GLOs a 4-year commitment?

[33girl]

Originally posted by TSteven
IAnd if there is a significant number of pledges who either end up de-pledging or being expelled due to standard issues, then perhaps the GLO needs to address their recruitment process.

I don't think this is the issue at all...we're talking about people who just drop out because they're tired of being Greek, not those who are forcibly expelled.

[LionTamer]

When I was at Penn State, almost everyone rushed as sophomores, and retention was excellent all the way through to the end of senior year. Our sorority had most of its members living on the sorority floor; on one hand you're right there for everything - not a big deal to go downstairs for a meeting in the suite. On the other hand, it can be stifling and way too gossipy (a good reason for requesting a room next to the stairway)

My friend who was a DG lived off-campus, and admits to having been a dreadful member - racked up tons of fines or demerits or whatever they do for not attending mandatory stuff.

Most of us couldn't run for anything until we were at the end of sophomore year, so a lot of us held offices as seniors, which also helped retention.

In a lot of majors at that time, Junior year was brutal, and Senior year held a lot more "play time". It was actually harder to concentrate of membership Junior year.

I still love my sorority, but to be honest, I was really ready to leave school and ASA/the Greek system and move on by the end of senior year. I'm not sure I could have dealt with 4 years. I glad I had the 1st year to make friends outside the system, since I've remained close friends with both my freshman year dorm-mates AND the ASAs who live in this corner of the state.

[TSteven]

Perhaps I was not clear. Still new here.

I agree that the main issue is about retention and not those members who are forcibly expelled.

However, many of the posts have to do with members being expelled or not making grades etc. And if that is happening a lot, (I'll let y'all define "a lot" for yourselves) then - dare I say - the *quality* of the members might need to be address. Along with issues such as burn out and transfers and those getting married.

Perhaps, these may be simple cases of GLOs taking members just to get the numbers. And why a few wrote about "paper" members. Those members that are on the rolls but not *really* active.

[Peaches-n-Cream]

My pledge class of eight had one senior, three juniors, one sophomore, and three freshman. We were all active as long as we were in school. One sister went abroad so she was inactive during that time.

As a freshman I remember a few inactive juniors and seniors. One was engaged. Some were nursing majors which was a legitimate reason since it was like having a full time job. A few just weren't into it. It was easy to decipher who they were by their absence at events.

In the pledge classes following mine, I saw three sisters go inactive. One had family financial problems. One dropped out or transferred. One just never attended events and disappeared. We allowed a sister to 'go inactive' if she had a course load of over 18 credits, an internship, a job which took up at least 30 hours a week, or some type of extenuating circumstances. They had to attend half of mandatory events of their choosing without feeling pressure that could be overwhelming and ultimately sour them on sorority life. I think this flexibility encouraged sisters to remain involved without risking their membership. This status could only last for one semester.

[TSteven]

I think we are all talking about members who just drop their GLO for "no good reason" and not members who go inactive because of *legitimate* reasons. Those who basically have no desire to remain active.

For example, a member who pledged, had a few good years, and now is *tired* of the commitment.

[aephi alum]

Originally posted by DGMarie
For those of you who are seniors or who have graduated recently, do you feel that you knew where to go or who to contact regarding alumnae chapters after graduation?

Absolutely not.

IMO, AEPhi does a poor job of handling the active-to-alumna transition (or at least, they did when I was making that transition). We had a few alums come in to do our Temple Degree, and that was pretty much it. No info on alum chapters, no contact from the Boston alum chapter (there must be one!), nada.

I didn't join an alum chapter when I graduated, and I still haven't. At the time it was because I had no clue who to contact. Now, it's more because I don't have the time.

ok, </hijack>

[James]

Are you advocating committment in the face of irrelevancy?

People join GLO's because they meet a perceived need. They stay as long as those needs are met.

The lament is usually, where are our seniors? Where have they gone?

The reality is that we are social organizations but our social programming is mostly geared towards Freshmen and Sophomores.

In fact most social chairs of my acquaintance are usually sophomores or juniors and its a stepping stone position for the exec board.

I believe that in order to hold more interest we need to revamp our social officers and make the position more of a "cruise director" where they are programming in a way that meets the needs of almost every group in the chapter.

Some schools of course are lucky, there is such pressure and its so much a part of their identity to stay active in the group that retention is a breeze.

[pinkyphimu]

Originally posted by aephi alum
No info on alum chapters, no contact from the Boston alum chapter (there must be one!), nada.

so here is a total hijack...... i am not sure when you graduated, but there isn't an alum group here for aephi. you have rep on the boston aph, but she said there are about 4 people who are "involved" with aephi in the area. not to justify the no contact or anything.


ok, i knew about alum groups bc we had some alums active with my chapter, not because of the info i received from national. we got a little welcome to alumnae life packet either right before or right after i graduated. i never looked at it. i was so bogged down with finding a job, etc, that it was something that got packed when i moved to mass. i did want to get involved, so i contacted national to get info. it took about 3 months, i think. then i wrote the president bc i thought it would be too awkward to call someone i never ever met before. it took about 6 months before i heard from her. this was ok tho. i really needed a "year off." when they were doing the newsletters for the following year, i received one and that is how i got involved.

some of my friends have not been so lucky. one sister contacted national several times and after a year and a half found out that the president of the nearest alum chapter lived on her street! how funny is that! i have 2 other friends that moved to other states and were totally unable to find a chapter nearby. one of them, i fully believe was sheer laziness as the addresses were posted in our summer aglaia...plus i emailed it to her! the problem with posting the president's info in our summer magazine is that you get the info for the past president.

[aephi alum]

Originally posted by pinkyphimu
so here is a total hijack...... i am not sure when you graduated, but there isn't an alum group here for aephi. you have rep on the boston aph, but she said there are about 4 people who are "involved" with aephi in the area. not to justify the no contact or anything.

I could probably name them! I would have thought that with 4 chapters in the Boston area, and Boston being such an awesome city to live in (I wish I still lived there), there would be an alum chapter. Maybe there would be if AEPhi did a better job of the active-to-alum transition.

[AXORissa]

heh, in my chapter when I was an active, it wasnt senior retention that was the problem-- it was new sister retention! for some reason, once the girls crossed, a lot would drop the next semester. Maybe it was because all the stuff that was shielded from us as new members came out? or because they werent the focus of the chapter anymore-- the NEW members were? Because of that, our seniors were the most active. We kept our exec positions on the school year schedule (this has changed since I graduated), so most of Exec was seniors who lived in the house. Generally, most seniors lived in the house as a rule.

[polarpi]

Originally posted by James
In fact most social chairs of my acquaintance are usually sophomores or juniors and its a stepping stone position for the exec board.

Now, in my experience, social chair is an Executive Committee position for ADPi, which meant that a lot of juniors and seniors were holding the position, rather than *just initiated* freshmen/sophomores going into their sophomore/junior year. Maybe my understanding comes from being in a small chapter, but our social chairs were usually seniors themselves interested in making sure that everyone had a good time and that the seniors went out with a bang!

As someone has previously mentioned, ADPi has made it really easy to find alumnae associations...they're all on our international website! Also, I know that (at least for the San Diego alumnae association) IO sends out a list of new alumnae who've recently moved to the area (when we let IO know, or after graduation/going through Jewel Degree) to the association, and they contact those new alumnae about possibly getting involved with the association in their area. We also have the *Will Serve* form on the Sisters-only portion of the website, so we can electronically update our address and willingness to serve, be contacted for alumnae associations, etc.

[AGDAlum]

Wow, Carnation, you started quite a thread!

From the many responses, disenchantment seems to be common in many NPC groups. Therefore, it seems to me that this is something that NPC itself should address, and work with campus Panhellenics.

I have long wished that membership statistics would be available just to see the average new member class size, percentage of NMC initiated, etc., etc. I'm sure that NPC collects those and I'm sure they don't publish them because people would glom onto "oh, I can only pledge Pi Xi because they initiate more new members than any other group."

Thinking back three decades to my cohort: my small chapter COBd all the time. Of the 9 of us initiated (3/13/71), 2 left the university after that year, 1 (a junior transfer from another college) deactivated; 6 of us stayed with it. That spring we had a really successful COB--I believe we initiated 11 and 5 names come to mind as women who stayed until they graduate. Alas, quota/total that year was 33/68 and we never did make up the numbers.

[33girl]

Until we focus on new member (and member in general) retention instead of who can garner the biggest pledge class and have the biggest chapter, I don't think anything is going to change.

I think a lot of the reason NPC concentrates on this really is left over from the fifties, when a very large portion of women dropped out of college to marry. You got the big pledge class and if you were lucky you got 2 years out of them. Women don't drop out like that anymore.

[deadbear80]

I agree with some earlier posts that alumni retention can be very helpful. When I was an undergrad, we had some access to the local St. Louis Alumnae Chapter, plus we saw them at our annual Founder's Day brunch every year. When I graduated and moved to Boston, I looked up the alumnae chapter there over the internet and corresponded for a while, but as I was working 52+ hours a week, the events just weren't feasible. Plus, I wasn't sure how many alums my age were in the area.
When I moved back to St. Louis to attend grad school, I knew people who were active in the alum chapter here--because some of my chapter advisors were active, and some of my fellow chapter sisters were active. The other plug is that the DG alum group here has a 'young alum' group. One of my chapter sisters started it last year when she saw a need for people to feel like the alum group wasn't just for people over 40. We have events every month, and most people are in their 20s-30s; so it's a good group! I got involved because I knew people in the alum chapter, yes, but I also felt like I needed people outside of grad school. Where's the best place to find that--your sisters!
My mom, on the other hand, has had the opposite experience with her sorority, AEPhi. I think there was an earlier post that said that AEPhi was bad at alum retention, and from what I've seen, I'd have to agree. My mom was the president of her chapter, but after college, there was nothing to still keep in involved. She still keeps in touch with some of her sisters, but none of them contribute or think of AEPhi as anything else than something they did in college. Why? Because no one has wanted to keep them involved. Most of them can't remember songs or anything. I bet they can't even remember their rituals! And they came from a large chapter that's still in existence. I know that their house is still the house that's used---but it needs work. I bet the chapter can't even find alums to help them because AEPhi Nationals probably has no information to give them. If you don't keep track of your alums properly, they don't see the 'sorority is for life' concept, and they're not willing to help out chapters that may need them.
Just my .45 cents!

[Rudey]

Are your national officers supposed to constantly serve you? When I graduated college, I was the one who pursued being more involved and trying to get other alums involved - it wasn't just the national office pursuing us.

-Rudey