi "eliminated" pledging. I would say that they overhauled and refocused the "pledging" process, including changes in terminology. But they still have two separate stages -- an associate member education/acclimation period prior to initiation and then initiation into full membership. I think they still have a chapter vote on whether or not associate members will be initiated into full membership.

Lambda Chis, please don't hesitate to correct me if I'm getting any of this wrong.

You are correct in saying there is a voting process on new associates.

The N A period is like any place else, it is a time to find out if the people fit together.

The idea of LXA in changing the terminology was to do away the the wording of "pledge" which most of the time donated hazing. At the same time, hazing was outlawed.

Usually there is no reason a N A is not inititated unless:

1. There is not a true fit. But it is not a one vote and out as it used to be and may still be in some today.
2. Owes money.
3. Does not have the grades.

I applaud all who have been making changes in the Greek World.

I have a problem with eliminating new member periods. Why would anyone want to make a life long commitment to an organization they know very little about or know very little about their members. Pledge, Candidate, New Member, Associate, etc... programs are there so that the newer members can learn about the organization and learn about and of its members.

This sounds like a "BID A BRO" situation to me. How after a few event can a Fraternity tell whether they want to initiate and teach a man the secrets of their organization? Can you guys imagine how many people have quit your organization after a few weeks because of various reasons (financial, educational, family, personal, etc..)?

HAZING is wrong but having a structure for educating new members is fine by me. You can have two diferent classifications for members as long as each respects the other.

There has to be more to Sig Eps "Balanced Man" program than they are letting out. There is no way that a Fraternity with the history and respect that Sig Ep has would just blindly initiate people without knowing them for at least a short period of time.

The Balanced Man program really seems to be a great idea. The ones I know who utilize it love it, and they feel it makes their fraternity much stronger. It's not wrong, either; they're definately up there in numbers on my campus.

You're right. There is a good bit more to the Balanced Man program. The concept of not being a pledge with a BM chapter, is that they are a brother from day one so there is no reason to haze them. They typically take new members through the first rite of passage, Sigma, very soon after Bid Day. But, it's a while before they go through Phi... as they have to complete a Sigma Challenge and other things before they go through the Phi rite of passage.

Obviously, I'm not an expert (my older brother and my husband are SigEp's though). But, there is more to it than "oh, here's a bid to SigEp, let's go through initation next week". Just my 2cents.

Side note: Just because they are a Balanced Man chapter doesn't mean that pledging was eliminated... I think that it was referring to that particular chapter at Missouri - not that all BM chapters are non-pledging. The SigEps at UCA, which I mentioned earlier are a Balanced Man Chapter that won Top honors nationally but the definitely still have a a pledging process. Just clarifying...

I think there's a difference between learning fraternity history and learning "arcane" fraternity history, although arcane was probably a bad word choice. There's nothing wrong with learning the history of your founding, but I think we all know that there are chapters out there that make pledges learn some useless stuff, like the name of every chapter president ever, every sweetheart ever, etc.

The funny thing about this article is that is actually promoted a somewhat elitist type of organization that carries just as many negative stereotypes as what they purport to combat. It is converting Delta Tau Chi into the Omega House.

Granted wine appreciation and opera are important things- but that is stuff you learn at home, not in a fraternity. I started going to the opera at the age of 4 and I still enjoy it- but I had no interest in doing that in my capacity as a fraternity member. And none of these schmaltzy wine appreciation classes ever taught anyone anything about wine except Merlot vs. Cabernet- which is something you can learn in 5 minutes with 2 bottles of plonk.

And to be as nitpicky as some of the various fraternity chapters around the nation who are taking these types of Balanced Man programs to enormous extremes (even beyond where HQs want to go)- aren't wine appreciation classes distribution of alcohol using chapter funds? Would not most participants be underage?

Each chapter can do as they please- it is good we are not all the same. But I just wanted to point out the above to demonstrate that the "new way" taken to extremes can be just as silly (and potentially illegal) as taking the "old way" to extremes.

Pledging under another name
 

My experience is that very few, if any fraternities have created a completely "caste-free" chapter. There are often class based stages.
I believe, for instance, SPE has the "sigma challenge" and the "phi challege" . I think you start as a Epsilon? Others have simular levels.

Folks, I think you're missing the definition of the word "arcane". It simply means secret, hidden, somewhat mysterious. It's actually a perfect word choice, as that's exactly what I would call the historical learning we require of pledges (yes pledges dammit).

In fact a lot of "cousins" from the same latin root are used in our rituals. Any Archons out there? ;)

What's funny is I think the author himself misused the word, which is misleading people into thinking the word "arcane" is an insult. By the context of the paragraph, he clearly intended it disparagingly. But he used a fairly complimentary word. What really conveys the insult isn't the word "arcane", but "forcing".

wptw