Infraction stories

[DrPhil]

Originally Posted by 33girl

No, you haven't. The freshmen get to know the sorority women as normal people, not as some sort of superhuman being. That's the whole point. If sorority members don't go out and try to meet women on their own, that's their problem.

Are some people going to shitty things like promise bids? Probably. But I personally think the solution lies in educating the rushees - i.e. telling them that people who do that are bad people and should be taken with a grain of salt. If you can tell them that women aren't talking to them because of silence rules, and expect them to understand that, you can just as easily tell them what is and isn't dirty rushing and expect them to understand that as well.

lane swerver alert/

Your response reminds me of what some people said in response to the NPHC ban on "pledging" in 1990, which is that something shouldn't be banned just because some people will violate basic guidelines. Instead of banning something altogether, have certain guidelines and educate the pledges and members about what to look out for and the proper channels to take if there's even a hint of a violation.

However, while that makes good darn sense, it doesn't really work that way most of the time and that's why certain rules and bans were implemented in the first place. Our organizations have to protect themselves from what can possibly happen with thousands of members within hundreds of collegiate and alumnae chapters.

/lane swerver alert

[Drolefille]

Originally Posted by 33girl

No, you haven't. The freshmen get to know the sorority women as normal people, not as some sort of superhuman being. That's the whole point. If sorority members don't go out and try to meet women on their own, that's their problem.

Are some people going to shitty things like promise bids? Probably. But I personally think the solution lies in educating the rushees - i.e. telling them that people who do that are bad people and should be taken with a grain of salt. If you can tell them that women aren't talking to them because of silence rules, and expect them to understand that, you can just as easily tell them what is and isn't dirty rushing and expect them to understand that as well.

But it's not in a PNM's interest report or ignore dirty rushing. A promised bid for them is a positive.

I think it would just lead to "enforced" getting to know the freshmen instead of silence and a lot more of the "buy drinks for the freshmen" sort of dirty rushing too. (When you're talking about non-deferred freshmen rush, not deferred or sophomore rush).

[honeychile]

I'll be honest - I'm not a fan of deferred recruitment. If you remember my rush story, ours was deferred, and I was dirty rushed all over the place. I even had people calling and writing to me over the summer prior to my freshman year! I was promised bids from the second party on, I could go on and on about dirty rushing.

FWIW, I'm also not a fan of the 6-8 week New Member period.

[MaggieXi]

Originally Posted by Drolefille

But if you let them really "get to know" the freshmen then you've opened up the doors for a lot of dirty rushing. I agree that if it's a deferred rush a semester long silence is just silly, but for the first 2 weeks or so it's manageable. And we typically wore letters the WHOLE time so it was really obvious that we weren't just ignoring someone in class for kicks.

I agree to an extent. It depends on the campus too. My reference is a campus where recruitment isn't until the last week of January and freshman move in in August. The rules are very strict, too strict in my opinion, and are not really explained to freshman until December.

If you are a freshman woman sitting in her first ever college class, and she happens to sit down next to a greek woman and tries to have a conversation with her, and all the greek woman can do is say "Hi" for fear of an infraction, I think it could be completely off putting to someone who may know nothing about sororities.

I believe that for campus's with deferred recruitment, there may be a push from national headquarters to "get to know" girls before recruitment starts. With this pressure and the rules put in place at a strict campus, it leaves the sorority between a rock and a hard place - either follow the campus rules to the letter or try to get to know freshman per their nationals, and run the risk of getting an infraction.

Do I think its wrong to bid promise, give a PNM gifts, take them out drinking, tell them that they should only rush XYZ - absolutely. But I also think it rediculous that if a PNM asks you for directions to get to their next class or to ask you to pass the salt you could also get an infraction for that.

It also does not help when you have sororities on campus that spend the first 5 months of school trolling to get other sororities in trouble.

[Drolefille]

I agree, I think it's an awesome idea!

[angels&angles]

Jumping into the deferred/non-deferred discussion, I have to say that without deferred recruitment, I wouldn't even have CONSIDERED joining until at least sophomore year, which on my campus is a HUGE liability.

For us, the first semester consisted mostly of "rush dates" which consisting of an equal number of sorority women and PNMs getting together and getting coffee, watching TV, etc together. We were encouraged to get to know the PNMs.

There were, of course, a lot of rules and restrictions on this (Neither sorority women nor PNMs could pay for each other, NO alcohol [couldn't even pass the keg tap at a party. Had to put it down and let the PNM pick it up, no playing drinking games together, etc], had to be equal or lesser number of sorority women to PNM, etc), but I found that it really did help me to get to know the women outside of tent talk (although there was a lot of that, too). Without this enforced (well, by the chapters) contact, I would never have rushed, and would have missed out on some great friendships and opportunities.

Of course there were infractions, but the only thing I really remember was that my freshman and sophomore year, this one sorority (who ALWAYS dirty rushed and tried to get around the rules) got so many infractions that they got their door songs taken away. Of course, being who they were, they interpreted "no door songs" to mean "it's okay to bring a boombox and play dance music as the PNMs walk in." Letter but not the spirit of the law. Sigh.

[KSUViolet06]

Good to know that my idea is not crazy. lol.

I'm thinking of pitching it to our NPC Delegate at Convention (or someone who's willing to listen lol)

[ASUADPi]

Originally Posted by KSUViolet06

Good to know that my idea is not crazy. lol.

I'm thinking of pitching it to our NPC Delegate at Convention (or someone who's willing to listen lol)

You should, it's a fantastic idea! Every time I talk about my experience I mention, more often, my experiences as an alum, because that is where most of my life of ADPi comes from.

[libelle]

There was a very popular soap actress who had pledged one of the sororities on my campus. So the chapter attained autographed photos, which they mailed to PNMs. Consequences weren't so harsh back then so the chapter was only asked not to do it again.

[tinytina10]

An actual conversation I had with a PNM this past year began with her looking around and surveying the other members and making a comment about our blonde/brunette ratio. I thought it was a bit silly but figured she was just nervous. Then she said “I heard that y’all made new members dye their hair blonde to get initiated” –completely ludicrous!
Swapping stories that night revealed several girls got the same question and it was investigated by Rho Gammas. They were able to track it back to members of another sorority. I don’t remember if it resulted in an infraction (we found it pretty funny and even incorporated it into skit day).
As for infractions in general, the tattling gets ridiculous and there’s plenty of false accusations. Someone mentioned infractions for stepping on the public sidewalk – I don’t know if this was also the case but we couldn’t step into the grass in our own front yard (felt like you were walking a tightrope walking girls out) and you couldn’t sing until you were back inside the house.

[AOEforme]

Our Campus PHA has the chapter(s) involved in infractions write letters of apology to all the other houses on campus. Is this common practice?

On one hand, I like it, but overall I'm not a fan. Most of the letters are really hasty and awful. (Along the lines of "We are sorry we got a rush infraction. We understand why there are rules and are sorry for breaking them".).

In addition, a few of the younger members of our recruitment committee were shocked by the number of letters. It made them think that everyone on campus was dirty rushing. It took us a few weeks to convince them that this was not the case and even longer to convince them that we still weren't allowed to break any rules.

[ErinBee]

Originally Posted by AOEforme

Our Campus PHA has the chapter(s) involved in infractions write letters of apology to all the other houses on campus. Is this common practice?

On one hand, I like it, but overall I'm not a fan. Most of the letters are really hasty and awful. (Along the lines of "We are sorry we got a rush infraction. We understand why there are rules and are sorry for breaking them".).

In addition, a few of the younger members of our recruitment committee were shocked by the number of letters. It made them think that everyone on campus was dirty rushing. It took us a few weeks to convince them that this was not the case and even longer to convince them that we still weren't allowed to break any rules.

For one infraction (out of the gazillion) a member went around to all the houses during chapter and apologized. She literally said those exact same words. It was kind of a joke. I wish I could tell all the infraction stories from the past two years. Dirty rushing has been the cause of way too many tears and problems on my campus.

[Shellfish]

The down side might be that chapters' alumna support can vary, and it's not the fault of the collegiate members.

[AOII Angel]

Originally Posted by Shellfish

The down side might be that chapters' alumna support can vary, and it's not the fault of the collegiate members.

But how you present this part can vary. You don't have to parade a line of alumnae to show that membership has its advantages beyond college. Some chapters may not be excited about showing off the alums they have (I know some superficial groups that don't like their old fat alums showing their faces to PNMs! ) Making a whole day focus on lifetime involvement during recruitment will demonstrate how important the concept is by putting it out in front.

[Alumiyum]

When I was a Recruitment counselor we basically told the chapters that they better damn well avoid turning in bogus or ridiculous infractions. We have a rule that within the town during recruitment sorority members have to have a button on identifying them as greek...obviously, the buttons will occasionally fall off or get left behind and this was the most common waste of time infraction turned in. We just told them it would look better to PNM's if they could muster up some Panhellenic spirit and spend more time recruiting than watching each other.