What Not to Say to a Released PNM

[adpiucf]

Originally posted by FSUZeta
both of us have been involved extensively with recruitments at a multitude of campuses, and see that the one area that recruitment counselors are lacking good training in is the subject this thread is based on. not enough time is spent on how to deal with the situation where a pnm is released from recruitment, or just an unhappy pnm in general.

I agree! I was a recruitment counselor way back and although we had weekly meetings to learn all the damn songs and symbols, we spent more time learning about First Aid and Heat Stroke (Central Florida recruitment is in late August) than Recruitment rules and how to console a PNM!

I still feel responsible for one PNM from years back-- she arrived late on Round 1. Instead of sending her into the first house on her schedule, our recruitment counselors thought we had to keep her outside so as not to interrupt the party. Well, no show-no excuse--- she got cut from that chapter. She ended up getting her top choice sorority on Bid Day... but what if she had gotten to go into that first house? Maybe that would have been "the right one."

We were totally inequipped to handle that situation. Now, if a PNM came out of the house with a cocktail napkin and a fistful of cookies, we could write up the chapter's infraction before you could even force the shortbread out of her hands!

And to this day I love my Tri-Delta friend who came late to that first party and got cut, but I wonder sometimes if our group of counselors had known what to do... maybe she would have been my ADPi sister!

And to the rest of my group that year -- the group preffed heavily at two houses-- and got cut heavily after that pref. I had to improvise on Bid Day, calling them with snap bid offers to other sororities that had expressed interest and trying to console them through the phone. That was a very rough experience.

To this day, I can still remember all the recruitment songs... and I remember how helpless I felt trying to console 5 wonderful women without their top choice bids.

I wholeheartly advocate "how to counsel and console" in the recruitment couselors' training!