Quote:
Originally Posted by DGTess
You bring up exactly the point I mean -- defining something as hazing simply because someone else doesn't have to do it. We are not all equal, and the sooner a student realizes this, the better off he is. We have a right to be treated equally; that doesn't mean we have equal abilities, talents, capabilities, strengths, weaknesses, or wants. We shouldn't be making rules that say we are.
It's one of the (many) reasons I no longer support the greek system in universities. This is an instance where something is prohibited (not outlawed; there's nothing illegal about it) simply because it might, conceivably, get out of hand (though I honestly don't see how an interview can get out of hand). It teaches our students to take the safe way. The safe way is seldom the right way.
Nothing wrong with earning an interview. In real life, we do that all the time.
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You're such an enigma to me, Tess!
You speak so poorly of the greek system here and on your blog, but yet you identify yourself with your GLO in your user name. You are clearly a proponent of individualism and yet you bemoan the loss of activities that tried to force "group think" on pledges. You clearly don't like laws (or the government) to tell you what to do, but you think older sisters should be able to tell newbies to do what they tell them to do because they tell them to do it.
What's wrong with interviews? Just like was mentioned before, it's not necessarily the activity itself but the length to which it can be taken. You mentioned in your blog that you were in a chapter of about 20. Interviewing in that chapter would have been a snap. What about the women (and men) who pledge into chapters of 100-200? (I did and we did have to do -- AND MEMORIZE -- interviews of all 100+) There was nothing about that process that built my leadership qualities, that's just what I had to do to get through my FIVE MONTH pledge period. Trust me, I would happily have lived without it.
What did give me leadership qualities? Taking on offices and committee chairmanships and learning, at 19 and 20 years old, how to manage 90-110 of my peers and the organization that we all belonged to. Holding committee meetings, preparing agendas, writing and presenting reports, organizing philanthropies, writing letters to corporations to asking them to sponsor our fundraising efforts, building relationships with other fraternities and sororities as well as other campus groups... the list goes on and on. I remember being shocked when I was just a couple years out of school how much further "ahead" I felt than some of my peers in the working world. Some of these folks came out of college never having "run" anything and some didn't even know how to behave in a meeting, write a report to superior or work on a team.
Don't take your experience from 30 years ago in a small chapter and assume that only you somehow managed to have a worthwhile experience because you were called a pledge and had to wait to wear your letters or do phone or suite duty. I had to wait to wear my letters too but that period of waiting (and "earning" them as some people just love to call it, which I call hooey on), really added nothing to the sum total of what I got out of my greek experience. I still benefit from what I learned back then and have no doubt that the women of today are getting the same core benefits from their membership.
And for someone with such disdain for the greek system, you still seem very attached to it -- here you are on GC, you blog about it and your letters are part of your very name... maybe you'd have more positive feelings if you would let go of some of your antiquated (and I can say that because I'm not much younger than you) expectations of how things "should be" and understand that college students today face a MUCH different world than we did. And they didn't choose the changes in the system they're joining, the older adults (ala our age) made these changes because the reality of the legal system, risk management issues and getting and maintaining insurance is so different today.