Quote:
Originally Posted by honeychile
And yes, there is a big difference between Honorary Initiates and Alumnae Initiates. My chapter's housemother was initiated upon retirement, and the members of the original local which became my chapter were also offered initiation - but those were two separate "catagories".
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Although in some groups it's not as clear cut. In my org for example I think the distinction is pretty hard to decipher.
I think it began when Pi Phi had alum initiates as "honorary initiates" at Convention (a process that still continues, although they're now called AIs for the most part from what I can tell).
Pi Phi also does AI for A) housemothers B) siblings/daughters/etc of prominent members C) advisors D) new chapters - every new chapter has several alum initiates to boost the volunteerism for the new chapter.
W&L was one school that did require a faculty advisor... it so happened that Pi Phi always had an alum on the faculty that we could draw from, but I don't believe that was the case for all the sororities on campus... In fact I'm not sure it was true for anyone except us and Kappa. Although I could be totally wrong on that. Oh, and there was a faculty Phi Mu who served as faculty Panhel advisor since her chapter wasn't there.
At W&L, for that matter, very few of the chapters had active alum advisors whatsoever because there were so few people to draw on. The nearest alum clubs, in Roanoke and Charlottesville, were pretty much always focused on VA Tech and UVA respectively. So a lot of chapters were advised on an official sorority level (not campus/faculty level) by women in Northern Virginia - three hours away. So our faculty advisor (who was also chair of our House Corp effectively served as our AAC chair as well for two of my four years at W&L as well). There were alum initiates from the founding of chapter in 1992 who still lived in town, but they were nowhere to be found hrm. I did find that by my senior year it seemed some women from our founding class were moving back to Lexington to settle and were becoming very involved with the chapter - that was good thing.
Anyway the point being that a lot of rural schools have really limited options with advisors.
Also I think a lot of times the collegiate chapter doesn't have much of a choice about initiating alums. At least in my experience. The chapter gets to take a vote, but in most cases refusing to initiate the selected individual (who has already been vetted by the alum club by the time it gets sent to the chapter) would be extremely awkward and uncomfortable and make for hard feelings. Especially, as it often is, if it is a family member of an advisor or something.
All that said, I would have absolutely no problem with widespread AI, I don't think, if we could put into place the same policies and precautions that NPHC currently has. Although I do believe that that change would fundamentally change the character of the NPC and I don't know if it will ever happen. Right now, most sororities and their respective alum clubs don't have time or preparation to do the kind of process that NPHC currently does with their grad membership. For most sororities, the problem of the nascent artificial demand for AI that I believe GC in part or whole created was easier solved by restricting or limiting their AI programs rather than creating a whole new side of membership intake like NPHC has. Which is understandable.
I also think it would be prudent at some point if these programs continue to grow and be as controversial as they are becoming if the NPCs could come together to make some unanimous agreements about how they will work. For the sake of all our organizations.
On a more personal note, I would really prefer if all AIs to my own org were required to have a college degree. Although I realize there are some situations where exceptions can and maybe should be made (housemothers don't necessarily have college degrees, nor do outstanding mother volunteers, etc). I just feel that my org is an org for college-educated women.