Quote:
Originally Posted by AOII Angel
The rationale behind changing the programs to 6-8 weeks from 1 semester was to fight hazing in chapters. If you only had 6-8 weeks as a new member, then you would have a much shorter time to be considered "less than." The reaction to the change is very different depending on who you speak to about this. Some women who pledged an entire semester think that it needs to be re-instituted, but some women (like my bio sister) see no difference and are happy with the change.
I'm curious why you would have loved a longer NM period? What did you feel was missing?
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I was in the first year my chapter shifted to the 6 week NM period (it was called Bridges at the time). So maybe becuase it was the first year, but lots of things seemed really rushed. For example, our bid day buddy was our big. So if you didn't click with them, you were SOL. We also busted our butts trying to learn everything- national history, chapter history, etc. We were lucky that our chapter was fairly new, I can't imagine trying to fit everthing in for a 100 yr old chapter! A couple of more weeks would have given a little more time to digest everything. Plus thrown into that 6week process was Homecoming- so that week was a loss in terms of pledge activities, plus mid-terms were another week. I remember one new member meeting lasting 3 hours just so that we could cover everything in the pledge manual. We had 5 manditory new member meetings plus one overnight retreat. Add pledge pinning and then initiation into that.
One other reason a longer pledge period might be good- it might lessen the post initiation let-down. If you can spread out some of the fun activities, then it might not be such a downer when they come to an end after initiation.