Your thoughts on AI: discussion goes here.

[PenguinTrax]

If you get personal or rude, you get voted off the island.

[BetteDavisEyes]

O.K. I've kept quiet long enough. Mostly it's been amusing for me to read the back and forth banter that's been going on.

Frankly, I don't care much for A.I. I know a few that are the exception and even was initiated with one. I think that there are far too many women that see AI as their opportunity to OMG! I'm a sorority girl! I get to know ritual! That's just stupid and wrong. To join a GLO as an AI, there should be perfectly valid reasons as to why she wants to join. Personally, the harder the requirements for AI, the better. If a woman really wants in, then she'll have no problem with the waiting. If the process is too easy, we may as well just start handing out flyers in the street for people to come AI into our GLO's.

[adpiucf]

I am for AI if the sorority approaches the prospect, and not the other way around. I am for AI members being treated as our sisters-in-full.

I am not for AI as recruitment until my Grand Council states otherwise.

I am not for an AI subforum until AI becomes Alumnae Recruitment.

NPC AI is not recruitment and should not be "pursued."

[BaylorBean]

Originally Posted by adpiucf

I am for AI if the sorority approaches the prospect, and not the other way around. I am for AI as our sisters-in-full.

I am not for AI as recruitment until my Grand Council states otherwise.

I am not for an AI subforum until AI becomes Alumnae Recruitment.

NPC AI is not recruitment and should not be "pursued."

I agree 100% I think when it comes to AI we NPCers can take some lessons from the NPHCers. Many of the things we are saying about AI and how the organization should approach you or you should have a "bond" with a certain organization to me sounds exactly like how the D9 get their members. It is not a free for all for anyone who like my sister said "OMG! I'm a sorority girl! I get to know ritual!"

[Honeykiss1974]

Originally Posted by BaylorBean

I agree 100% I think when it comes to AI we NPCers can take some lessons from the NPHCers. Many of the things we are saying about AI and how the organization should approach you or you should have a "bond" with a certain organization to me sounds exactly like how the D9 get their members. It is not a free for all for anyone who like my sister said "OMG! I'm a sorority girl! I get to know ritual!"

If you are going to follow the D9 forum rules, then you shouold also get rid of the Recruitment forum too. Even there, undergrad membership questions are not welcomed either.

[adpiucf]

NPC Undergraduate recruitment IS sorority shopping and is acceptable as such in its current form. Our organizations' primary mission is collegiate programming.

Our reason for recommending the closing of an AI forum is that AI membership intake is more similiar in its quiet promotion as the D9 membership intake. There are a lot of NPC members who don't approve of AI at all, and the vast majority of sorority women don't even know what AI is. This isn't saying AI is a bad thing-- it is that our organizations have not promoted it heavily b/c they want to keep the membership intake of alumnae initiates low for quality control purposes. AI's don't have a new member period of testing the waters like an undergraduate. An AI, once initiated, isn't bound by regular obligations ensuring that we'll get our "money's worth" from investing in them as a member. They can easily fade away into the woodwork once initiated with no further obligations, unlike a collegian who must maintain membership requirements to retain her status.

AI isn't the same as undergraduate recruitment, just as alumnae membership is worlds away from collegiate membership.

ETA: To the current AI's on GC, I don't care if you sorority shopped or not. You're our sisters now and that's all that matters. I do have a problem with promoting the notion of sorority shopping or promoting the idea that sororities are holding open enrollment options for alumnae members. We simply don't do that and alumnae membership is not at the point where its programming would support such an influx of members. The internet makes it a lot harder for PNAI's b/c if you ARE sorority shopping, it's very easy to let that slip on the internet and make your experience IRL a lot harder.

[33girl]

Originally Posted by Honeykiss1974

If you are going to follow the D9 forum rules, then you shouold also get rid of the Recruitment forum too. Even there, undergrad membership questions are not welcomed either.

I think the reason the undergrad rush questions are OK is because all the sororities are together, rushing, during formal rush. i.e. We see what each other is doing IRL, so it's not so bad on here.

Whereas you would never see the 4 NPHC groups all getting together in a room and having a round robin sort of thing. (At least I didn't think so)

[sdsuchelle]

Originally Posted by adpiucf

I am for AI if the sorority approaches the prospect, and not the other way around. I am for AI members being treated as our sisters-in-full.

I am not for AI as recruitment until my Grand Council states otherwise.

I am not for an AI subforum until AI becomes Alumnae Recruitment.

NPC AI is not recruitment and should not be "pursued."

AGREED.

[SmartBlondeGPhB]

What is the point of these threads? I would have expected them from other people but not you.

[tunatartare]

Originally Posted by SmartBlondeGPhB

What is the point of these threads? I would have expected them from other people but not you.

To try to make it seem like moderators encourage people to have opinions and don't play favorites.

[PenguinTrax]

Originally Posted by KLPDaisy

To try to make it seem like moderators encourage people to have opinions and don't play favorites.

You know, the whole thing with playing favorites is really getting on my nerves.

I don't play favorites. I'm 43 freakin' years old and I don't play those kinds of games. I don't need to.

I moderate a forum as I've always done (without complaint, I might add) and I'm wrong.

I try to make a venue for open, opinionated discussion and it's condemed or determined to be some 'trick' to get folks to post just so I can delete the posts.

[valkyrie]

I'll put it like this -- there is no reason for the membership selection process to be discussed in a public internet forum. The AI process is membership selection. Therefore, it should not be discussed on a public internet forum.

I do think that NPC recruitment threads are a little different, because it's such a structured, formal process -- although, as always, discretion is key.

[OtterXO]

Originally Posted by valkyrie

I'll put it like this -- there is no reason for the membership selection process to be discussed in a public internet forum. The AI process is membership selection. Therefore, it should not be discussed on a public internet forum.

I do think that NPC recruitment threads are a little different, because it's such a structured, formal process -- although, as always, discretion is key.

Especially when people are discussing which orgs readily accept AIs and which ones are harder to AI. I see those questions as very similar to asking which NPC sorority has lax rules on membership during recruitment. It's just not for public discussion.

[Taualumna]

As all of you probably know, I am an AI. Some of you might even say that I "sorority shopped." I didn't know what I was supposed to do. Neither did PH. I went through round one of formal just like undergrads. I was told by a RC that if I was interested in anything sorority related, then I should contact alumnae groups myself. I don't think this should make me a bad person.

[blueGBI]

I'm not in a sorority but I've been on GC for 4 years and this is my opinion on the AI subforum and AI itself:

In my opinion, AI was created as a way for NPC sororities to initiate worthy women who were either housemothers, members of an absorbed local or had very strong ties to the organization (i.e. unaffliated mother of daughters in the sorority). Since I've been here, I've seen women become AIs to a NPC sorority who in some cases, were approached by the organization to join, others who looked around first then AI'd a sorority. Because it was newer forum, the rules were still being formed and it seemed like anyone could join. Since it's the internet and you can cover up certain aspects of your personality and present a more polished face, some women joined organizations in AI and then, after being members, people realized that these women should have been weeded out before being invited to join. Also, there were women coming to GC who had no prior connections nor were never invited to consider AI trying to join through AI with no idea of what sorority they really wanted or the protocol. The AI forum became a complete mess.

Recently, some of the NPC sororities have made AI information less readily available because all that was going on. There are still women now who are joining through AI but its not like how it was in 2003-2004.

AI is an evolving process but I think for right now, AI as we know it on GC and this forum need to be closed. As long as this forum is here, there will be women who'll stumble on GC, see this forum and think that they can join as an alumna like you'd join a sorority in college. It breeds problems of false information going around, people giving bad advice, etc until ultimately, the PNAM ends up with either a broken heart or bitter because they wasted their time on something that probably only had a 0.5% chance of working.

AI belongs to the sororities and at the sororities' discretion. There should not be an AI forum on GC. If someone will become an AI, the sorority will come to them, they won't have to come to the sorority.