If you could design an AI program.........

[33girl]

Originally Posted by Blondie93

I think it is more common on rural campuses where recruiting alumnae to serve is difficult.

And as alphagamzetagam mentioned, many schools INSIST that the primary chapter advisor be a faculty or staff member. You don't fight with the administration and say "ohh, our nationals says it has to be a sister" if you want to stay a registered student organization.

[AGDee]

There is a very remote chapter in the UP of Michigan that was left high and dry by the ONLY advisor we could find. This actually happened two years in a row. We realized that we have to do *something* to get some consistency in advisors with this group. At Convention, myself, along with one of our alumnae development volunteers and the collegiate delegate met to develop a plan for this chapter. Part of this plan includes AI recruitment. We first did a mass mailing to all alumnae within a 75 mile radius of the chapter. By doing that, we found 4 women who are graduate students (read, in the area temporarily) who are willing to serve as advisors for now and assist with an AI recruitment and education effort. We have contacted the advisors at the chapter two hours away and they are willing to assist with the recruitment effort as well. We have asked both collegiate chapters up there to provide us with names of women who have been their bosses, co-workers, have been local business owners or faculty/staff who are in the area and who might be interested in mentoring them as advisors and becoming AIs. We talked with the Greek Advisor for ideas on where to look for women who may be motivated to do something like this. We found a list of community organizations in the city. The organizations include women's business organizations and things like that. The Greek Advisor also suggested 4 or 5 of those groups. We are gathering some materials to use as a "pitch" to these groups and getting some local alumnae and advisors to go to some of these meetings to "present" the idea to these organizations and gather names. We intend to have events which will include some of the local alumnae (some are too far away to advise but are willing to come and help with these) as well as some of the collegiate officers there to meet these women, get to know them, answer questions, etc. Then we will decide who we want to invite to AI. We have worked very hard on this plan and I've never been involved in something of this magnitude, but we're hopeful that we can find some area women who will welcome the opportunity to mentor and be involved as advisors. If we can get enough, we'd like to develop an alumnae club as well so that they can benefit from the sisterhood that a club can bring and not just work with the collegians. After invitations are extended and accepted, there will be an education period followed by initiation with the collegiate chapter's winter class.

I see faculty/campus advisors as different from Chapter Advisor. A Chapter Advisor must be a member to be able to attend our Executive Council and Initiation, etc. There are things that a faculty/campus advisor can be helpful with, but you have to have *someone* there who knows ritual, membership selection, etc.

My other UP chapter has a few advisors who are AIs. The past CA is a VP for the University but was initiated. Her daughter became a member of that chapter eventually and is now the CA. It's worked out great.

For these extremely remote chapters, I think it's a great and needed option. We are clearly targeting a select group (first women who have some connection to current members and then women who have demonstrated leadership/business sense in the community) I think in the long run, it will have the benefit of demonstrating the positive side of the Greek system to the community as well. I don't think we'll end up getting sorority shoppers because, quite honestly, the "I really need to be in a sorority" attitude just isn't that prevalent. I think, instead, we'll be battling the "Why in the world would I want to join a sorority at my age?" mentality. I'll let y'all know how it goes!

[DSTRen13]

Honestly, not trying to be stupid here, but one thing I've been confused by --- I keep reading all these critiques about "sorority shopping" if a woman looks at more than one NPC for AI, but then undergrads are bashed if they don't give consideration to every NPC group available on their campus?

Originally Posted by DSTRen13

Honestly, not trying to be stupid here, but one thing I've been confused by --- I keep reading all these critiques about "sorority shopping" if a woman looks at more than one NPC for AI, but then undergrads are bashed if they don't give consideration to every NPC group available on their campus?

Comparing collegiate recruitment to Alumnae Initiation is like comparing apples and oranges.

They are on completely opposite ends of the spectrum and one should not even compare the two.

[ThetaPrincess24]

Originally Posted by DSTRen13

Honestly, not trying to be stupid here, but one thing I've been confused by --- I keep reading all these critiques about "sorority shopping" if a woman looks at more than one NPC for AI, but then undergrads are bashed if they don't give consideration to every NPC group available on their campus?

AI is much different than NPC recruitment in college. Completely different concept.

[SWTXBelle]

Undergraduate recruitment is based on the concept of mutual selection. Anyone who meets the requirements may go through recruitment.

Alumnae Initiation is, as far as I know, considered by all NPCs as an honour bestowed on select women. It is NOT based on mutual selection. At least, not in the same sense.

[honeychile]

There are a lot of great ideas here! I find myself agreeing in part with almost everyone, even though I know how we do AI. One difference is that all Alumnae Initiates are in a chapter designated for them exclusively, not as a member of the Wassamatta U chapter or such.

And yes, there is a big difference between Honorary Initiates and Alumnae Initiates. My chapter's housemother was initiated upon retirement, and the members of the original local which became my chapter were also offered initiation - but those were two separate "catagories".

[breathesgelatin]

Originally Posted by honeychile

And yes, there is a big difference between Honorary Initiates and Alumnae Initiates. My chapter's housemother was initiated upon retirement, and the members of the original local which became my chapter were also offered initiation - but those were two separate "catagories".

Although in some groups it's not as clear cut. In my org for example I think the distinction is pretty hard to decipher.

I think it began when Pi Phi had alum initiates as "honorary initiates" at Convention (a process that still continues, although they're now called AIs for the most part from what I can tell).

Pi Phi also does AI for A) housemothers B) siblings/daughters/etc of prominent members C) advisors D) new chapters - every new chapter has several alum initiates to boost the volunteerism for the new chapter.

W&L was one school that did require a faculty advisor... it so happened that Pi Phi always had an alum on the faculty that we could draw from, but I don't believe that was the case for all the sororities on campus... In fact I'm not sure it was true for anyone except us and Kappa. Although I could be totally wrong on that. Oh, and there was a faculty Phi Mu who served as faculty Panhel advisor since her chapter wasn't there.

At W&L, for that matter, very few of the chapters had active alum advisors whatsoever because there were so few people to draw on. The nearest alum clubs, in Roanoke and Charlottesville, were pretty much always focused on VA Tech and UVA respectively. So a lot of chapters were advised on an official sorority level (not campus/faculty level) by women in Northern Virginia - three hours away. So our faculty advisor (who was also chair of our House Corp effectively served as our AAC chair as well for two of my four years at W&L as well). There were alum initiates from the founding of chapter in 1992 who still lived in town, but they were nowhere to be found hrm. I did find that by my senior year it seemed some women from our founding class were moving back to Lexington to settle and were becoming very involved with the chapter - that was good thing.

Anyway the point being that a lot of rural schools have really limited options with advisors.

Also I think a lot of times the collegiate chapter doesn't have much of a choice about initiating alums. At least in my experience. The chapter gets to take a vote, but in most cases refusing to initiate the selected individual (who has already been vetted by the alum club by the time it gets sent to the chapter) would be extremely awkward and uncomfortable and make for hard feelings. Especially, as it often is, if it is a family member of an advisor or something.

All that said, I would have absolutely no problem with widespread AI, I don't think, if we could put into place the same policies and precautions that NPHC currently has. Although I do believe that that change would fundamentally change the character of the NPC and I don't know if it will ever happen. Right now, most sororities and their respective alum clubs don't have time or preparation to do the kind of process that NPHC currently does with their grad membership. For most sororities, the problem of the nascent artificial demand for AI that I believe GC in part or whole created was easier solved by restricting or limiting their AI programs rather than creating a whole new side of membership intake like NPHC has. Which is understandable.

I also think it would be prudent at some point if these programs continue to grow and be as controversial as they are becoming if the NPCs could come together to make some unanimous agreements about how they will work. For the sake of all our organizations.

On a more personal note, I would really prefer if all AIs to my own org were required to have a college degree. Although I realize there are some situations where exceptions can and maybe should be made (housemothers don't necessarily have college degrees, nor do outstanding mother volunteers, etc). I just feel that my org is an org for college-educated women.

[fantASTic]

Originally Posted by AGDee

There is a very remote chapter in the UP of Michigan that was left high and dry by the ONLY advisor we could find. This actually happened two years in a row. We realized that we have to do *something* to get some consistency in advisors with this group. At Convention, myself, along with one of our alumnae development volunteers and the collegiate delegate met to develop a plan for this chapter. Part of this plan includes AI recruitment. We first did a mass mailing to all alumnae within a 75 mile radius of the chapter. By doing that, we found 4 women who are graduate students (read, in the area temporarily) who are willing to serve as advisors for now and assist with an AI recruitment and education effort. We have contacted the advisors at the chapter two hours away and they are willing to assist with the recruitment effort as well. We have asked both collegiate chapters up there to provide us with names of women who have been their bosses, co-workers, have been local business owners or faculty/staff who are in the area and who might be interested in mentoring them as advisors and becoming AIs. We talked with the Greek Advisor for ideas on where to look for women who may be motivated to do something like this. We found a list of community organizations in the city. The organizations include women's business organizations and things like that. The Greek Advisor also suggested 4 or 5 of those groups. We are gathering some materials to use as a "pitch" to these groups and getting some local alumnae and advisors to go to some of these meetings to "present" the idea to these organizations and gather names. We intend to have events which will include some of the local alumnae (some are too far away to advise but are willing to come and help with these) as well as some of the collegiate officers there to meet these women, get to know them, answer questions, etc. Then we will decide who we want to invite to AI. We have worked very hard on this plan and I've never been involved in something of this magnitude, but we're hopeful that we can find some area women who will welcome the opportunity to mentor and be involved as advisors. If we can get enough, we'd like to develop an alumnae club as well so that they can benefit from the sisterhood that a club can bring and not just work with the collegians. After invitations are extended and accepted, there will be an education period followed by initiation with the collegiate chapter's winter class.

I see faculty/campus advisors as different from Chapter Advisor. A Chapter Advisor must be a member to be able to attend our Executive Council and Initiation, etc. There are things that a faculty/campus advisor can be helpful with, but you have to have *someone* there who knows ritual, membership selection, etc.

My other UP chapter has a few advisors who are AIs. The past CA is a VP for the University but was initiated. Her daughter became a member of that chapter eventually and is now the CA. It's worked out great.

For these extremely remote chapters, I think it's a great and needed option. We are clearly targeting a select group (first women who have some connection to current members and then women who have demonstrated leadership/business sense in the community) I think in the long run, it will have the benefit of demonstrating the positive side of the Greek system to the community as well. I don't think we'll end up getting sorority shoppers because, quite honestly, the "I really need to be in a sorority" attitude just isn't that prevalent. I think, instead, we'll be battling the "Why in the world would I want to join a sorority at my age?" mentality. I'll let y'all know how it goes!

I know exactly where you're talking about! They're both great schools...though kind of chilly!

I know the AST chapter up there has also had a little bit of an issue with that, though not nearly to the same extent. They manage, and are doing great

[NutBrnHair]

Originally Posted by 33girl

And as alphagamzetagam mentioned, many schools INSIST that the primary chapter advisor be a faculty or staff member. You don't fight with the administration and say "ohh, our nationals says it has to be a sister" if you want to stay a registered student organization.

I must say that it's not at all typical for a non-member to advise a Chi Omega chapter. There might be a couple of cases, but I can't think of a single one. Perhaps we're just fortunate to have alumnae who are also faculty on those campuses.

Anyway...back to the AI discussion...