[ASTalumna06]

Originally Posted by violetpretty

My chapter changed from school year elections to calendar year elections when I was a collegiate member. I joined in Spring 2004, and we had elections in April for an exec board for Fall 2004, and then elections in February for the 2005 calendar year. Since then, we've held elections in November for the next calendar year.

I think that when elections are held can have an effect on whether seniors stay active, but I also think that many other things can be factors, as well.

My chapter also recently changed from school year to calendar year. I think that which system is best sometimes depends on your chapter and campus. For example: The calendar year clearly worked better for my chapter. We are a small chapter, at a small Greek-life campus, we don’t have a house, and we have deferred recruitment but no formal system.

Therefore... after elections in November, there are still plenty of committee positions available, or seniors can choose to run for New Member Director, as that turns over every semester. They can also take on ‘Greek Week/Pageant’ a year before graduation (Greek Week = fall, Pageant = spring), which is a position that we still keep based on the school year system. Also, since we don’t have a house, there aren’t any conflicts concerning E-Board members living there. The only problem is deferred recruitment... while we don’t have formal recruitment, we usually have larger new member classes in the spring, and more events. But the girls make an effort in October and November to really get things together as a chapter so that the incoming Recruitment Director will be ahead of the game.

On the other hand, for a chapter that only has E-board members living in, with formal recruitment in the fall, with a larger chapter and few semester-long positions, for example, this might not work as well.

In addition, I think that senior apathy can happen for many other reasons... slowing easing out of school, preparing for graduation/real world, tired and burnt out after 4 years, wanting to party it up the last semester, last-minute internships, taking on an extra job to start paying rent, closer friends in the sorority graduated the year before... the list goes on. For me personally, I wanted to be as involved as possible for as long as possible. But for two of my sisters, each one had served as President for 2 terms, and they just needed a break. They went into alumnae status early, and finished/is finishing an extra semester without being involved much at all. Meanwhile, another sister who is graduating this spring just took on New Member Director and VP, even though she works two jobs on top of school. So it all depends.

I’m sure that you’ll find trends among some specific chapters, but in my experience, I’ve seen different people taking many different routes for many different reasons.