Pledging Deadline

[BabyP]

How long has pledging ever been?? A rule of thumb is till they finish their assignments, but what if it takes longer for them to finish???

[Kevin]

Originally posted by BabyP
How long has pledging ever been?? A rule of thumb is till they finish their assignments, but what if it takes longer for them to finish???

You're part of a local, right?

If that's the case, then your pledging is as long as you want it to be unless otherwise regulated by your Greek Life Office.

[winneythepooh7]

The campus and the organization itself (ie. Nationals office) have specific requirements as to this. However, many individual chapters choose to ignore these guidelines so can't really say how long it is verses how long it should be.

[KSUViolet06]

The orgs on my campus have NM periods ranging from 8 weeks to a full semester. I prefer a longer NM period and I think that a lot of NM periods are too short for you to even be sure you want to become an initiated member.

[BabyP]

but my point is what if they dont finish the assigments??? do you let them cross?

[BabyP]

what kind of test??? so if some people pass it they cross and the rest who failed cant?? is that what you are saying?? assignments like going to a certain number of meetings ( we allow people to miss meetins for papers/exams, or important things), we dont require to go to every single meetings. what else, like volunteering, fundraising, go to deaf events..... learning greek alphabet of course!! lol.....stuff like that.....not hazing assignments like the scavenger hunt or cleaning up house.........

[lyrica9]

i know when i was a new member we learned about our local and national history, facts about our org, rules etc. and that's what our test is over. to make sure we knew our facts and history and understood what we were getting ourselves into.

[bonelifer]

Ours has been 8 to 9 weeks long, our national allows a max of 12 weeks, if it needs to be longer then we would need to petitition the National Council, after they approve the longer duration then the process would continue. We have usually around 3-4 tests that must be passed the 1st time with 80 percent, only 2 retakes are allowed and must be passed with 90 percent. On failing the second retake, you are out of the program unless approved by both the Memed-Committee and the Chapter. Of course if they are doing exceptionally well, we would most likely shorten the period if they've completed everything and we feel they are READY(by ready, your chapter would have to define that, it would be different for your chapter than it is for our chapter). But that being said, look for a cohesiveness among the pledges and a willingness to do good for the chapter among the individuals.


edit PS
We have a Post Initiate Process which all of the chapter does during the year. Our sponsor just picks random but important things about our chapter, district and National organization. These really aren't pass fail, but they help to make each individual learn more and strive for more knowlegde about the organization. Basically, usually 10 to 20 things. We answer on a sheet of paper the questions are read aloud. At the end we talk about the correct answers and see what we didn't know and write down. Of course if you think you've got it right, you can answer out loud before the real answer is read. Since our advisor, is an alumnus of our fraternity and a former Southwest District President, he has a lot of information to pass on to us and hopefully this semester he's going to teach us some fun and hilarious songs sung in the past at different chapters and nationally(most aren't anymore).

[azdtaxi]

We didnt have to take a test because apparently it is considered hazing.

[MsCongeniality3]

In APO, the pledge guidelines are 6-10 weeks. We'll see what happens in the Fall as we just chartered on campus.

[33girl]

Originally posted by azdtaxi
We didnt have to take a test because apparently it is considered hazing.

You don't have any sort of member exam at all? Even one that the actives take each year?

[WCUgirl]

Originally posted by 33girl
You don't have any sort of member exam at all? Even one that the actives take each year?

No.

We'll have little mini-quizzes that the New Members will take each week, but they're not really quizzes in the traditional sense. Usually they're "open-book" as in, your New Member manual is right there w/ you so you can look up the answer and fill it in. It's more to ensure the girls actually read the info.

According to our policies, quizzing is considered hazing.

[33girl]

I thought that every sorority had a yearly membership exam that EVERYONE (pledges and sisters) took. If everyone does it, it wouldn't be hazing. I don't know how else you could ascertain that your membership knows the basic information of the sorority.

[WCUgirl]

I dunno...we just don't do anything like that.

As for ensuring the members know their basic info - yes, it's very frustrating when you meet a girl who doesn't know, for example, all the letters of the Greek alphabet (I've met girls in other NPC's who don't know this either though, so it's not strictly Alpha Xi Delta. I knew a girl who had an AZD chapter on her campus but didn't know what the X was), but by our standards making them memorize that is hazing.

We have a Fraternity Heritage chair who will usually read a historical tidbit at each meeting. Some of our Programs also incorporate fraternity heritage. And of course, we always have our New Member manuals and history books to reference.

[mommag2]

Our pledge process is a 10wk dry process. Our pledges learn our history, both national and chapter, plus the information about our pledge pin and our necklace. Pledge also have to learn "special rules" that our sorority lives by.

we test them on the information that they have learned and if they don't earn a certain percentage then we can let them go and our pledges are aware of that rule. If the girls are having trouble as a class then we can extend the pledge process another 2-3wks, as is allowed by our HQ.

Whe my chapter was in the process of becoming a chapter, our charter class 's pledge period was a whole semester. Yep 16wks, such pain.

On my campus the "pledge" process ranges from 4wks to 10wks depending on the sorority