Who Has Removed Preferential Treatment for Legacies?

[carnation]

Been doing it over here for over 20 years!

[ASTalumna06]

Originally Posted by carnation

Been doing it over here for over 20 years!

Good for you. That doesn't mean that everyone is. And the evidence overwhelmingly shows that they aren't.

But truly, the legacy policy isn't our only issue. And the policy doesn't only hold us back in terms of diversity. If we truly analyze the way we recruit, it's no surprise to me that we can't get women to join our organizations and commit to them for life.

They arrive on campus, go through two weeks of recruitment and a few conversations with members, get a leg up if a certain woman bore them decades prior or someone wrote them a recommendation having never met them before, then are given a bid. And if they don't get a bid in their first year or two of college, we tell them their dream of being in a sorority is dead.

We complain that recruitment is too short and we have to make sharp cuts based on a 30-minute conversation. We complain about angry mothers calling and berating chapters. We complain about our six-week new member period and that these women "don't truly know us" by the end of it. We complain that we have so many members but they all disappear after graduation.

So many of us are missing the big picture. The NPHC figured it out a long time ago. Us NPCs severely limit our recruitment and member-building potential and then wonder why we're not succeeding, which is evident based on hundreds of threads right here on GC.

[carnation]

NPC has most of it right and NPHC has most of it right. Same for NIC. No one is perfect.

What I hate is when people come here and berate sororities, especially Southern ones, for their lack of diversity/lack of reaching out to minorities or first generation college students or whoever. This is WRONG. Women my age from my chapter and others are constantly working behind the scenes trying to help our chapters find the strongest pledge class we can, and race does NOT play a part in it. It doesn't matter!!!

And if we know of a girl who's rushing at a school that doesn't have our chapter, we work to help her find recs to the others, no matter what race she is. I'm a member of one Facebook group that was created especially for that and we are almost ALL Southern.

I am so tired of people saying that we're all rocking on our antebellum mansion porches, trying to keep women of color out of our GLOS. IT IS NOT TRUE!!!!

[ASTalumna06]

Originally Posted by carnation

NPC has most of it right and NPHC has most of it right. Same for NIC. No one is perfect.

Then why do we all come here and complain about the issues I mentioned when we're willing to do nothing to change?

What I hate is when people come here and berate sororities, especially Southern ones, for their lack of diversity/lack of reaching out to minorities or first generation college students or whoever. This is WRONG. Women my age from my chapter and others are constantly working behind the scenes trying to help our chapters find the strongest pledge class we can, and race does NOT play a part in it. It doesn't matter!!!

And if we know of a girl who's rushing at a school that doesn't have our chapter, we work to help her find recs to the others, no matter what race she is. I'm a member of one Facebook group that was created especially for that and we are almost ALL Southern.

I am so tired of people saying that we're all rocking on our antebellum mansion porches, trying to keep women of color out of our GLOS. IT IS NOT TRUE!!!!

Who is saying this? Has anyone specifically been coming down on southern chapters and them only? I must have missed that.

[carnation]

Yes, they have.

[33girl]

Originally Posted by ASTalumna06

Good for you. That doesn't mean that everyone is. And the evidence overwhelmingly shows that they aren't.

But truly, the legacy policy isn't our only issue. And the policy doesn't only hold us back in terms of diversity. If we truly analyze the way we recruit, it's no surprise to me that we can't get women to join our organizations and commit to them for life.

They arrive on campus, go through two weeks of recruitment and a few conversations with members, get a leg up if a certain woman bore them decades prior or someone wrote them a recommendation having never met them before, then are given a bid. And if they don't get a bid in their first year or two of college, we tell them their dream of being in a sorority is dead.

We complain that recruitment is too short and we have to make sharp cuts based on a 30-minute conversation. We complain about angry mothers calling and berating chapters. We complain about our six-week new member period and that these women "don't truly know us" by the end of it. We complain that we have so many members but they all disappear after graduation.

So many of us are missing the big picture. The NPHC figured it out a long time ago. Us NPCs severely limit our recruitment and member-building potential and then wonder why we're not succeeding, which is evident based on hundreds of threads right here on GC.

By the time you join an NPHC group, you’ve spent at the very least moths and more often YEARS focused on that group alone. Obviously you’re going to be more loyal to it as a national entity.

But as far as “lifetime commitment”? If you’re only counting national involvement, maybe my chapter of initiation isn’t doing that hot. But if you’re talking about lifetime friendships, we’ve hit the ball out of the park.

[PersistentDST]

Originally Posted by 33girl

By the time you join an NPHC group, you’ve spent at the very least moths and more often YEARS focused on that group alone. Obviously you’re going to be more loyal to it as a national entity.

But as far as “lifetime commitment”? If you’re only counting national involvement, maybe my chapter of initiation isn’t doing that hot. But if you’re talking about lifetime friendships, we’ve hit the ball out of the park.

I think that the lifelong friendships and sisterhood are absolutely invaluable and if that’s one thing you take from joining, there’s nothing wrong with that. That being said...

...our commitment isn’t as much about loyalty. We have members who are inactive after graduation or even after initiation in an alumnae chapter, that could be considered loyal. Those of us who truly believe in our lifetime commitment’s understand that there is work to be done. There are people that need to be registered to vote, there is social action initiatives that need support and there is community service that needs to be done. Our undergraduate chapters and graduate chapters have the same missions and still have the same type of activities, even from a social standpoint, which makes it a bit easier to transition.

[33girl]

Originally Posted by PersistentDST

Our undergraduate chapters and graduate chapters have the same missions and still have the same type of activities, even from a social standpoint, which makes it a bit easier to transition.

This is a HUGE thing to consider. Many NPC alumnae go from a jam packed calendar where every day had something sorority related (not to mention living with your sisters) to a monthly meeting, if that. This isn’t everyone’s experience but it varies to such a degree that trying to give women a clear and consistent picture of alumnae involvement is impossible.