Quote:
Originally Posted by DeltaBetaBaby
My issue is with the idea that senioritis or burn-out or what-have-you should be a reason to jump right to alumnae status. How is that fair to the women who remain and contribute to the chapter while Suzie Snowflake just doesn't want to anymore?
Sure, there are extreme circumstances that organizations should be flexible with. I think, for example, my chapter allowed live-outs if you got married or pregnant. Fine. Extreme financial hardship? Illness? Okay, let's find ways to work with women so we can keep them as lifelong members. But the ones who want to go "early alum" just because? Nah.
Perhaps the solution is for chapters to take a look at the obligations for seniors, on the whole (and maybe that's what you are suggesting above?). If individual chapters decide to lower attendance requirements for all seniors or let seniors live out of the house, or whatever, that's cool; that's what works for them. For example, in larger chapters, if you have enough women to fill all the committees with sophomores and juniors, then maybe you don't require seniors to be on a committee. In my own chapter, seniors didn't have to attend all of recruitment work week...they could show up on Wednesday already knowing the songs and stuff from previous years.
But if your chapter needs seniors to attend events, be on committees, and so on, because it doesn't have enough people to operate otherwise, then I don't support the idea of ducking out. I don't think it's worth it to allow that just so that we have someone as an alumnae member later on.
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Yep. I was trying to suggest something like that but, didn't consider the smaller chapters. With that, you are absolutely right. I think National/ International Headquarters of the various GLOs would benefit from thinking about seniors or 5th year seniors based on campus total. At smaller commuter schools where 30 women make up an entire chapter, this idea of allowing seniors to duck out because they are "sick of" being sisters would not work. In larger chapters, this may help. I would argue though, that even in smaller chapters, if sisters have to choose between being there for everything as seniors or completely dropping, chapters face an issue with some seniors possibly dropping out--making it just as bad if not worse than allowing them less time to do stuff as a senior in the sorority.
I think this is a worthwhile discussion for various GLOs when we push commitment of sorority membership. While it is for a lifetime, we must also remember that senior year is a time where young ladies are cementing their futures by completing class requirements, preparing applications for graduate/ professional school, preparing for active or reserve military commitments, job hunting, etc. A senior's time commitments look much different than the commitments of freshmen, sophomores, and juniors. Adding other things onto this last year of college may make it difficult for young ladies with tons of stuff already on their plates. I'm not saying we should allow them to shirk their duties. I'm saying we need to all take this into consideration.