People that you would NOT recommend.

[chitownxo]

I wrote my one and only No Rec last year.

I taught CCD (Religious Ed) for many years, and consequently I've written a lot of recs for former students. About 5 years ago, I had the world's biggest trouble maker in my class. On the surface, she seemed like a nice girl. In reality, though - woah. Spoke out of turn, got up and walked out of class, and stole from one of her classmate's purses (class was at Mass, and she asked the Aide for permission to go back to the room. The Aide agreed, followed her, and nailed her). The kicker is that I caught her cheating on our Confirmation test. Needless to say, she wasn't confirmed.

From what I heard and saw, 4 years didn't improve her any. While she has good grades and decent activities, she still has a problem with her mouth, and often "forgets" to pay for items she takes home from the mall. Last spring I get a call from her mom who says her darling daughter wants me to write her a XO Rec. I agreed. I just didn't tell her I'd be writing a No Rec rather than a positive one.

[UGAalum94]

Originally Posted by breathesgelatin

Aww. This is awful to me on a couple of levels.

First of all, no one can really know this woman's real situation. A lot of times people who have abortions at very young ages are victims of incest or molestation or rape. And people on the outside might not necessarily know it was the case - it can still be a BOYFRIEND who rapes a young teenage girl.

My other point would be is that this is fundamentally her choice and perhaps in some respects a responsible decision, but I know a lot of people would disagree with me there. Whatever your view is, I doubt this young woman was proud of this situation and probably learned and matured a LOT from this decision.

I wonder if the decision to No Rec this would still have been made if this young woman had put her baby up for adoption.

I really hate this kind of thing, and I don't think it's appropriate. I know every individual alum can do what they want, but I think this kind of thing is awful. It's a shaming type of behavior that makes people feel bad about getting pregnant in the first place, and drives them to have abortions.

/soapbox

I am generally more pro-life than pro-choice, but I'm not trying to take this thread in the direction of a conversation on abortion. We've done that before a lot of other places.

But, I think Zillini is on to something about the issue being general reputation maybe more than the act itself.

I suspect there are a lot of people [ETA: okay, maybe not a lot who would no rec, but a lot who would mention it and some who would No Rec] who would write a no-rec for a girl that had a baby, probably just as many or more as the girl who people knew had the abortion.

I suspect any knowledge that alumnae have of a high school girl's sexual activity or the consequences thereof puts the PNM at risk for a no rec. That may not be fair and maybe it's something we should be more mindful of, but I think it IS the way it works.

This is another one of those cases where I think more recent alumnae might not come down as hard, but I'm betting young moms and girls who are known in the community for having had abortions probably don't have great recruitments most places where recs are a factor.

ETA: Hypocrisy kind of drives me crazy too, but when you're dealing with things as ethereal as hometown reputation or being pleased to have someone wear your badge, things are going to get icky.

[honeychile]

Originally Posted by breathesgelatin

Aww. This is awful to me on a couple of levels.

First of all, no one can really know this woman's real situation. A lot of times people who have abortions at very young ages are victims of incest or molestation or rape. And people on the outside might not necessarily know it was the case - it can still be a BOYFRIEND who rapes a young teenage girl.

My other point would be is that this is fundamentally her choice and perhaps in some respects a responsible decision, but I know a lot of people would disagree with me there. Whatever your view is, I doubt this young woman was proud of this situation and probably learned and matured a LOT from this decision.

I wonder if the decision to No Rec this would still have been made if this young woman had put her baby up for adoption.

I really hate this kind of thing, and I don't think it's appropriate. I know every individual alum can do what they want, but I think this kind of thing is awful. It's a shaming type of behavior that makes people feel bad about getting pregnant in the first place, and drives them to have abortions.

/soapbox

I'm still mad at myself for not questioning the woman HOW she knew about the abortion. As much as I'm pro-life, I like to think that I wouldn't No Rec a PNM based solely on one mistake she made, no matter how bad.

There was sweet revenge on both sides of the coin in this case: the PNM became a member of another fine sorority, and eventually became their President. On the other hand, she also was a well-known "frat rat", so maybe the alumna knew of what she spoke. We'll never know - and nor should we.

[kappalove17]

Originally Posted by honeychile

Well, when I was Rec Chair, we did have a few No Recs. One that I do know about was a PNM who had an abortion when very young.

That's terrible!! You No Rec'ed someone for that? There have been girls in my chapter that have had abortions and we stood by them for it. That's so sad.

[violetpretty]

Originally Posted by kappalove17

That's terrible!! You No Rec'ed someone for that? There have been girls in my chapter that have had abortions and we stood by them for it. That's so sad.

Keep in mind, every chapter is autonomous in choosing their members. If a chapter receives a no-rec and the members think the reason given is stupid, they don't have to cut her.

I doubt my chapter would cut a PNM that we otherwise liked for that reason alone.

[greyhoundrescue]

I didn't No Rec this girl, but I did let our Recruitment Chair and Advisor know how horrible she was BEFORE recruitment and after she was assigned to my bump group! Ok, here goes:

I had a lot of guy friends and friends who had boyfriends in the campus fraternities, so it was pretty common for us all to hang out with them at their various apartments and suites (no houses on my campus). Of course, there were always the handful (or more) of cute freshman girl hangers-on who would be at their parties. One who was at EVERY party (I'm talking every night, every week!), would get plastered and pass out practically every night, was known to be sleeping with numerous guys in the different fraternities, and, oddly enough, was really into smoking cigars (gross, right?). To top it all off, yes this was a school in the warm South, but she literally wore a way too short mini-skirt every single day of the year--believe me, everyone in the caf saw WAY too much of this girl's body because of this wardrobe. Of course she signed up for Recruitment, joy--not! Ice Water comes around and she is assigned to my bump group. Understand that I'd actually spoken to this girl before, but she acted like she had never met me before (believe, our school was TINY) and was beyond bizarre and, well, not very bright. Needless to say, I told what I knew and so did countless other girls in may chapter. We dropped her immediately. She did end up pledging another chapter, but dropped out pretty quickly. I'm guessing they somehow missed her bad rep, but they wised up pretty quickly. I was just happy I didn't have to call "Mini-Skirt Girl" my sister.