1990 Retro Recruitment/Affiliation - LIONS & TIGERS & BEARS, Oh my!!!

[jenidallas]

After dinner I checked my mailbox as instructed and found a white envelope inviting me to a top secret off-campus party that night. With all the fraternity rush parties going on, maybe this was for them? But I felt weird about this being so hush-hush (isn't that how hazing happens?!) and I didn’t have a car so I wasn’t sure what to do. My roommate got the same invitation as did one of the cheerleaders. The other cheerleader did not get invited but we told her to come with us anyway and decided it was worth driving to go see what this was about.

We got to an off campus apartment about 9 pm to find a party full of various guys we knew and a few of the members of Tigers along with a bunch of other women I did not know. Of course, silence was still in effect and they were doing that same talking near us but not with us thing. In addition to the four of us, there were two upperclasswomen rushees (including the one who was so rude to the Bears on day one) and a few of the rushees from the all-girls dorm who had said they were a “package deal”.

One of the girls there (I didn’t recognize her and had not seen her at any of the sorority events) very loudly asked one of the guys why someone would come who was not invited. The cheerleader who wasn’t invited ran out of the apartment thinking they were talking about her. The girl then laughed and said “I wasn’t talking about her” and then pointed to another girl – the one who lived down the hall from us. I found out later than only a few of us were invited and it seemed to me to be like some kind of test to see if we would follow instructions or something. In any case, the men as well as the women I didn’t recognize were all drinking and my friends and I decided to leave as it seemed like an uncomfortable situation. Technically based on the rules of how the rush rules were written I don’t think they broke a campus rule but it still seemed like dirty rushing and inappropriate for the night before Preference. (I also found out also that night that there were a couple other similar parties and that it was a campus norm back then – other chapters were also involved, not that it made it okay – some people got invited to more than one party as we found out from other girls as we were leaving the one we had been at - they were coming from a party with Lions.)

I didn’t sleep well as I was so conflicted… was Bears the sorority I met or a chapter on another campus? What should I do about being a legacy? Did Lions not inviting me to their secret party mean they didn’t like me at all? Were Tigers great girls or rule-breakers? What was going to happen if my clique ended up in different houses?

[jenidallas]

I was very nervous the morning of preference and went for a walk to clear my head. When I came back to get ready our schedules were in our boxes.

There was wailing and sobbing coming from my floor when I walked back up the stairs. The girl at the end of the hall (the one who was set on Tigers and who was spoken to rudely the night before at the secret party) had only been invited back to Lions. My roommate and I both still had full schedules. The cheerleader who had been cut by Lions the day before was going back to Bears and Tigers. The other cheerleader had a full schedule but had decided she did not want to revisit Bears. Our pageant queen friend was only invited back to Tigers and Bears as well. So it looked like unless we all went Tigers we would not be in the same chapter.

I was starting to get irritated by this day especially by all the talk back and forth and decided to only talk to my roommate and pageant queen as we got ready. This apparently upset one of the cheerleaders (the one who was not invited to the secret party but got the full schedule) and she said something nasty to me as we were leaving to go to pref parties. For preference, we all met in a central location on campus. Women who were not going to parties for a particular block had to sit in silence there. Each chapter held two parties so the PNMs were split in groups – there were on average 6-11 women per party. We were told there were 31 women remaining in recruitment all together. I remember seeing the rude rushee there and she told us that she was ONLY going to Tigers as her boyfriend was vice president of one of the fraternities so she knew that was the only “socially acceptable” choice and therefore she was not going to waste her time elsewhere so had turned down invitations to the others. A lot of women had decided not to go to Bears.

My first party was Lions. It was a lovely party in an old house on the campus. It felt very southern-feeling and old-fashioned. I remember all the girls were wearing matching pastel dresses and they reminded me of a show choir in all that taffeta. They all kept talking about finding their fiancés and I remember in my head thinking they were the MRS degree chapter. This seemed like the kind of chapter I’d go into if I were ready to settle down after college and something about the chapter to me seemed like they were very set on their campus identity. Their ceremony was moving but I looked around and had trouble imagining myself spending four years there. Lots of girls cried but I didn’t quite understand what there was to cry about.

My second party was Tigers. I was picked up by the president of Panhellenic who I’d met earlier in the week. She made me so comfortable and asked me if the party the night before had thrown me off as she thought we seemed a bit bewildered and that perhaps no one had told me that might happen. She said they wanted so badly for the group of us to know we were wanted since other chapters had done those parties in the past which I thought was a plausible explanation. During the party several officers stopped by to talk to me and I felt very special. Their ceremony was beautiful and two of their songs were to tunes I knew from camp so it made me feel warm and fuzzy. I felt like I wanted this chapter because of who I envisioned myself becoming but was not sure if it fit me today – they were all so much more polished and popular than I was in high school but that was who I wanted to be in college and I felt special that they liked me.

My last party was Bears. I looked around and immediately knew there was something wrong… all the girls I had met were gone. I didn’t see a single one when the door opened. I saw the owl-eyed president and the awkward girl from my hall and a couple others and that was it. Period. I was double-preffed (me plus another rushee) and the awkward girl picked us up. She started by telling us we could be on exec as soon as we were initiated if we pledged them and then recited a list of reasons why we should give them a chance. Then she turned to me and told me that I was a legacy so they were counting on me to be loyal to that. “Your relationship with your mother will never quite be the same if you don’t pledge Bears – you can’t do that to your mother or she will never feel the same about you” she told me. This smacked me in the face because I hadn't really thought about my mother in all this and she had told me to keep an open mind... but to hear all this made me question whether she really meant it! And at this point all my confusion and lack of sleep caught up to me and I started sobbing. My mom saw this from across the room and came rushing over and asked if I wanted to sit in the corner and talk. And boy, did I ever. I told her want the girl had said and how my week had been going and she said “jenidallas, I love you no matter what… and while I’d be honored to have you as my sister, I want YOU to be happy… and I think you’d make a great member, wherever you are - if you want to be a Tiger, you'd fit in fine. But if you want to come here, you'll have a home too... but you have to follow your heart and make the decision that is going to help YOU become the better woman. This is your campus, not mine. And whatever you do, you need to be ready to do it for life.”. Hearing her say that and thinking of what she taught me, I suddenly knew exactly what I needed to do. The preference ceremony was starting so she grabbed my hand and let me over. And I smiled because suddenly my path was clear and I knew what I actually wanted to do.

After the last party, we went one by one into the Student Life Office. There were two doors – you walked in one and closed the door, signed your card, and the walked out the other. My friends agreed to wait on the other side so we could all walk back to the dorm together. Pageant queen walked out and we all started discussing what we had done. Rude rushee walked out behind her and overheard me telling them what I had done and looked at me like I was an idiot and said “well, I hope that wasn’t a stupid choice on your part” and then walked off. We all actually were very happy with what we had done and decided to go have dinner off campus to celebrate rush being almost over!

[jenidallas]

The four of us found our friend pageant queen and all went to check the bid list to see if our names were on it.


My roommate and pageant queen and I were all listed which meant we had bids. (And, because of legacy policies and/or how we each filled out our card, we were 99% certain we knew what our cards would say.)


Neither of the cheerleaders received a bid… it turned out they had both decided to SIP the only sorority they both preffed (Tiger). Both started crying but the Panhellenic president (a Tiger) came out of the student life and told them to be available for a phone call that afternoon as one sorority did not make quota and would be snap bidding. And if not, to come to the student union at 4 pm anyway because none of the sororities was at total and therefore they would likely all be handing out COB bids. Quota was 10 and we counted 25 names on the bid list – so from what she said, two sororities took quota and one took 5.


At 4 pm I stood with my friends and opened my bid to....

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Tigers




Otherwise known as


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Gamma Phi Beta

[jenidallas]

I know some of you are thinking... "wait, WHAT?!"

Yes, I decided that jumping into my legacy chapter and doing all that hard work was NOT what I wanted to do. I wanted to go somewhere that everything was already exactly the way envisioned it.

But more on that in a moment... back to the story....

[jenidallas]

My bid day was still one of my favorite days in my sorority. At 4 pm, we ran outside but before I ran to meet my sisters in Gamma Phi Beta, my mom was waiting. She was holding a giant stuffed animal ( the mascot of Bears) but tied around its neck were Gamma Phi Beta printed ribbons. She said she had purchased the animal when she first thought I’d possibly pledge my legacy but modified her plan when she realized I’d end up where I belonged.

I love my mom for her Panhellenic spirit and I’m so excited that she’ll celebrate 50 years in her sorority this coming spring. When I bought my Gamma Phi Beta badge, I tried to mirror the style of my mom’s own badge as closely as possible. We’ve attended MANY mother/daughter events over the years in our “matching” badge. And that stuffed animal still sits in a chair in the dressing area of my bedroom.

My mom inspired me to continued service to my sorority. I’ve held a lot of alumnae chapter officer roles, served on three advisory boards (more on that in a moment), and I’m currently in a regional leadership role. I have told my recruitment/affiliation story many times since so it’s nice to finally share it here.

Ah, but it’s not QUITE over yet….

[jenidallas]

Roommate, pageant queen, and I all pledged Gamma Phi Beta. The cheerleaders were both picked up on COB at 4:01 pm as were a couple other girls waiting to COB (including two who didn’t even go through recruitment at all). All-in-all, we ended with a pledge class of 17 (doubling the size of the chapter). Lions had a pledge class of 12-13 and Bears picked up three more to finish at 8 new members.

The girl down the hall was a new Lion and had a rough start. She did not want to go to Bid Day and spent a couple of months telling everyone she was supposed to be a Tiger but had an old “enemy” from high school who blocked her. (That part was later acknowledged to be true by all involved. What’s funny now, decades later, the Lion dated a guy for a long time and now her old enemy Tiger is married to him… but that wasn’t even a factor back then!) But back to her - she stuck with Lion and if you were to ask her a semester later, she would tell you that she never wanted to be anything but a Lion. We are still friends and still keep in touch.

I became friends later with the awkward girl in Bears and now understand just how nervous she was to be preffing the chapter advisor's daughtre that day. I came to have a lot of respect for those women. They basically had to build themselves back up from 3 initiated members and the women they took DID take on early leadership roles and turned the chapter around. They took both the girls from my high school (who apparently everyone was SURE would go Tigers) and the girl I went on the mission trip with (who everyone was SURE would go Lions) – the other three in that group went Tigers with us. Apparently late the night after round two (and the secret party - or parties, as these girls were invited to both!), they all came back and discussed the chapters and discovered they were leaning two different ways on what they wanted their campus experience to be. It just goes to show nothing is certain. Half of them decided that Bears would allow them to basically rewrite the rules for sororities on the campus and make things more level. And they did. They also COBed two women I really hoped Tigers would get so they had immediate impact on the campus. By the time I was a junior in college, they were the largest chapter on campus and the entire dynamic had shifted largely because of their one class.

The rushee who was so rude during recruitment also went Tigers which meant we were sisters. I did at one point tell her exactly what I thought of her behavior and that was a big poo storm in our pledge class. We did a few things together but never really became close and we do not stay in touch at all now. She is a good example that you do not have to be friends with all your sisters and can still survive.

The rush chair, who I so very much admired, was my first Crescent Sister on Bid Day and ended up becoming my big sis. We are still close! Sadly her dad (the university president) left at the end of my first semester and she transferred to the new college with him.

I initiated in January of 1991. I was honestly not sure if I was ready or not as I felt like something was “off” – I was head over heels with the sorority in general but still felt like something was not right about my campus experience. I suspected it was not the sorority but the college and told my parents I would give it until spring break and transfer if I still felt “off”. The university was not what I expected it to be and over the holidays I realized I was not having the same college experience that other friends were having, partially due to my schools size but more due to changes going on at the school that were affecting academics and student life.

I will say also that while I was a freshman, I felt a lot of pressure to “reinvent” myself – to dress more like the women in my chapter, to do my hair differently, even to do things that might be out of character for the old me in order to be liked. I don’t blame sorority for that – I think that’s just a part of growing up.

Ironically WHILE I was at initiation, there was a series of armed robberies in my dorm as well as the men’s dorm. (By armed, I mean gang members with semi-automatic weapons.) My parents decided I could come home to live for the rest of the semester and pretty much my mind was made up that I would transfer at first opportunity. I packed a bag and started sleeping at home and driving to school and slowly moving my things out of the residence hall as I didn’t want to alarm anyone but my sisters figured out what was going on anyway and some of them distanced themselves from me.

My mom was very worried that I’d initiated and THEN decided to transfer so we decided it would be best to look at schools that had chapters. (Smart idea, mom!) I decided I wanted to also go visit both schools I narrowed down to for several days to get a feel for the campuses (and what life would actually be like since my freshman year was not at all what I thought it would be).

[jenidallas]

I ended up deciding to be a sophomore transfer to a large state school that had a chapter. I also dropped down to mostly correspondence classes for the semester so I could start working full time and saving money since I was losing my full ride. Roommate and pageant girl also both transferred after our freshman year, both to schools without chapters so our year together was their only time in Greek life.

I got to the new school (which I loved immediately and still do to this day) but the chapter was not at ALL like it had been at my first school. They were not a strong chapter and the women were very different than my old chapter. I hedged on whether or not I wanted to affiliate, listening a lot to other girls (outside the chapter) and to men (both Greek and non-Greek). I was kind of snotty about it too which I now regret – at 19, I had the attitude that the sorority was about the reputation or ranking on campus. I had friends from back home in most of the other chapters but not my own and began to think that I’d made a huge mistake to not wait and go through recruitment there.

I dragged my feet on declaring my intention to go through affiliation - but those sisters persisted and let me know they liked me anyway because I WAS a sister. Their continued acts of sisterhood (which included visiting me in the hospital when I had a bad car accident a few weeks into school) and unwavering friendship helped me realize that sisterhood is not about aspiring to be someone else – it’s about being the best version of yourself. At the end of the day, my then-boyfriend (a member of a very popular house on campus) is the one who pushed me over the edge – he reminded me that college would be SO much better if I was in ANY chapter and participating than if I were standing on the sidelines just watching everyone else. So very true.

I affiliated and made several wonderful friends. The chapter helped that process along by pairing me with the latest new member class and including me on all their “extra” activities. I even got an “adopted big” so I could be folded into the chapter’s “families”. I went on to serve the chapter in various leadership positions and was so proud to see my chapter continue to grow while I was there. I am still in regular contact with probably 40 sisters who I shared time with while on campus. I also am happy to note that I went back to dressing the way I liked to dress and marching to the beat of my own drummer – and my sisters supported me there too.

Of course, all this retro thought leads to a lot of revelations and discoveries about who I am today. Would 41 year old me go through recruitment with the same eyes she did at 18? No. And if not, I might not be a Gamma Phi Beta today.

I believe I was led to the sisterhood where I belong… the one that grew with me and that I never outgrew. Sometimes there really is a master plan and I do believe that we end up where we ultimately belong and that sometimes it takes time for it to become that lifelong love affair.

I also firmly believe that choosing a sorority should not be an aspirational thing – joining the blonde haired cheerleader sorority will not turn you in to that if you are not that person. I think I love the most that my sorority allowed me to be who I was especially at my second school which is the chapter where I spent all my initiated time.