[dzrose93]

Originally posted by FuzzieAlum


OK, dumb question - what is a nominating committee? I think every sorority has a different way of selecting new members. In some houses every girl may know why someone didn't get a vote. Elsewhere, very few people will know.

Sorry, Fuzzie. I used a DZ term there... Nominating committee is a group of women (in DZ, it's usually made up of a few elected or appointed representatives from each class) who make up the lists during Rush which state who is going to be invited back to the parties, and, eventually, who will receive a bid. Although they try to take everyone's opinions into account, the committee members eventually have the final say in who gets an invitation and who doesn't.

The sisters as a group don't know who has been invited back until just before the parties resume the next day. And, on Bid Day, they don't know who has been offered a bid until just before the bids are handed out to the rushees. Having a nominating committee makes the process a lot quicker than having all 150+ sorority members speak up individually as to whether they do or don't want to offer a rushee an invitation back to the house.

The way that we do it is that each sister can vote on each girl by writing their vote onto a slip of paper and turning it in to the committee. The sisters can only vote on a rushee if they had a chance to meet her. If they didn't, then they vote a "neutral". Nominating committee takes those votes, tallies them, and will use them in their decision-making process when making out invite lists for the next round of parties.

If a girl didn't meet a lot of sisters during Rush, was shy or not very talkative, then her chances of getting a bid (at our house anyway) isn't very good because the nominating committee won't have many votes to use as a decision-making tool.

For those who aren't familar with NPC Rushes, let me explain a little bit about the invitation/bid process:

(I know that I'm going on a tangent here, but please bear with me because I think it may help clear up some misconceptions that people unfamilar to NPC Rush have about the bid process -- and also help explain why I've been so firmly adamant about not thinking race is the only plausible reason for Twilley's cut during Rush at Alabama.)

The whole bid matching process is hard to explain, but I'll try to go through the basics because I think a lot of people are under the impression that if a sorority wants a certain girl, then they will always get that girl. With NPC rush, that's just not the case.

The thing about NPC Rush, especially at large schools that have hundreds or thousands of women going through each time, is that there is a certain "quota" set by Panhellenic Council as to how many girls each sorority can pick up during formal Rush. The sororities can pick up that number, but no more. And, many times, they won't make quota because of mismatched bids.

For example, one set of girls may love Susy Smith, but Susy didn't list their house as being one of her top 3 choices. Another house that Susy did list in her Top 3 also loves her. So, that's the house that will pick her up as a new member. Or, if Lisa lists ABC, DE, and FGH as her top three houses, but XYZ and RS are the only two houses who want to invite her back, then Lisa will be cut from Rush because she didn't express any interest in XYZ or RS. The girls in XYZ and RS may wonder why Lisa didn't like them, and Lisa may leave rush heartbroken thinking that the sororities didn't want her. That's a typical mismatched invite or bid, and it happens often - especially on campuses with large Greek systems.

Another situation that happens is, with each round of parties, Panhellenic Council sets a quota as to how many girls can be invited back to each house. Say the quota is 45 for the third round of parties. If there are 75 girls who the sisters are really impressed with, and would like to invite, then nominating committee has to make a list ranking the rushees. Girls who are legacies (i.e.: an immediate family member is a member of the sorority) get put at the top of the list out of respect to their family members. After the legacies come the other girls, and usually the number of votes helps to determine where each girl is positioned on the list.

For example, if Jane has made a great impression on two sisters and they absolutely love her and want her to come back to the house for the next round of parties, then nominating committee will take those 2 positive votes into consideration. But, the fact that Jane was a little shy and didn't talk to any more than those two sisters may be detrimental to her chances of being invited back. Because, if another rushee (I'll call her Mary) has made a great impression on two different sisters and a "good" impression on 3 more sisters, then she will be placed ahead of Jane Doe simply because she received more votes and more sisters were able to meet her.

So, in the end Mary becomes #45 on the invitation list and Jane is #46. Since quota for the parties is 45, Jane won't be invited back because she fell under the cut-off number -- even though she was nice and made a great impression on some of the sorority members. And, the two girls who met her may be puzzled and upset the next day when they don't see their "favorite" girl's name on the list of returning rushees.

So, the point I'm trying to get across is that many girls "fall through the cracks" during Rush simply because the sororities can't invite all of their favorites back, even though they may want to. (Of course, my example of Mary and Jane is rather simplistic -- there is actually much more to the invitation/bid process than what I'm going into right now -- but to go into all the rules would take forever.)

Also, one last tidbit: at Southern universities with large rush numbers, it is common for freshman rushees to be selected over equally impressive sophomore rushees. The reason is that most sororities are looking for girls who will remain active for the longest period of time possible, and the freshman rushees offer an extra year of service as opposed to their sophomore counterparts.

I hope that this explanation of the ins and outs of the NPC Rush process at large schools has been helpful, and that some of you will understand a bit more clearly why I am hesitant to state that racism played a part in Twilley being cut from Rush at Alabama. It's just that there are so many things that may have occurred during the bid/invite process that could have resulted in Twilley's cut.

Thinking about it last night, I realized that people who are not members of an NPC group may not understand exactly how complicated Rush can be, especially at large schools, and how easy it is for someone to be cut -- for no apparent reason to outsiders. I'm hoping that my explanation will clarify some things and answer a few questions. Please let me know if I've confused anyone or can explain something further.

**Disclaimer: I'm only speaking of my own personal knowledge concerning the Rush process. Each school conducts NPC Rush in a slightly different manner, although the main rules and procedures tend to stay about the same. Also, each sorority, and, in some cases, each chapter, has its own way of "voting" during Rush, and I wasn't speaking for anyone other than DZ when I mentioned how my particular chapter conducts rush selection. The information I've listed above is based on my personal experiences as a rushee, rusher, and alumna advisor to two chapters of my sorority at Southern universities.**