Alexandra Robbins, Authoress of PLEDGED, said:

[AlphaFrog]

Originally Posted by ladygreek

Authoress?????

I kind of like it.

[Axid angel]

Originally Posted by skylark

Maybe this is more just my own experience with HQ communication, but I have never felt that they were encouraging us to recruit a certain image. Sure, maybe they wanted us to recruit women who had potential leadership qualities and had good grades, but that was the end of it.

Any image-focused drive I think comes more from the PNMs trying to peg the groups into some stereotype in order to pick the right one. I think the advice to the PNMs to keep an open mind is good, but I think that AR's book does more to close minds about sorority life than it does to open minds. I really think that AR should have looked at greek life on a variety of campuses before writing her book, too.

If you ask me, any campus would be better off having someone at www.phiredup.com speak to a campus about changing greek life for the better. Their I Heart Recruitment book is fabulous.

i agree, she tells pnms to keep an open mind about all sororities. i think she should practice what she preaches. if she really wanted people to keep an open mind her book would have reflected that, but it didn't.

[icicle22]

Originally Posted by skylark

Maybe this is more just my own experience with HQ communication, but I have never felt that they were encouraging us to recruit a certain image. Sure, maybe they wanted us to recruit women who had potential leadership qualities and had good grades, but that was the end of it.

Any image-focused drive I think comes more from the PNMs trying to peg the groups into some stereotype in order to pick the right one. I think the advice to the PNMs to keep an open mind is good, but I think that AR's book does more to close minds about sorority life than it does to open minds. I really think that AR should have looked at greek life on a variety of campuses before writing her book, too.

If you ask me, any campus would be better off having someone at www.phiredup.com speak to a campus about changing greek life for the better. Their I Heart Recruitment book is fabulous.

I've got to get that book.

[33girl]

Originally Posted by icicle22

I've got to get that book.

Perhaps I'm cynical, but I checked out that site and the main theme seems to be "formal rush isn't everything." Which...you should already know.

[icicle22]

Originally Posted by 33girl

Perhaps I'm cynical, but I checked out that site and the main theme seems to be "formal rush isn't everything." Which...you should already know.

Well I just checked if they had it on Amazon, and they did...with only one review that is.

[33girl]

Just from the blog entries and pages of the books that were available. In other words (I think I'm paraphrasing James here) you shouldn't RUSH, you should truly RECRUIT. It's true, and I realize it may be a big revelation to some chapters, but if it takes a book for chapters to realize that our HQs are really falling down education-wise.

[skylark]

33girl: the website only gives a general synopsis of what is in the book... I honestly wouldn't have bought it either if all I knew was what was on the site. It was someone else who had read the book and gave me some of the advice from it that related to a problem I was having that "sold" me on the book.

And yeah, we all already know formal recruitment isn't everything. The book gives great, concrete ideas for chapters, though. They talk about chapters in every possible situation and give examples of what worked for those chapters. They also give ideas/critiques about why certain techniques for recruitment don't work and why others do. Sometimes you knew something didn't work, but didn't know why and this book helps you to get at what works on your campus.

One of the things in the book that I constantly remind myself of is to concentrate on helping and encouraging the members who are already excited and want to work rather than focusing on trying to motivate the girls who aren't interested and you have to push 5 times as hard and they still do very little. Why waste 5 times the energy? Hopefully, of course, the nonmotivated girls come around when they see how much the sorority is improving, but focusing on them will only set a negative tone.

Basically, I think the book helps you get into the right frame of mind for reevaluating and improving your sorority chapter's current game plan.

[icicle22]

Originally Posted by 33girl

Just from the blog entries and pages of the books that were available. In other words (I think I'm paraphrasing James here) you shouldn't RUSH, you should truly RECRUIT. It's true, and I realize it may be a big revelation to some chapters, but if it takes a book for chapters to realize that our HQs are really falling down education-wise.

Well, that would make total sense.

[skylark]

Originally Posted by icicle22

Well I just checked if they had it on Amazon, and they did...with only one review that is.

I should make a disclaimer here... the review on Amazon is from me :-) The book obviously made quite an impression on me at a time I really needed inspiration advising my chapter.

[PsychTau2]

Originally Posted by Senusret I

The biggest problem with sororities is their national leadership, which is often out of touch with the personalities of individual women and chapters, Robbins said.

Sorority members should work with their national headquarters to reform the Recruitment process and make sororities less image-focused, she said.

I think this is backwards. Sorority members and HQ should work to educate PNMs and those who don't join to make sororities less image focused (at least the recruitment aspect of things). While we still need to think about what image our group projects to others (let's be honest...some groups actually earn a negative stereotype with their behaviors), I think what continues to drive the image focused recruitment process is the expectations of PNMs and other students. Think about the conversations we have about expansion at Ole Miss...a lot of people believe that it would be very hard for a new chapter to survive there because the PNMs (and their families, to some extent) will refuse to join a "new" chapter with no "history" and "tradition", especially if they don't have a house that compares with or exceeds the other houses. The PNMs seem to be "image-focused", and I don't think we've figured out how to really fight that expectation yet (without spending tons of money doing it).

Once the PNMs join a chapter (any chapter) that offers a quality experience, they fall in love with the experiences they have. Unfortunately, I don't think we've mastered the art of communicating the meaning of those experiences during recruitment. And some of the PNMs haven't figured out how to really grasp that meaning when making a decision (it could be the stage of development that members and PNMs are in, I don't know). Some groups (and campuses) have, and you can tell a difference in how they go about recruitment.

I'm sure there are a lot of our organization leaders who focus on the image of a chapter, but I don't think they do it because they believe that is what is most important. I think they do it because for some campuses it's life and death for a chapter...and if we can keep a chapter open on a campus by competing that way then we have another opportunity to make a positive impact on the lives of women through our values.

Originally Posted by Senusret I

"Don't think about the labels of the house," she said. "Pay close attention to the members you meet and if you feel like they're people you can be friends with."

If I were saying that sentence, I'd say "Pay close attention to the members you meet and if you feel like they're people you can no only be friends with, but who would also encourage and inspire you to become a better person."

PsychTau

[Drolefille]

Originally Posted by 33girl

She was in Scroll & Key which is actually a competing society to Skull & Bones - it couldn't be a "sister" society as the majority of the alums/members are men.

Ah, thanks. I think she did say "sister" society in her book though.

[als463]

Originally Posted by Little32

You do understand what is problematic in this statement, right?

Yeah-It was really early in the morning and I was half awake-sorry-I was just fumed!

[Senusret I]

Originally Posted by ladygreek

Authoress?????

Originally Posted by AlphaFrog

I kind of like it.

he he.... it's a word that Maya says on Girlfriends.

[als463]

Originally Posted by icicle22

Wow,that is problematic. Either she was angry and furious or she really meant it.

Thank you 33girl-you truly read my mind (which is why we are PA girls)...ISUKappa, you are right about the whole Panhellenic thing...we had to send a certain number of members for the event (why?-I'm not sure) but, we could have more girls go if they were interested...I think more girls went just to hear her spew her garbage so they could actually stand up and call her out for her inaccuracies (which was mentioned during her question answer portion) than to actually "get" anything from it....

I didn't mean it like that-so, I do apologize if it came off that way-as I stated before...I was really fumed....Alexandra really tried to make us during the speech feel like we were playing into a stupid stereotype because we wanted sisterhood. I have friends who are and aren't Greek. I wasn't saying "Either go Greek or go Home!" What I was essentially trying to point out was that...some girls do "slip through the cracks" so they go back through recruitment or they COB (which is fine, by the way) to find their home. Some girls don't get into an organization because of how they treat other chapters. An Example: I knew a girl who would go to one sorority and say, "Oh-yeah....I was asked back to so and so....and I really like this sorority.....and I'm not sure how I feel about that sorority..." She bad mouthed so many sororities...Some she put down by saying they were for the nerdy or the ugly. Other sororities she would comment how they were for down right sluts....Eventually NO ONE asked her back because she had bad-mouthed pretty much EVERY Sorority on campus....Then she questioned why no one wanted her. She had a comment for everyone. So you have two ends of the spectrum. The girls that "slipped through the cracks" I would want to see go back through in hopes they would find a home. I was saying-if those same "slip through the cracks" girls went to listen to Alexandra Robbins they may be like...."To heck with this!" The girls who were "obnoxious" like the girl I spoke about earlier could use the whole Alexandra Robbins speech as a reason to validate the fact that they were too "good" or too "cool" to be in a sorority in the first place....That is what I was getting at-so, I didn't really mean to offend anyone....sorry I wasn't very clear about it earlier.....

[AlwaysSAI]

Alright....so I may be deemed the spawn of satan for saying this and I'll preface it with-no, I'm not in an NPC org

But, I found Robbins' book to be very well stated. I found her opinion of sororities and greek life in general to be unbiased. No, the things presented in the book did not place sororities in the best light, but she was writing about 4 different girls in 4 different houses and their experiences in the sororities on their campus.

If anyone has any problem with anything in the book, I don't think Robbins is the one to blame. As a journalist, it is her job to present her findings-which I believe is exactly what she did. She stated many times that drinking is not a sorority phenomenon, but a college phenomenon and should not be compartmentalized into greek life alone.

If anyone has a problem with the way greek organizations were presented in the book, I honestly believe that there is only the greek community to blame. Yes, there is a stigma that goes along with being greek, but you can't blame Robbins for that. She investigated something that has been very sensationalized in the media for a number of years--and remember she is trying to sell books.

As for the secrets, I honestly doubt she is an initiated member of a greek letter organization. She had at least 3 different org's secrets in the book and I would bet money that those secrets were disclosed by ostricized members.

I found the book to be an honest interpretation of any aspect of greek life. I found myself identifying with many of the girls in the book and I'm in a music org and an honor org--not even NPC.

I think that the biggest problem that people have with the book is that they don't want to believe that sisters from other schools will ostracize them. They truly want to believe that 'we are all sisters and will love each other because of that' when that isn't always true.

As for Robbins' interpretation of the National's of most orgs--it's going to be a little out of touch with the collegiate side because most of them have been alumnae for quite a while. Yeah, every org has problem--both of my HQs do--NO ONE ORG IS PERFECT.

Seriously, what's the huff all about?

PS-I do agree with her thoughts on recruitment though. It's way too superficial even at schools with smaller greek communities.