I almost hate to bring this up, but I sort of think the shortening of pledge periods and the anti-hazing movement has something to do with the decline of letter-wearing. The older girls at my school told me that there had been a big decline in letter wearing since they were freshmen, and that that was around the same time that our university greek office mandated shorter new member periods, and that national organizations implemented new anti-hazing stuff.
I'm not saying that hazing increases pride or that it is good, not at all. In fact, most groups at my campus didn't haze a bit before the new rules were in place. But now, a lot of groups can't even give tests about the history of the organization, or have any new member activities whatsoever due to the anti-hazing rules. A lot of the "education" has been taken out of the new member education because of it. And for this reason, I think the idea of "earning one's letters" is gone. Because a lot of groups couldn't truly teach about the history of their GLO and the importance of taking pride in it, no one thinks of the letters as a big deal and that's kind of sad.
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