My undergrad university banned Greek Life back in the early part of the 20th century, blaming it too exclusive and having association outside of the school (weird thing is that Queen's has a Link unit, which is aimed at university aged women, affiliated with Girl Guides of Canada. I guess that's a different story). Anyway, once I finished my BA and had accepted my offer for graduate school at U of T, I started to think about things that I could have done as an undergrad, but didn't. GLOs were part of this. Another issue was that master's program I was in had mostly students who were much older than myself, people who were working full time, studying part time, married with school aged kids. I just needed to connect with people around my age. So, around the middle of August 2002, I started emailing TAAP (Toronto Area Alumnae Panhellenic) and asked them which organizations intiated alumnae. (Looked at the profiles of each of the 7 NPC organizations at U of T as well.) I guess they were new to this whole AI thing because they asked me to come to Formal Recruitment. I went through house tours, just like the undergrads, so I could have a feel of what each house was like. I asked questions about each house's policy on alumnae as well. They called me the next day to tell me that I was unable to continue with FR since I'm alum, and that I should contact the organizations that I was interested in. So off I emailed a few organizations. AGD was the most enthusiastic and gave me the most info. Very helpful too!
Within a month or so of contacting AGD, I set up a meeting with the alum president. She told me that I could be initiated by the spring. We emailed back and forth a few times, and I met a few Junior Circle aged alum.
The holidays came and went. Around February, I sent the alum president an email once again regarding the initiation date. She quoted me the date, which turned out to be bad for me as I was to be out of town, attending a kid's Bar Mitzvah. This was why I wasn't able to be initiated until the fall. By the time the 2003 school year rolled around, I was ready. I was counting down the days until initiation, and also met this year's New Member class, since I was to be initiated the same night. So a few weeks before initiation, I received my invitation to initiate, and promptly said that I was. I was totally ready. Initiation night came, and the ceremony was BEAUTIFUL!!! It was great!!
Interesting note somewhat related to AGD: My undergrad university had a lot of squirrells running around campus. I'm beginning to wonder if that was a sign for me to join AGD!!!
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