Sticky situation with depledged new member

[adpiucf]

It's a Facebook profile. Is the girl walking around wearing letters? If she's a member of an internet group (and she may have been added by a friend who is in the sorority to be part of their interest list), that doesn't certify she is in that sorority. I'd MYOB and get involved with the alumnae association. Let the chapter and their advisers handle chapter concerns. If they feel a need to involve the alumnae, they will. There will be plenty of opportunities for you to support the chapter as an alumnae, but as you have said, you have a lot of free time and you might be better served putting that free time into other activities.

Congrats on graduating and your alumnae status! And for being a concerned sister-- but I just don't think there is any reason to make a mountain out of a molehill or involve yourself in any collegiate drama.

[33girl]

Originally Posted by adpiucf

It's a Facebook profile. Is the girl walking around wearing letters? If she's a member of an internet group (and she may have been added by a friend who is in the sorority to be part of their interest list), that doesn't certify she is in that sorority. I'd MYOB and get involved with the alumnae association. Let the chapter and their advisers handle chapter concerns. If they feel a need to involve the alumnae, they will. There will be plenty of opportunities for you to support the chapter as an alumnae, but as you have said, you have a lot of free time and you might be better served putting that free time into other activities.

Congrats on graduating and your alumnae status! And for being a concerned sister-- but I just don't think there is any reason to make a mountain out of a molehill or involve yourself in any collegiate drama.

Disagree.

Collegiate drama is things like "Susie doesn't want to room with me next semester because she's rooming with Jenny since she's dating Jenny's brother." This isn't collegiate drama. This is a recruitment violation, if it has occurred.

It sounds like the OP is afraid that it'll look like the group is playing the "we're the struggling chapter" card and the rest of the groups will get mad at them. Well here's how that usually goes - if it was one of the stronger chapters and something similar happened, they would probably have NO compunctions about notifying the greek advisor, the other group's national, you name it.

Plus, the chapter advisor may or may not be Greek, let alone an alumna of the sorority, and have no clue anything wrong is happening. Relying on the advisor (chapter OR Greek advisor) to have a grasp of the most rudimentary NPC rules doesn't always work, depending on the school.

She's not going to go ballistic on this girl and show up at her house and demand an answer - she's just concerned that her chapter's getting pooped on. There's absolutely nothing wrong with just sending a "hey what's up?" email about a weird situation.

[Thetagirl218]

Originally Posted by 33girl

This isn't collegiate drama. This is a recruitment violation, if it has occurred.

I agree with you. If this were something happening at my school, I know the best way to handle it would be to contact the Greek Life office. I don't think it is unresonable to assume that they can check out this tip, and put it to rest without ever even mentioning your name to the chapter in question. Just make sure you speak to the apporiate person in Greek Life, and ask to remain nameless if you don't want to get involved in the drama!

[DeltaBetaBaby]

If the chapter does decide to pursue it, they should probably get their National Panhellenic Rep involved, or whatever alumna chairwomen handles those duties for their chapter. They are the proper person to deal with this situation, not the Greek Life office, as this is a direct violation of the unanimous agreements, if it indeed happened.

[mystikchick]

partially irrelevant, but wouldn't the fact that this other sorority is delivering WINE to their PNMs also constitute a violation? i mean when i posted saying that the girls who were trying to reactivate their chapter on my campus were throwing a party that would include alcohol, those who thought i meant it was an official rush event made it quite clear this was a HUGE no-no.

i guess my point is this: if the campus culture is such that asides from what sounds like blatant dirty rushing, dirty rushing involving alcohol is ignored, even if she does pass on the info, is it going to do much? this doesn't sound like a school where rules are taken very seriously...

[CZAXOTerp]

Not to play devil's advocate, but is this competitor of your chapter's also a "struggling" chapter?
Is it possible that they were unable to fill their chapter house and have taken this woman in as a "boarder" and therefore she can list her residence as XYZ?

At my campus occasionally chapters with large houses would take a boarder to fill every bed in the chapter house and usually the boarder would end up pledging the chapter she was residing in as soon as she was eligible.

[AlphaFrog]

Originally Posted by CZAXOTerp

Not to play devil's advocate, but is this competitor of your chapter's also a "struggling" chapter?
Is it possible that they were unable to fill their chapter house and have taken this woman in as a "boarder" and therefore she can list her residence as XYZ?

At my campus occasionally chapters with large houses would take a boarder to fill every bed in the chapter house and usually the boarder would end up pledging the chapter she was residing in as soon as she was eligible.

That thought crossed my mind too...

[ekDZ1535]

Absolutely - but this where what Deltabetababy was saying is sound advice - when the alum has brought this information to the chapter, and the chapter decides what to do with it, they can contact their NPC rep for further assistance - perhaps contact from someone affiliated with NPC to the campus PHC advisor/Greek life advisor would help them to see that such problems shouldn't be ignored and that all chapters need to be following rules, especially those as they pertain to PNM rights and anything with alcohol use involved with recruitment practices.

[CrimsonBlues]

Thanks everyone for offering your advice. You all raised several issues that hadn't even occurred to me, and I appreciate the additional perspectives. I haven't quite decided how to proceed, but I am definitely keeping everything you all have said in mind. I'm sure this stuff won't matter to me as much when I move away for law school in a couple months, but for now, I'm working an unchallenging summer job in the next town over from my college, and I guess it's hard to keep my nose out of the chapter's business.

I did want to take the opportunity to respond to some of the issues raised in the preceding posts. First, the sorority in question is only "struggling" in the sense that they're also considered "lower tier" on our campus. However, they made quota every year that I was at the school. They seem to have a bit of a problem with attrition post-Bid Day, though, from what I understand. The reason I referred to them as a "competitor" sorority is because we pref most of the same pnms, and they seem to do the most "talking" about us during recruitment. While they are not known as one of the more desirable sororities on my campus, they don't suffer from the same negative reputation that we've somehow acquired, as far as I know. Anyway, I don't think they ever have a problem filling their house, because every sorority at my school has significantly more members than they could ever board in their houses at one time (mine included). I know our chapter house has a rule that you must be an initiated member to live in it, and I don't know if they have the same rule we do, but, again, I highly doubt that they have a need to fill their house.

As far as our campus Panhellenic climate...our campus has a very established Greek system. We do have a dedicated dean of Greek Life who is an alum of a GLO, and most "dirty plays" by the Panhellenic sororities are done with full knowledge of the rules that are being broken in the process. However, during rush, the Panhellenic officer in charge of recruitment and her team are pretty much given full authority. Dirty rushing is rampant on my campus, and though there are stiff penalties in place for it, it seems that reports are rarely followed up on. I'm not really sure if the dean would take action on this, and obviously, if I tell our membership chair, it would be up to her to decide if this is worth pursuing. I just wanted to make sure I wouldn't be overstepping any boundaries by bringing this to her attention as a recent alumna. Though it's really impossible for me to verify if this girl has actually pledged the other sorority or not, the membership chair would clearly be in a better position to do so, and of course no one from my chapter would ever bring this to the greek life office without strong evidence that the situation had occurred.

Again, thanks for all of your help, and if anyone has anything else to add, I'm sure I'll be checking in on Greekchat periodically as I while away the hours at my job.