Count spring break in the 6 to 10 weeks?
 

By the National Pledge Standards,
3. The length of a pledging period. An appropriate period
of pledging should not be less than six weeks or more than
ten weeks in duration.

Does anyone have any opinion has to whether or not Spring Break should be counted in the length or not?

For example, assume in a given (non-leap) year that Spring Break is the first week of April, so thatclasses let out Friday March 30th and classes restart Monday, April 9th.
a) Should a chapter be able to have Pledging on Friday, March 9th and Initiation on April 20th having 6 weeks between the dates of the ceremonies, but only 5 weeks of classes?
b) Should a chapter be able to have Pledging on Friday, February 9nd and
Initiation on April 27th having 11 weeks between the dates of the ceremonies, but only 10 weeks of classes?
c) Should a section chair tell their staffers to find something more useful to do if they are bringing quests like this up? :)

Randy

Spring break shouldn't count really.

We always counted spring break, but we also had a 9-week pledge period.

To answer question C, if that's all the section staff has to bring to their chair, they should be thankful :)

When I was pledgemaster, we never counted spring break.

Our pledge class period was about 8 weeks, so not a problem.

Also, I always teach that the period starts with your pledge ceremony and end when you have initiation.

You can have pledges who go over the '10 weeks', usually for special situations. (couldn't attend the initiation, so had to schedule a second one later, couldn't finish all the requirements and allowed to finish them by the next pledge class pledge ceremony, etc).

If that's all a staffer can bring up, if I was a section chair I'd have to wonder: 1) is that all they have to worry about? 2) do I have a nitpicker that is going to get bent out of shape over trivial matters? 3) are they missing the big picture or overlooking something that is serious?

I always teach that it goes from the first pledge meeting (which is typically 1-2 weeks before the ceremony) through to initiation.

Why are the first pledge meetings prior to the pledge induction?

Ditto.

Pledge period starts with the pledge ceremony, because that is when a pledge 'becomes' a pledge.

Most chapters have rush (1-2 weeks), do pledge ceremony at the end of rush, following which, within a week of the ceremony, begin pledge classes.

As rush is many times the the third week of school (first week is too busy for rush, 2nd is too often greek rush, hence most chapters do it the week after the greek rush), you've already killed 3 weeks of the semester, and getting your pledge program going if you have an 8 or 9 weeks pledge program is vital, if you want to finish before the semester is over.

So your chapter planned to follow the Pledging standards and something unforseen happened. Sounds like a chapter deciding to do the intelligent thing...

Timeline for my chapter:
- Rush & Informationals starting 1st & 2nd full week back (
- The first pledge meeting 3rd week, considered start of pledge program
- 2nd pledge meeting 4th week, pledge ceremony that weekend
- continue on until Pledge Review 8 weeks later, ceremony that weekend

They have the couple of meetings to determine who is actually going to pledge and be better able to match up pledges and sponsors (so they don't put the timid, quiet, non-drinking pledge with the chapter drunk :) ). Knock it all you want, but this chapter has never had a pledge class under 30 in at least 15 years, and recently has had multiple 60+ person pledge classes. Chalk this one up to regional differences as well. You do names/numbers, they run their pledge class in this manner. Both have the same end result.

This has been an effective method for them to have a high conversion rate. One of my other chapters switched to having a meeting between end of rush and pledge ceremony and for two years had a 100% pledge-to-active conversion rate (their retention is in the shitter, but that's not related, as that was a problem before) They used to end rush and go straight to ceremony, which always resulted in a "we have no idea how many are going to show up" situation.

No one is knocking it.

Congratulations on your numbers.

Line names and numbers have nothing to do with this.

I'm sorry, I'm not trying to make it about it. I'm saying that there are differences in the programs that the two of us appear to not see eye-to-eye on, but the end result is the same.

I don't agree or disagree, I just asked why.

And I misread. My bad.