Alexandra Robbins, Authoress of PLEDGED, said:

[skylark]

Maybe this is more just my own experience with HQ communication, but I have never felt that they were encouraging us to recruit a certain image. Sure, maybe they wanted us to recruit women who had potential leadership qualities and had good grades, but that was the end of it.

Any image-focused drive I think comes more from the PNMs trying to peg the groups into some stereotype in order to pick the right one. I think the advice to the PNMs to keep an open mind is good, but I think that AR's book does more to close minds about sorority life than it does to open minds. I really think that AR should have looked at greek life on a variety of campuses before writing her book, too.

If you ask me, any campus would be better off having someone at www.phiredup.com speak to a campus about changing greek life for the better. Their I Heart Recruitment book is fabulous.

[Axid angel]

Originally Posted by skylark

Maybe this is more just my own experience with HQ communication, but I have never felt that they were encouraging us to recruit a certain image. Sure, maybe they wanted us to recruit women who had potential leadership qualities and had good grades, but that was the end of it.

Any image-focused drive I think comes more from the PNMs trying to peg the groups into some stereotype in order to pick the right one. I think the advice to the PNMs to keep an open mind is good, but I think that AR's book does more to close minds about sorority life than it does to open minds. I really think that AR should have looked at greek life on a variety of campuses before writing her book, too.

If you ask me, any campus would be better off having someone at www.phiredup.com speak to a campus about changing greek life for the better. Their I Heart Recruitment book is fabulous.

i agree, she tells pnms to keep an open mind about all sororities. i think she should practice what she preaches. if she really wanted people to keep an open mind her book would have reflected that, but it didn't.

[icicle22]

Originally Posted by skylark

Maybe this is more just my own experience with HQ communication, but I have never felt that they were encouraging us to recruit a certain image. Sure, maybe they wanted us to recruit women who had potential leadership qualities and had good grades, but that was the end of it.

Any image-focused drive I think comes more from the PNMs trying to peg the groups into some stereotype in order to pick the right one. I think the advice to the PNMs to keep an open mind is good, but I think that AR's book does more to close minds about sorority life than it does to open minds. I really think that AR should have looked at greek life on a variety of campuses before writing her book, too.

If you ask me, any campus would be better off having someone at www.phiredup.com speak to a campus about changing greek life for the better. Their I Heart Recruitment book is fabulous.

I've got to get that book.

[33girl]

Originally Posted by icicle22

I've got to get that book.

Perhaps I'm cynical, but I checked out that site and the main theme seems to be "formal rush isn't everything." Which...you should already know.

[icicle22]

Originally Posted by 33girl

Perhaps I'm cynical, but I checked out that site and the main theme seems to be "formal rush isn't everything." Which...you should already know.

Well I just checked if they had it on Amazon, and they did...with only one review that is.

[33girl]

Just from the blog entries and pages of the books that were available. In other words (I think I'm paraphrasing James here) you shouldn't RUSH, you should truly RECRUIT. It's true, and I realize it may be a big revelation to some chapters, but if it takes a book for chapters to realize that our HQs are really falling down education-wise.

[skylark]

Originally Posted by icicle22

Well I just checked if they had it on Amazon, and they did...with only one review that is.

I should make a disclaimer here... the review on Amazon is from me :-) The book obviously made quite an impression on me at a time I really needed inspiration advising my chapter.

[skylark]

33girl: the website only gives a general synopsis of what is in the book... I honestly wouldn't have bought it either if all I knew was what was on the site. It was someone else who had read the book and gave me some of the advice from it that related to a problem I was having that "sold" me on the book.

And yeah, we all already know formal recruitment isn't everything. The book gives great, concrete ideas for chapters, though. They talk about chapters in every possible situation and give examples of what worked for those chapters. They also give ideas/critiques about why certain techniques for recruitment don't work and why others do. Sometimes you knew something didn't work, but didn't know why and this book helps you to get at what works on your campus.

One of the things in the book that I constantly remind myself of is to concentrate on helping and encouraging the members who are already excited and want to work rather than focusing on trying to motivate the girls who aren't interested and you have to push 5 times as hard and they still do very little. Why waste 5 times the energy? Hopefully, of course, the nonmotivated girls come around when they see how much the sorority is improving, but focusing on them will only set a negative tone.

Basically, I think the book helps you get into the right frame of mind for reevaluating and improving your sorority chapter's current game plan.

[PsychTau2]

Originally Posted by Senusret I

The biggest problem with sororities is their national leadership, which is often out of touch with the personalities of individual women and chapters, Robbins said.

Sorority members should work with their national headquarters to reform the Recruitment process and make sororities less image-focused, she said.

I think this is backwards. Sorority members and HQ should work to educate PNMs and those who don't join to make sororities less image focused (at least the recruitment aspect of things). While we still need to think about what image our group projects to others (let's be honest...some groups actually earn a negative stereotype with their behaviors), I think what continues to drive the image focused recruitment process is the expectations of PNMs and other students. Think about the conversations we have about expansion at Ole Miss...a lot of people believe that it would be very hard for a new chapter to survive there because the PNMs (and their families, to some extent) will refuse to join a "new" chapter with no "history" and "tradition", especially if they don't have a house that compares with or exceeds the other houses. The PNMs seem to be "image-focused", and I don't think we've figured out how to really fight that expectation yet (without spending tons of money doing it).

Once the PNMs join a chapter (any chapter) that offers a quality experience, they fall in love with the experiences they have. Unfortunately, I don't think we've mastered the art of communicating the meaning of those experiences during recruitment. And some of the PNMs haven't figured out how to really grasp that meaning when making a decision (it could be the stage of development that members and PNMs are in, I don't know). Some groups (and campuses) have, and you can tell a difference in how they go about recruitment.

I'm sure there are a lot of our organization leaders who focus on the image of a chapter, but I don't think they do it because they believe that is what is most important. I think they do it because for some campuses it's life and death for a chapter...and if we can keep a chapter open on a campus by competing that way then we have another opportunity to make a positive impact on the lives of women through our values.

Originally Posted by Senusret I

"Don't think about the labels of the house," she said. "Pay close attention to the members you meet and if you feel like they're people you can be friends with."

If I were saying that sentence, I'd say "Pay close attention to the members you meet and if you feel like they're people you can no only be friends with, but who would also encourage and inspire you to become a better person."

PsychTau

[Drolefille]

Originally Posted by 33girl

She was in Scroll & Key which is actually a competing society to Skull & Bones - it couldn't be a "sister" society as the majority of the alums/members are men.

Ah, thanks. I think she did say "sister" society in her book though.

[ChildoftheHorn]

Umm yeah....

I saw her just two days days when she gave a talk at my school.
She had a very rehearsed speech that was dissappointing to those who are from Greek Life and those who are against it.
* I had a rather lovely discussion yesterday with someone who was from the latter group that accused me of being a snoby rich girl THOUGH WE NEVER HAD SPOKEN TO EACH OTHER BEFORE. *
Yeah, the fact that I many girls pay for all their own dues while having part time jobs just didn't click in her mind and her accusations of them just wanting to be snobby rich girls made it more evident that she didn't know what she was talking about.
Rather than getting angry I just agreed to answer her questions (yes, there were freshmen there that were PNM's) and she just kept digging. Who knows why she hated it all so much; I never hated her and still don't.

Alexandra Robbins is just another person putting her spin on a topic. If you watch TV or read the news, it is much the same thing.
If she did pledge or initiate a sorority there is no one that we can be angry at. There are people who have joined orgs. for worse reasons throughout history and good investigative journalists have to put themselves on the inner circle to get a story. I do think that she uses many things out of context and plays things up to be much more than they really are. People need to realize that one quote or one event does not represent a diverse whole.

By being overly citical of her, you are doing nothing more than stooping down or below some of the things that she had said.

Always read something before throwing your opinion out there FYI!

[DDDepsilonalpha]

If I remember correctly from reading Pledged, and granted that Robbins is not lying, she claims to have attended Yale and was a member of a senior society similar to Skull & Bones (a topic on which she authored another "expose"), although she, of course, cannot reveal which one. She did spend time in several sorority houses throughout the writing process, and whatever they chose to disclose to her is at their expense. She did claim to have sat in on chapter meetings too. I have no idea what kind of lax chapters she was with, but this would never fly with mine!

And not to mention she was about 26 at the time she wrote it, but could pass for 17 if she wanted. It really was an interesting book, and not all bad, but she did a lot of things wrong.

[tld221]

Originally Posted by AlwaysSAI

and, of course, that is the one thing I think is missing from the book.

She did not present a wholistic view of greek life. Mainly just NPCs, a few mentions of NPHC, and one or two locals.

But, yes, my experience has been different because both of my orgs don't have a quota and we can take whomever and how many ever of them we want.

NPHC doesnt have quota / total either... so yeah.

[emb021]

Originally Posted by DDDepsilonalpha

If I remember correctly from reading Pledged, and granted that Robbins is not lying, she claims to have attended Yale and was a member of a senior society similar to Skull & Bones (a topic on which she authored another "expose"), although she, of course, cannot reveal which one.

Oh, her!

Robbins wrote an expose of Skull and Bones that was the basis for a documentary on that ran on tv a couple years ago. She even appeared in the documentary. I thought it a bit dishonest of her not to make it clear that she was a member of another Yale secret society in that documentary. She does, I believe, mention this on the book jacket. (didn't read the book, but flipped thru it at a bookstore. believe in the author blurp they put on the dusk jacket wrapped toward the back they mentioned her membership.

She is a member of Scroll and Key, btw.