Releasing all Pledges

[FSUZeta]

Originally Posted by SuzyInMD

I have compassion for the undergraduate chapter members, my opinion was about the National organization, not the undergraduate chapter. My understanding from my daughter and messages parents have posted on social media, is the undergraduate chapter members were not aware of its status with the National organization. Yes, my heart also breaks for the current undergraduates.

I call foul that they had no idea they were in a precarious position. Nationals lose money when they have to close chapters and ordinarily, when a chapter is closed, Nationals has previously sent leadership consultants, regional, and national officers to lend a hand and offer guidance. Goals and deadlines are set. There is also correspondence from Nationals to the chapter, so if this did not happen with this chapter, unless this was a serious risk management issue, which is the only incident that might get a chapter closed down without notice, I don’t think you or your daughter have gotten the whole story.

[SuzyInMD]

Originally Posted by FSUZeta

I call foul that they had no idea they were in a precarious position. Nationals lose money when they have to close chapters and ordinarily, when a chapter is closed, Nationals has previously sent leadership consultants, regional, and national officers to lend a hand and offer guidance. Goals and deadlines are set. There is also correspondence from Nationals to the chapter, so if this did not happen with this chapter, unless this was a serious risk management issue, which is the only incident that might get a chapter closed down without notice, I don’t think you or your daughter have gotten the whole story.

I am sure I don't have the whole story. However, if the chapter was aware of its situation, that bolsters the point I made in my original post. Why were bids extended, then the new members released two weeks later? Weren't National and chapter advisors looking at the numbers during rush if the chapter's situation was that precarious? The timing prevented the new members from receiving bids from other chapters, receiving snap bids and participating in COB which most chapters had completed by the time the new members were informed they were being released. I understand closing a chapter is painful for the active members, but the timing negatively impacted the 25 new members. It was not a risk management issue.

[carnation]

I get the impression that many of the girls only had Alpha Alpha left anyway, which means they would have been bidless had AA not participated.

I don't know how much the AA chapter knew about their situation. Nationals could have come in there with all kinds of physical and other help and maybe AA thought, "We can do this!" But it didn't happen and Nationals looked at the bottom line and said it wasn't going to work.

One good thing was that they released all the girls before initiation. It would have been horrible if they had kept them until then, knowing that they then wouldn't have had other options. In no way should the other groups been forced to pledge the newly released girls, though, especially if they had been cut by the other groups already.