Underground 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.

[violetpretty]

Originally Posted by Kevin

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.

I am not assuming that going greek hurts new members' GPAs. Some schools have had problems with retention as a result of first semester grades and chose to defer recruitment. Fall recruitment works well some places, others not so much.

What I am trying to say is that offering freshmen bids is basically a crapshoot. You don't know which PNMs will do well and which ones will flunk out even among good high school GPAs. Just because you picked a good freshman new member class one year and no one flunked out doesn't mean you'll have the same luck next year.

By waiting a semester, chapters can weed out PNMs who performed poorly during their first semester. If a fraternity or sorority is really interested in a particular freshman before he/she is eligible, members should befriend the freshman and encourage him/her to participate in recruitment when he/she is eligible.