Quote:
Originally Posted by DubaiSis
In those huge chapters, they may need to find a way to sort of transition them to half-alumnae status to keep them involved without asking more of them than they're willing to do. For instance, if they lived in, held an office, participated in X number of events over the last 2 years, always paid their bills on time, was never on academic probation (there are a litany of options here singly or in combination), then they only have to attend chapter once a month as a senior, or they don't have to attend any social functions, or they aren't obliged to do service hours, or whatever would keep them in the fold without overwhelming their senior year. Those of us who were collegiate members for 4 years and lived in for 3 can certainly appreciate the appeal of not having so much chapter responsibility as you prepare for graduation and the real world.
There might also need to be some social training for all collegians that when the going gets tough, quitting is not the answer. Or boredom isn't a sufficient reason to dump a commitment.
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I wholeheartedly agree with you, DubaiSis. Our chapter was not huge at all (usually ~25 members), but they could have afforded to have 3-5 of us not there all the time. I can say for those people applying to grad school, there are far more important things to be doing than mini-golfing or whatever the exchange is. I understand that you would want senior members there at meetings because they will have the most experience and therefore may be able to offer a solution that younger members hadn't considered. By my last semester, I was focused on the fact that I was moving 5,000km away and that I needed to start researching sources for my thesis, not on random events. Obviously, some events like COR and philanthropy need to have members there, and I think that those should not fall by the wayside. However, social and sisterhood are a different matter. Some of my favourite memories are from sisterhood events, but watching "Insert chickflick movie here" a month before I graduated was not going to make/break my experience. Ditto for exchanges, if I haven't met these people before now, it's probably not the end of my life.
I know that Alpha Gam does have provisions for seniors, and the Delta programming (I'm assuming other orgs do as well), but sometimes younger members need to try to understand what graduating members are going through outside of the chapter.