As an undergrad, I studied Human Development with a minor in Human Resource Management. To complete my major, I had to do a semester of fieldwork. Since my career goal is to work in Student Development in Higher Education (university administration, campus life, greek life, new student orientation and so on...), I decided to take a placement on campus in the student center in spring 2001. One of my assignments was to visit other sites; so, I went to a “nearby” university to see their student center.
While visiting, noticed that university’s panhellenic had just finished a recruitment event in the campus plaza - though, I wasn’t familiar with the sororities on that campus. Even though I had just had a sad recruitment experience, I was still in “Greek mode” if you will and was curious about these unknown groups.
Out of curiosity, I looked up the groups on the internet. One of them,
Saltimbanco, caught my attention. As I read about the sorority, something about them just struck me in my heart. I thought, "Err! I like this group! How come there wasn't a chapter at my college?!" Unfortunately, not only was there no chapter of
Saltimbanco at my university, but I was about to graduate! Ah well, I still had a fondness for
Dralion and was waiting on hearing back from their local alumnae association.
Nothing happened.
Even though I had the backing of
Dralion's HQ, we couldn’t get the local alums to respond even after some 6-7 months. At that point I figured that I knew how to take a hint and decided to give up on
Dralion. Just then, I remembered
Saltimbanco. Wondering if they might have a similar program, I inquired of their HQ. They responded right away and told me that they did! They instructed me to contact the alumnae chapters nearest to me to get things rolling.
I e-mailed and followed up several times with the area associations and got no response.
So, I decided on a whim to e-mail the collegiate chapter president of a different chapter (from the campus I had visited) to see if she had any advice. Would you believe it? Her first response to me was that they’d love to have me as an AI! She went on to say that they were preparing to alum initiate several of their girls’ mothers in a few weeks time and that she was certain they could pop me in with that group.
All I had to do was show up to one of their chapter meetings so they could find a girl to sponsor me. Woah! Ok, so in theory that’s really good news, right? However, I was kind thinking that was almost
too good. I mean, didn’t they want to really get to know me first? Plus, I lived a few hours away from their chapter.
Realizing that maybe I should affiliate with the chapter that was closer to me (the one I did my assignment on), my contact recommended I talk to the other collegiate chapter president. No problem! I was happy to do so! I went about e-mailing that collegiate president and even tried the alum association again. Several more weeks went by. No response.
I figured that everyone must be really busy with midterms and holidays or something and decided to sit back and be patient.
Then, wouldn't you know it, after being AWOL for about 7 months....
...
Dralion came a knocking.
Ha ha! To be continued tomorrow! Methinks you have enough to read at the moment....
