What’s it like to be in a Huge Chapter?

[33girl]

Doesn't Auburn have dorm suites? I assume for this discussion we're classifying that as "unhoused."

[gee_ess]

As an alumna/advisor from a large SEC chapter (Univ of Arkansas) and a mother of two daughters who were active in the past 5 years, I can tell you that dealing with the issues of a 'super size' chapter can be difficult. Like many things, though, once you get used to it, it becomes 'how we've always done it' and just 'what we do.' And just like other smaller chapters, the girls in the chapter think their chapter is the greatest thing since sliced bread.

It helps that all chapters on campus are in the same predicament (all houses this fall took a quota of/or around 135) The entire chapter is at the 325 mark. (the good news is that we are adding two groups this fall!)

Big issues - getting your national people to realize your chapter requires some flexibility in following hardline mandates. For example, my biggest beef, initiation. The 6 week new member period puts added pressure on the pledge class and the members to bond, find big sisters, etc. How do 130+ girls get to know each other in such a short time? How do the members get to know them? PLUS, the biggie, scheduling initiation around big campus events (SEC football, hello!) is a near impossibility. Any requests that have been made to extend the new member period by two weeks (to get closer to Thanksgiving and away from football season) have been refused. This small step would make a huge difference for a large chapter like ours. Even making some minor adjustments in the initiation ceremony would help but that has not been allowed either. (I am sure you can imagine how very, very tough it is to get through all of the initiation ritual in a timely fashion.)

With regard to finding ways for the girls to get to know each other, the chapter came up with a great idea (and one I believe was also done at other houses). In addition to the regular new member meetings, the new member chair chose Owl Leaders to function as mentors and small group leaders. The pledge class was then divided into small groups of 12 or so. Each week the Owl Leaders held an event/activity for a different small group. The members of the small groups also changed each week allowing the new members to get to know a different group from their class each week. They went bowling, ate pizza, made sundaes, hung out at a members apt and watched movies, etc. This really worked well.

I think retention is not as big of a problem as you would think. In fact, in percentages, it is probably only slightly higher than a chapter about half its size. Even when I pledged, and the whole chapter was about 125, we still lost a girl or two or three each year.

I could expound on many facets of this size chapter - and I might end up sounding negative - so I won't continue because that would not be fair to these wonderful chapters. Suffice it to say, that this size chapter is her own special breed!

BUT...I do want to stress that the sisterhood, the funny memories, the camaraderie, etc are all still there. Sure, not everyone saw the house mom back her car into the dumpster and all the trash fell on her car, but you heard about it, it's your house, she's your house mom, and pretty soon you are re-telling it like you were right there!

[33girl]

Originally Posted by gee_ess

Big issues - getting your national people to realize your chapter requires some flexibility in following hardline mandates. For example, my biggest beef, initiation. The 6 week new member period puts added pressure on the pledge class and the members to bond, find big sisters, etc. How do 130+ girls get to know each other in such a short time? How do the members get to know them? PLUS, the biggie, scheduling initiation around big campus events (SEC football, hello!) is a near impossibility. Any requests that have been made to extend the new member period by two weeks (to get closer to Thanksgiving and away from football season) have been refused. This small step would make a huge difference for a large chapter like ours. Even making some minor adjustments in the initiation ceremony would help but that has not been allowed either. (I am sure you can imagine how very, very tough it is to get through all of the initiation ritual in a timely fashion.)

Have you all (i.e. the Arkansas Panhel you all) thought of asking the school to be the "bad guy"? That is, asking them to request that groups not schedule major events like initiation during football season. I'm sure they could come up with some BS excuse as to why that would sound good and would take the pressure off.

[DubaiSis]

And by the way, I didn't take your "rant" as negative. It was interesting to hear the challenges that most chapters don't think of. I'm chuckling to myself thinking of back at my initiation when we held it in the middle of the night. But you'd either have to start before dark or end after sunrise! But most of our stuff that was time consuming was chapter specific and went away when initiation had to happen during daylight hours.

I can appreciate the various nationals wanting to stick to a fixed system, but when you are talking 5 times larger pledge classes than the national average (I'm guessing a national average of around 30, but it's probably closer to 20), I think some accommodation can be made. 6 weeks plus 1 week for every 20th new member beyond 50? That seems fair and something they can stick to without worrying about hazing or slowly edging back to semester long pledge periods.

It will be interesting to see how it goes at Arkansas when your pledge classes start to shrink back down again and how the shrinking pains go. And is anyone guessing 2 more chapters come on in 2014 or 15?

[gee_ess]

Dubais and 33 -

You both bring up good suggestions! I cannot speak for Panhell - I think they are busy with their own issues to take on anymore. We only recently (within the past 5 years) managed to get them to do away with compounding, yes COMPOUNDING, fines that were levied against sorority members who had active PNM Facebook friends during recruitment. That could mean that one girl(or in KKgs case, the house) could accumulate several thousand dollars in fines for EACH GIRL. Thankfully, that rule was thrown out - but not before it had been in place for about three years.

Truthfully, AR Panhell really does 'get it' with regard to these large houses. They work well with the groups and everyone helps each other. For example, it has been an all out effort to bring new groups on campus. Every house on campus wanted this, begged for this. I can only hope we work to bring another one or two on soon. We had 5 present and two were chosen, so others are willing to come on despite the cost.

The national people? Well, I really don't think they do 'get it' as much as those who are dealing with it daily. I am not implying that they don't care. It is just a hard thing to wrap your mind around if you don't work with it all the time. Again, to be fair, I do think the chokehold is loosening some, and as I write this, I can acknowledge that possibly national experienced the same growing pains that we did and are now working to adjust.

With regard to any 'shrinking pains,' I don't think we will really have any to speak of. The growing happened to quickly that we can drop down with ease. My oldest pledged in '06 - had 75 in her class. My youngest pledged in '09 with 95. And this class of '11 had 135. So, if we just dropped to the '09 number, it would be a breath of fresh air.

[HQWest]

Originally Posted by gee_ess

Dubais and 33 -

You both bring up good suggestions! I cannot speak for Panhell - I think they are busy with their own issues to take on anymore. We only recently (within the past 5 years) managed to get them to do away with compounding, yes COMPOUNDING, fines that were levied against sorority members who had active PNM Facebook friends during recruitment. That could mean that one girl(or in KKgs case, the house) could accumulate several thousand dollars in fines for EACH GIRL. Thankfully, that rule was thrown out - but not before it had been in place for about three years.

Truthfully, AR Panhell really does 'get it' with regard to these large houses. They work well with the groups and everyone helps each other. For example, it has been an all out effort to bring new groups on campus. Every house on campus wanted this, begged for this. I can only hope we work to bring another one or two on soon. We had 5 present and two were chosen, so others are willing to come on despite the cost.

The national people? Well, I really don't think they do 'get it' as much as those who are dealing with it daily. I am not implying that they don't care. It is just a hard thing to wrap your mind around if you don't work with it all the time. Again, to be fair, I do think the chokehold is loosening some, and as I write this, I can acknowledge that possibly national experienced the same growing pains that we did and are now working to adjust.

With regard to any 'shrinking pains,' I don't think we will really have any to speak of. The growing happened to quickly that we can drop down with ease. My oldest pledged in '06 - had 75 in her class. My youngest pledged in '09 with 95. And this class of '11 had 135. So, if we just dropped to the '09 number, it would be a breath of fresh air.

Could you do initiation like graduation? Inspiration together Monday, Liberal Arts majors initiation Tuesday and Science/Engineering majors Wednesday? Bigs go on the day their little is initiating and everyone else could sign up for one day or the other? Fancy celebration Dinner Wednesday night at the house? It would mean more work for the Rituals chair and girls with speaking parts, but it would make it easier to find a location.

[HQWest]

I don't even think of 65 a pledge class as huge anymore but I guess it is.... : P

[gee_ess]

Originally Posted by HQWest

Could you do initiation like graduation? Inspiration together Monday, Liberal Arts majors initiation Tuesday and Science/Engineering majors Wednesday? Bigs go on the day their little is initiating and everyone else could sign up for one day or the other? Fancy celebration Dinner Wednesday night at the house? It would mean more work for the Rituals chair and girls with speaking parts, but it would make it easier to find a location.

A good idea, but probably wouldn't work because that would create problems for the part of ritual that involves alumnae participation.

They made some adjustments this year that helped but it is still, as you can imagine, an exhausting experience. I have sworn off attending any initiations after participating for my two daughters! It's just too much for this old woman!

[KSUViolet06]

^^^One of our VERY large chapters (NM class in the low 80s) has two initiations going at the same time in separate rooms. Is that something you can do?

[gee_ess]

Without going into too much detail, a variation of that is actually what they asked for a few years back and were denied. This year, they broke it into shifts but nothing happened simultaneously. Again, I do think National is easing up a bit, but I am sure they see themselves as(national) are also fighting for the integrity of the ritual as well.

[Psi U MC Vito]

*shudders at thought of trying to initiate 135 guys* That would take forever.

[HQWest]

Originally Posted by gee_ess

Without going into too much detail, a variation of that is actually what they asked for a few years back and were denied. This year, they broke it into shifts but nothing happened simultaneously. Again, I do think National is easing up a bit, but I am sure they see themselves as(national) are also fighting for the integrity of the ritual as well.

Maybe you are asking the wrong question. If initiation is longer than 3 hours - would that be hazing? What if it required them to stand for 2 hours?

[gee_ess]

^^^Interesting point.

[33girl]

Originally Posted by HQWest

Maybe you are asking the wrong question. If initiation is longer than 3 hours - would that be hazing? What if it required them to stand for 2 hours?

From what I've gleaned on this board, there are groups who have looooooong initiations even if they have a pledge class of 5 people - so you really can't say it's hazing just because your initiation is long. I'm thinking that as far as altering the ceremony, they are afraid of in for a buck, in for a quarter...not to mention other chapters saying "well Arkansas gets to do blah blah, we should too."

[DubaiSis]

Originally Posted by 33girl

From what I've gleaned on this board, there are groups who have looooooong initiations even if they have a pledge class of 5 people - so you really can't say it's hazing just because your initiation is long. I'm thinking that as far as altering the ceremony, they are afraid of in for a buck, in for a quarter...not to mention other chapters saying "well Arkansas gets to do blah blah, we should too."

Well, getting all the hovercrafts and sequined cat suits all up and running takes time!