Joining another sorority after 2 years

[LAblondeGPhi]

Actually, I don't mind the "babies" thing that much. In some contexts, I use/understand the term baby to refer to anything petite or particularly adorable. I mean, think about the slang that small groups of women create when they spend time around one another... there's always a word du jour or random abbreviation du jour (awk, obvies, presh).

Originally Posted by 33girl

The fact is...pledges AREN'T members. If they were, someone couldn't depledge and join another group a year later. It would violate NPC rules. Until you take that initiation oath, you are part of the chapter - just as I would say non-member advisors and sweethearts are part of the chapter - but you are not an actual member.

I do like this point a lot. We refer to them as "new members" and the "new member period", but you're right -they're not really members yet. They're more like probationary members or aspiring members.

Then we bend over backward to not do anything that treats them differently than any other member, sometimes the point of absurdity. We can educate them in a little meeting, but we can't really put any responsibility on them to learn about the organization or sisters. We ask sisters to do more during the two weeks around recruitment than we ask new members to do in their entire new member period.

[MaryPoppins]

33girl,HQWest, aggiegphi, & WCSweet<3, you are all so on point here ^^^ I want to weep in support.

[carnation]

Originally Posted by MaryPoppins

33girl,HQWest, aggiegphi, & WCSweet<3, you are all so on point here ^^^ I want to weep in support.

Weeping in support here.

[Psi U MC Vito]

(3) Be mutually exclusive of and in competition with other general fraternities, meaning that no member fraternity shall initiate a member of another fraternity until such time as the second fraternity shall have been formally notified in writing by the national office of the first fraternity that a candidate for membership in the second fraternity is no longer regarded as a member of the fraternity.

So I'm not sure if the second I/HQ needs to be informed, but the first is definitely involved per the NIC bylaws.

[MysticCat]

Originally Posted by Psi U MC Vito

So I'm not sure if the second I/HQ needs to be informed, but the first is definitely involved per the NIC bylaws.

Yeah, I know I'm out of my lane, but if I recall correctly, NIC rules say that a guy who was already initiated into Fraternity ABC can only be initiated into Fraternity DEF if ABC HQ informs DEF HQ in writing that the guy is no longer a member of ABC.

[knight_shadow]

^^ I don't often hear NPC women sharing that mindset, but I completely agree.

[jazing]

Why can't they just call pledges "pledges"? Fraternities have no issue with this. Is NPC the one giving this PC order to call them "baby [whatevers]" or new members?

[WCsweet<3]

Originally Posted by jazing

Why can't they just call pledges "pledges"? Fraternities have no issue with this. Is NPC the one giving this PC order to call them "baby [whatevers]" or new members?

My nationals told us to never call our new members "babies" as it could be deemed as hazing... somehow. I believe the switch to "new members" over "pledges" was NPC, however that was before my time so another member could answer with more confidence.

[33girl]

Originally Posted by KSUViolet06

They may not be full fledged members, but I don't think they're babies either. That's my issue with it. It's dumb and condescending. Not to mention that your NM might be 21 years old and older than the people calling her a baby.

I agree it's dumb and condescending, but the blog post I read (it was the Alpha Phi one) was against it because it "differentiated" them as well. I'm not against a name for pledges that differentiates them, because they ARE different. I'm against "baby" because it is stupid. I would have zero issue with a name that makes sense for the sorority (which for us, pearls does) but the problem is, you can't apply those across the board. If I say to someone "I'm a Pearl" or "I'm an Alpha" (for ADPI) they may not know what I'm talking about. So "baby whatevers" becomes the defacto term...since...

Originally Posted by Old_Row

Calling new members baby whatevers is subtle hazing? It's the PC crap that prohibits members from using terms like pledge that created the environment where women now feel the need to come up with stupid cutesy names.

I'm from a very non-cutesy campus. The ZTAs were pushing it with the bunny stuff everywhere, let me tell you. I can't imagine us all running around calling each other babies, but I look on the sorority FB pages from my alma mater, and there the girls are, doing it. As I said before I think this is a generational thing in that this generation seems to have a higher "cutesy tolerance" than mine did...but the fact is...if we could still call them "pledges" it probably wouldn't be happening.

Originally Posted by jazing

Why can't they just call pledges "pledges"? Fraternities have no issue with this. Is NPC the one giving this PC order to call them "baby [whatevers]" or new members?

Because it has been decreed by the NPC PC police that "pledge" can be used in a demeaning manner and sets them apart. NPC doesn't like "baby whatevers" either, it wants them to all be called "new members." Which is a misnomer, as I stated above.

Basically NPC freaked out because numbers were in the toilet in the 90s and decided to make it sound "not so hard" to get in/be in/stay in a sorority.

[Psi U MC Vito]

Originally Posted by jazing

Why can't they just call pledges "pledges"? Fraternities have no issue with this. Is NPC the one giving this PC order to call them "baby [whatevers]" or new members?

Actually there is at least one NIC fraternity that calls them officially New Members. Unoffically is another story of course. And slight tangent, I remember being confused as hell when a sorority woman asked if I was a New Member during a mixer. "um.. I'm a pledge.."

[jazing]

Originally Posted by Psi U MC Vito

Actually there is at least one NIC fraternity that calls them officially New Members. Unoffically is another story of course. And slight tangent, I remember being confused as hell when a sorority woman asked if I was a New Member during a mixer. "um.. I'm a pledge.."

Now that you bring this up, I know some fraternities have names for them, like Phi Delt has Phikeia. I only know of that one cause they are on the same campus as I'm on. I'm sure others have a similar trend as well. Some go a step further (ZBT, Sig Ep, Lambda Chi) and don't even call them pledges at all, but new members. I don't know if they know ritual stuff cause it's not my business though.

[DubaiSis]

If all of this came about as a result of a drop in membership in the 90's, well they fixed that problem, and maybe it's time for a little normalization. Add 1-2 weeks to the pledge period, go back to calling them pledges, ask chapters to tone down (not eliminate) the gifts, have a test. None of that is a severe change but might subtly give some control back to the actives and the chapter.

[ZTAOnlytheBest]

Another thing about the gifts is that it puts a pretty big financial burden on the members that isn't really necessary. I've heard of people spending hundreds of dollars on gifts for their little. Not everyone can do that.

[AnchorAlumna]

I was raising a couple of kids in the 1980s and 1990s and wasn't very active (add the fact that I was 3 hours away from the closest collegiate chapter, and the alum group in our area had maybe 3 active members), but I believe the pressure to reduce the number of weeks in the NM period came from the universities, not the NPC.
From what I've been told, this was a push all over the country - an idea on one or two campi that spread - to shorten both fraternity AND sorority pledge periods.
I think the current 6 weeks (often pushed to 8) is just too short a time to learn enough about how the fraternity/sorority operates, history, policies. Making your grades also used to be a powerful motivator and a way to jettison those whose priorities were not, shall we say, academic.

[carnation]

I wish we all waited a semester to initiate. Props to Chi O for standing their ground!