Underground Pledging

[33girl]

Originally Posted by valmypal

Also, at my undergraduate school, one sorority got in trouble and the next semester (or maybe it was for a year) they were not allowed to take any new members. I'm pretty sure this was set by their nationals. I was just confused because I didn't know if that was something Panhel agreed with and i didn't think that was very positive for the chapter since they would then lose numbers. Thanks!

This would have definitely been set by their national. Panhel is not permitted to prevent sororities from taking pledges - it's a freedom of association issue. The most they can do is disallow them from participating in formal rush since FR is run by Panhellenic. The sorority can still invite women to join through open rush parties they hold on their own or other ways.

As far as the underground issue, I don't think you have to go so far as to have a silence period, but the fraternities' and sororities' HQs should know that 1st semester freshmen aren't allowed to pledge and therefore the big classes will be in the spring, not the fall. The sororities and fraternities are still allowed to pledge sophomores and up in the fall so not allowing them to hold rush activities would not be fair.

(adpiucf - this is a school where it's definitely not "freshmen only" pledging.)

[DSTCHAOS]

For quality assurance purposes there's typically a network of administrators and Greek advisors, usually listserves of some sort, in which you can ask these types of questions.

[GVSU_SigPi_Gea]

The greek life advisor should be given a roster in the beginning of the semester, and its easy to request information from national headquarters to check on recruitment numbers (or discrepancies), or you can get official roster numbers from IFC and compare it to what was sent to the greek advisor/national headquarters.

[valmypal]

Thanks everyone for your help!

[Kevin]

val,

Careful not to overplay your hand there. Know which organizations you're dealing with and know how they'll react to your policies. If you're at a public school, a heavy handed greek advisor can mean bad things for the school.

Perhaps, if organizations are not honoring the deferred rush system, they don't see its value? Rather than simply punishing those which do not comply, consider the goal of the policy -- to promote better adjustment to campus life, to keep grades up, etc.

Perhaps there is middle ground to be found? Perhaps do away with deferred rush so long as organizations' pledge classes maintain a certain GPA? Perhaps then, there will be an incentive for these organizations to do what they can do best -- give these new kids a social network to support them while adjusting to campus life.

Dealing with fraternities is going to be different than dealing with sororities. The NIC-type organizations are much more 'hands off' when it comes to this type of thing.

[violetpretty]

Originally Posted by Kevin

Perhaps do away with deferred rush so long as organizations' pledge classes maintain a certain GPA?

I think the reason many campuses switch to a deferred recruitment is because they've had problems with retention and grades. I think a high school GPA is meaningless. Every single potential member is going to have a good enough high school GPA to have been admitted to their university. How many potential members are weeded out just because of grades?

[Kevin]

Originally Posted by JessSigKap

I think the reason many campuses switch to a deferred recruitment is because they've had problems with retention and grades. I think a high school GPA is meaningless. Every single potential member is going to have a good enough high school GPA to have been admitted to their university. How many potential members are weeded out just because of grades?

HS GPA is absolutely meaningless. I agree with you there.

Where I don't agree with you is the underlying assumption that the greek system actually hurts new members' GPAs at a disproportionate rate.

If that is statistically true, it would seem to me that creating an incentive (e.g., allowing groups which have good overall grades for the previous year's class to rush in the fall) would help to mitigate if not reverse that statistic.

While I'd hate to see our pledge programs just become glorified study halls, I wouldn't mind seeing a little more emphasis placed on academics throughout the system.