I would also question the NM period taking tremendous effort on the part of the "training" sisters - for one thing, the entire chapter should be part of NM education, not just the pledge mom and her assistant and/or committee...for another, pledge programs are far less rigorous than they used to be. Most of them are nationally standardized so it's not like the pledge mom has to make up a new program every semester.
Let's just call a spade a spade: it's all about the
.