[Sistermadly]

I just got off the phone with my cousin who is a member of an NPHC sorority, and became a member after she graduated from university.

She told me that every year, her organization places "membership intake" on their calendar of events. All of the current members of the chapter know ahead of time that intake takes place in October (for example), and that if they know any unaffiliated women that they want to introduce to the sorority, that is the time to do it.

She also told me that one of the groups in her town even advertises their intake period in the local newspaper, but in her organization, you must know and be recommended by a member in good standing before you can be invited to membership.

Would something like this work for AI? Say if national organizations took a more active stance toward the process, and encouraged local chapters to set aside a certain period on their calendar of events for introducting PNAMs to the chapter? That way women who don't know current members of the group they're interested in can have an opportunity to meet the group without having to go through such a challenging process that many of our PNAMs have had to endure.

Any thoughts?

Edited to add: another thing that would make the process take less time would be if the actual initiation ceremony could be carried out by the local alums, rather than only by the collegians. My cousin's group handles the initiations at the graduate/alumnae level.