[KSUViolet06]

Originally Posted by breathesgelatin

My problem with the "the person should volunteer with collegiates first" is that it's assuming the old model of AI - sometimes conflated with honorary initiation. In that model, unself-conscious women willingly gave of their time because they saw a chapter in need - moms, faculty or staff on campus, house mothers, etc. They had no expectation of being "rewarded" with initiation. But with the rise of internet awareness of AI, I feel like now that we're saying "You shouldn't sorority shop or just contact alum clubs" and pushing the collegiate involvement aspect, we're going to get weirdos contacting collegiate chapters, randomly wanting to "volunteer." Which in my opinion is even worse than sorority shopping/calling up alum clubs/calling up national offices, because the collegiate chapters are honestly probably much less prepared to deal with such requests. I mean I don't know about most chapters, but speaking for my chapter I think I was the only one who knew anything about AI (through GC) until we actually got a request to initiate someone for AI. Maybe with some of the orgs were AI is more common the collegiate chapters are better educated, but I can't imagine the average collegian knows much about AI...

I can tell you that my chapter didn't know alot about it. We knew it existed only because one of our advisors was an AI and she told us about it, but none of us could tell you how it worked.

I don't know, I don't think that contacting anyone is a great idea (actives or alumnae) but I am MORE opposed to the idea of women contacting collegians.

Why? Think of all of the things collegians are doing. They have recruitment, workshops, philanthropy, chapter meetings, new member stuff, EVERYTHING. Not to mention school, jobs, etc. Can you imagine a collegiate chapter officer (on top of her responsibilities) having to field calls from random middle-aged women who are all wanting to help out with the goal of being noticed and approached for AI? That would be crazy.