I know, I felt bad hijacking Enna's thread, but some of the best discussions on here have come from tangents!
Being from a campus where if you really wanted to be Greek, you could be, it's hard for me to imagine some of the issues that SEC and Big 10 schools have to deal with. However, I will reiterate that I think a lot of problems would be solved if open rush wasn't such a 4-letter word (or actually, 2 4-letter words
). I truly think that there are a lot of women out there who would make stellar sisters and leaders, but they don't want the hassle of formal rush. If they're at a school where COB is looked down on, or not publicized, they probably won't do it - they'll join something else instead.
I know we've been supposed to be going away from the frilly formal rush emphasis for at least 10 years (you know, the whole make them your friend, etc) but I think it's been nothing more than lip service on the part of NPC. I'll reiterate the other point I made and say that I believe member RETENTION is far, far more important than who got the biggest pledge class or who made quota 50 years in a row. Look at the smaller chapters on your campus and see how many of the women who joined as freshmen are still
active as seniors - then look at the "showpiece" chapter, and see what the story is there. I know that's somewhat of a sweeping generalization but it was my experience.
As long as NPC keeps emphasizing pulling in the numbers in rush, rather than retaining them throughout school and for life, I don't think anything is going to change.
Oh, and re always going for the superinvolved students from HS, I have to think about a girl I graduated with - our National Honor Society prez, French club prez, yearbook editor, model legislature participant, Junior Achievement leader. Sounds marvelous, right? She got kicked out of Penn State after a semester due to her partying and bad grades. Just to state that you might have been a big deal in HS, but a lot of times it has NO reflection on what you do in college (or vice versa).