Does a shorter associate program lead to more drop-outs?

[DaffyKD]

Originally Posted by melindawarren

First, I have a question: when did the shift from longer NM periods to shorter NM periods begin?

MW, I don't know about any other sororities, but Kappa Delta changed to a shorter NM period at their 1993 convention. I do not know how the NM period works as I had been a alumna for a long time before the change. I do know that at least one chapter does do something with one of the local alumnae chapters so that the NMs can be introduced at a very early stage to the long time bonds that are formed. My AC will be meeting with some of the girls (initiated members and a few girls who became new members 2 weeks ago) for lunch on Saturday. We will do a Founder's Day event and share how KD is a long term part of our lives.

DaffyKD

[melindawarren]

Originally Posted by DaffyKD

My AC will be meeting with some of the girls (initiated members and a few girls who became new members 2 weeks ago) for lunch on Saturday. We will do a Founder's Day event and share how KD is a long term part of our lives.

That sounds like a really good way to reinforce the concept of lifelong commitment.

Originally Posted by DaffyKD

MW, I don't know about any other sororities, but Kappa Delta changed to a shorter NM period at their 1993 convention. I do not know how the NM period works as I had been a alumna for a long time before the change.

Originally Posted by Blondie93

I pledged in 1992, and my Theta chapter was among the very last to switch to a shorter new member period. By Fall 1993, when we switched, I believe all Theta chapters were shortened. At that time, ADPi nationally had completed (or almost completed, not sure) their switch. None of the other 8 chapters on my campus had switched, but many of them were being encouraged to do so by their HQs. I suspect the switch really ramped up by the mid 90s.

DaffyKD doesn't know (as she says in her post), but this leads me to another question: what is the difference between longer and shorter NM programs? That sounds like a ridiculous question, but did groups cut large amounts of information from their educational programs and things like that? How did they shorten them, and what did they lose in the shortening process? Did they have to cram so much in that the girls just feel lost?

Obviously, that's a tough question to answer, and you can't answer in too much detail, but I'm curious how NM programs changed once they were shortened.

[HQWest]

Originally Posted by melindawarren

That sounds like a really good way to reinforce the concept of lifelong commitment.

DaffyKD doesn't know (as she says in her post), but this leads me to another question: what is the difference between longer and shorter NM programs? That sounds like a ridiculous question, but did groups cut large amounts of information from their educational programs and things like that? How did they shorten them, and what did they lose in the shortening process? Did they have to cram so much in that the girls just feel lost?

Obviously, that's a tough question to answer, and you can't answer in too much detail, but I'm curious how NM programs changed once they were shortened.

When our group shortened the NM program, it took out some of the "getting to know you" activities, and switched to a more focused, meeting type format to cover specific important historical or philosophical ideal material. The problem is it is a kind of seminar format with outside reading, and before it was more like history class or learning with games. We have to be more organized now for it to work well. Several Big/Lil sis activities are now combined with chapter meetings. We actually have more than one option so that you can extend this out a little - say skip a meeting for Greek week when the girls will be doing a lot with the chapter anyway. The meetings are more focused on the new members and less on becoming involved with the chapter.

If you go and look at the chapter myths thread - famous people that aren't really Greek or weird legends that can't be true, I think a bunch of that springs up from the girls not really retaining that information when you have a really short pledge period.

[crescent&pearls]

I can't help but think that the changes in demands on students since we went to the shortened NM period in the early 90s, as well as the explosion of opportunities for students combined with changing student demographics have affected member retention across the board. For example, there wasn't a single member of my chapter during the four years I was an "active" who participated in a study abroad or semester-at-sea program. Today, the same university actively encourages every student in every major program to study abroad and even requires it for some majors. Few students lived on campus in university housing. Today, the univ requires most frosh to live in the dorms they built, and they offer incentives to sophs to stay living in the dorms even though the cost is far above living in Greek or off campus housing.

Almost every member of my chapter worked part time, but few took more than 12-14 units per semester. Most students expected to be on the 5 year plan, or more if they intended to get a teaching credential or professional license i.e. CPA, real estate, nursing, PT etc. Today I see fewer students are working while in college, both because there are fewer jobs for college students and there is a lot more pressure to graduate on schedule in 4 years because the cost of tuition and housing has multiplied exponentially. Financial aid makes it possible for more kids to go to college, and increasing enrollment has resulted in big recruitment numbers and opened up the doors for a more socio-economically diverse group of students to experience Greek Life. That's great, but overall GLOs haven't really adapted the programming or the member expectations much to mesh well with the broad group of students who are our members today. Even though we've made modifications to recruitment and the new member period, overall we're all still pretty much following the same model we were in the 1950's when most members were more alike socio-economically than they are today. So maybe we shouldn't be that surprised that what worked 50-60 years ago, or even 20-25 years ago, does not create the same results today.