How is deactivating viewed on your campus?
 

I had an interesting conversation about a week ago with a friend who goes to a different school. At my school, deactivating is fairly common in sororities...a couple pledges usually deactivate before initiation, and then others will slowly drop out over time. It is considered not a big deal at all and our Greek system is very big and influential on campus. At her school, where the Greek system is fairly sized (about 80-100 per sorority) but really not "important" at all, she described deactivating as a slap in the face and said that it is extremely rare and there is usually a lot of fall out. This just seemed really interesting to me because I assumed deactivating from sororities was "no big deal" and relatively common everywhere.

How about your school (not just your specific chapter)? Was deactivation common or non-existent? How was it viewed by the chapter?

More common in the sororities than the fraternities. At least on the fraternity side of things, in my experience, guys just dropped off the face of the earth. There'd be some question of dues, but it would usually be seniors who would pay for one last year, and then about the third or fourth of week of school be completely absent.

Had a couple of friends who did the same thing in their sororities, but overall, I think it wasn't a huge deal for girls to deactivate. The way recruitment was structured at my school, where Total was an absolute cap that you couldn't go above, meant that the sororities were rewarded for their ability to retain their members through all four years. In some ways is was sort of a never ending cycle - the best houses had smaller pledge classes, meaning the girls got to know each other better, meaning they were more likely to have strong connections to the chapter, meaning they were more likely to stay involved, meaning that the chapter was closer to total, and they would take a smaller pledge class.

A smaller pledge class also meant that the chapter wasn't forced to take risks on girls they weren't particularly thrilled about getting. They could close out their class very early compared to the other chapters.

But it was also good for the weaker chapters because they were able to take enough girls each year to make up for their attrition, and all the houses stayed at the same size...

anyways, that got kind of offtrack...

When I was in school, it was a fairly big deal - unless the self-termination/deactivation was for something really benign and enforced by a national rather than chapter policy. One of the sororities had a really anal payment system, the girls couldn't have payment plans or something (plus their national dues were the highest on campus) and because of this some of them had to deactivate. A lot of them stayed close with the sisters even after they left.

Now if you quit because you just weren't feeling it, or if the sorority/fraternity terminated you for behavior or just being a general jagoff reasons, that was a huge thing. Sometimes you were almost afraid to terminate someone who came across as a nice person even if she was a shitty sister because it would make the sorority look bad.

Oh, and the entire time I was in college, we had a 100% initiation rate of women who pledged. I never knew this was so rare until I heard of sororities giving awards for it. We had a couple girls who signed open bids and then didn't pledge, but that was a different matter. I think most of the other sororities were similar. I attribute this to the fact that we had deferred rush and by the time girls started pledging they knew what being in a sorority was all about and that they were where they wanted to be.

I don't know how it is now, but it was a HUGE deal when I was in school - especially if the chapter terminates the New Membership or a Sister.

I once heard a Exec. Officer say that anyone can sign a bid - but can the chapter retain the sister? That's the true test of a chapter! (Yours must have been awesome, 33!)

It wasn't that big of a deal when I was in school. I remember taking an arobics class when I was a pledge and one of the other girls in class started telling me how she had just deactivated that year. Turns out she was my grand-big! She had financial reasons for deactivating and she still lived with three active members of our chapter.

We had a few other people go inactive for other reasons, and they stayed friends with whomever they were closest to-- since I never knew the whole story I continued to say hello to them and didn't shun them when I saw them.

I think the only time we were upset over someone going inactive is when they continued to wear letters or represent themselves as part of our sorority after they were inactive.

** for some reason I don't think inactive or deactive are the correct terms when a collegiate AOII stops being active, however I can't remember the proper term since we always called it "deactivating"

I'm not saying we never had anyone terminate (we did) or that there weren't people that we didn't say a year or so later "what in the world were we thinking?" but we got them through pledging. Again, though, I think most of the campus was like that.

One thing that my school deals with is abuse of "inactive status" (what we call deactivation). It arises because our campus doesn't have a quota each semester, but rather allows each group to offer bids up to chapter total. So, sometimes a larger groups will have members that "deactivate" but still attend lots of social events, etc., just not attending meetings. That allows the sorority to stay below chapter total and thus pledge more girls every year. The issues around deactivation surround whether the member has truly deactivated or whether a sorority is allowing (and possibly encouraging) older members to do this to have more bids to give out during Recruitment. So, the stigma is on whether the privilege is abused by the group, not on the specific member herself.

This annoys me to no end. When I advised, some girls would claim they couldn't "afford" to be in the house anymore. Yet, they still did just fine living in their own apartment, going out to the bars every night and sometimes even trying to come to social events by just "happening" to be at the same bar as a date dash or crush party. Um, no.

Depending on the reason, resigning membership wasn't a big huge deal at either my undergraduate campus or the campus where I advised. For the most part, we were friendly with girls who resigned, too.

As far as I can remember, we never stopped talking to anyone. Most of the reasons for deactivating were financial, and those were few and far between. How could you snub someone for this?

The few that depledged usually were asked to leave, and our campus was so big that you may never run into them after that.

We never had a problem with those who deactivated showing up for social events.

Like ISUKappa said, there's a difference between the girl who deactivated for $$ reasons who you know is working 3 jobs and barely keeping her head above water, and the girl who says she deactivated for $$ reasons who's walking around with super expensive clothes/purses and partying every weekend.

I mean, if the sorority isn't important enough to you that you don't WANT to pay the dues anymore, just SAY that. Don't make it seem as if you CAN'T. But don't expect everyone to be cool with that decision and still treat you like a sister when you're basically saying that the sorority and its members aren't important enough to you for you to go without a new LV bag.

What about the member who was recently initiated, but then realizes (thanks in part to the shortened new member periods) that she made a huge mistake - especially when the members realize it, too? I would be less apt to shun her, than someone who's made off with chapter funds or such.

One of my friends in another fraternity told me that they had a huge problem with this. Members of their chapter would activate and de-activate monthly, depending on their finances. Literally, they would say: "I can't afford dues this month, I'm going inactive. I'll go active again next month."

Our chapter made a rule: If you are going inactive, it's for the whole semester. But, unless you drop out of school, you still owe us the dues for the entire semester. Do you need a payment plan?