1990 Retro Recruitment/Affiliation - LIONS & TIGERS & BEARS, Oh my!!!

[jenidallas]

After dinner I checked my mailbox as instructed and found a white envelope inviting me to a top secret off-campus party that night. With all the fraternity rush parties going on, maybe this was for them? But I felt weird about this being so hush-hush (isn't that how hazing happens?!) and I didn’t have a car so I wasn’t sure what to do. My roommate got the same invitation as did one of the cheerleaders. The other cheerleader did not get invited but we told her to come with us anyway and decided it was worth driving to go see what this was about.

We got to an off campus apartment about 9 pm to find a party full of various guys we knew and a few of the members of Tigers along with a bunch of other women I did not know. Of course, silence was still in effect and they were doing that same talking near us but not with us thing. In addition to the four of us, there were two upperclasswomen rushees (including the one who was so rude to the Bears on day one) and a few of the rushees from the all-girls dorm who had said they were a “package deal”.

One of the girls there (I didn’t recognize her and had not seen her at any of the sorority events) very loudly asked one of the guys why someone would come who was not invited. The cheerleader who wasn’t invited ran out of the apartment thinking they were talking about her. The girl then laughed and said “I wasn’t talking about her” and then pointed to another girl – the one who lived down the hall from us. I found out later than only a few of us were invited and it seemed to me to be like some kind of test to see if we would follow instructions or something. In any case, the men as well as the women I didn’t recognize were all drinking and my friends and I decided to leave as it seemed like an uncomfortable situation. Technically based on the rules of how the rush rules were written I don’t think they broke a campus rule but it still seemed like dirty rushing and inappropriate for the night before Preference. (I also found out also that night that there were a couple other similar parties and that it was a campus norm back then – other chapters were also involved, not that it made it okay – some people got invited to more than one party as we found out from other girls as we were leaving the one we had been at - they were coming from a party with Lions.)

I didn’t sleep well as I was so conflicted… was Bears the sorority I met or a chapter on another campus? What should I do about being a legacy? Did Lions not inviting me to their secret party mean they didn’t like me at all? Were Tigers great girls or rule-breakers? What was going to happen if my clique ended up in different houses?