"Positive Panhellenic Contact" Implemented at Washington - St. Louis
 

Panhellenic at Washington U - St. Louis has successfully relaxed (somewhat) its policies on contact between sorority members and non-members, according to an article posted by the student paper November 12, 2007:

Brief excerpts from article:

Sorority recruitment process receives facelift
By: Puneet Kollipara
Posted: 11/12/07
Women's formal sorority recruitment got a facelift this year, as the Greek Life Office implemented a new recruitment policy and improved its marketing program.

. . . the new policy, called Positive Panhellenic Contact, softens previous restrictions on interaction between affiliated and non-affiliated women during the recruitment process.

As part of the policy, unaffiliated women may interact more freely with affiliated women during recruitment. . . .

Prior to the new policy's implementation, the previous NPC standard that the University adhered to disallowed any sort of interaction between unaffiliated and affiliated women.

According to Lucy Morlan, GLO coordinator for chapter development, the old policy was meant to keep the playing field level and to help interested women get a more complete overview of Greek life so they could make a more informed decision, but it sometimes sent bad signals.

"The rule about not talking was supposed to help with that, but sometimes it gave off a bad feeling of, 'Well, they're not interested in me and they don't like me because they won't talk to me,'" said Morlan. "Our compromise for that is making sure that they're talking about the entire Greek system and promoting the Panhellenic side of it, which is what women's formal recruitment is supposed to be about."

. . . In addition to Positive Panhellenic Contact, the Greek Life Office has improved its marketing program to help reach out to interested women and better inform them about the recruitment process. . . .

We started this at my school this year, and I think that it helped alot more with girls signing up for recruitment. We had close to 80 girls register this year, and I think we had around 50 girls originally sign up last year.
Previously we couldn't really say much to the PNMs or it could be considered that we were "dirty rushing". I think that the PNMs got a much better impression of sorority women this year, because we could hold small conversations with them

I'm very excited to see this.

I believe it's critical. "No contact" rules seem to me to create an "us vs them" mentality that does not get to the ideas of sharing and friendship.

Congrats to Washington.

As the article states, this policy comes directly from NPC...the article is somewhat confusing because it states that the college panhellenic "voted" on it. I was under the impression that no more than 30 days of strict silence/disaffiliation was a Green Book RULE.

Any school that has deferred rush that is still disallowing sorority women from interacting with freshmen or other PNMs is seriously in the wrong and doesn't understand what deferred rush is about. They need to get their acts together because it's this "no talking" kind of crap that gives deferred such a bad name and makes the students hate it.

Our college panhellenic started out with this policy. I agree that this is more beneficial to panhellenic as a whole since it allows for more opportunities for interaction... but it is a slippery slope because no one can monitor private conversations to make sure dirty rushing isn't going on. Every year we hear stories about how one group told girls not to do formal recruitment because the group would just COB the girls afterwards (our chapter total is WAY too high) or else the girls would make up things about other groups' policies and tell the PNMs.

I guess it is a good policy in theory, but it sure opens an unrestricted door for women who don't care about the fact that panhellenic wants them to talk up panhellenic rather than talk up their own group and talk down the others.

There is "tent talk" at rush that starts before classes...there are girls who come to campus knowing probably more about the sororities than some current students. And I won't even get into the chapters at some of the SEC schools that supposedly have their pledge class picked out before rush even starts. I don't think that's any less "dirty" than someone saying "XYZ are sluts" in a private conversation.

The best thing is to make sure that the rushees are INFORMED and make sure that they know that going thru formal rush and not listening to gossip or rumors is in their best interest. We can't eliminate dirty rushing entirely...but I think it's worth it for the PNMs to have a chance to get to know sorority women outside of formal rush.

And don't kid yourselves - even with the draconian "silence" rules, there were/are actives breaking them and dirty rushing.

That is just nuts.

Would you even want a rushee whose integrity allows her to put any stock in this type of talk?

I hope you really didn't mean you want to monitor private conversations. And listening to stories about what might have been said by someone else isn't really giving the other party a chance, is it? It's more like condemning based on gossip.

First, I didn't say I'd want to monitor private conversations -- I said it was impossible so if you allow conversations, there is no way to know that the conversations are pro-panhellenic. That is the risk you take. Trust me, I'm not trying to advocate that we try to start monitoring conversations.

And as far as hearing stories and believing them... sure they might not be true, or they might. When a PNM comes up to you and says "someone from XYZ said that your sorority doesn't allow you to have events with fraternities," I tend to wonder why a PNM would make up such a thing. And when PNMs come to parties saying "my friend said she wasn't coming to recruitment because she was told that you can COB after formal recruitment, is that true?" in the context of a year where quota was 3 (yes, I'm not joking) and then the organization in question COBed triple that after formal was over in the span of less than a week.

Sure it is gossip, but you shouldn't assume that because it is gossip it is false and I'm just smoking crack or something. When stuff happens year after year, you tend to start believing its not just typical exaggeration at work. While I don't believe in "condemnation" based on gossip, it is hard to ignore this stuff when it is persistent and comes from sources that would be unlikely to make it up.

I'm sure that is painfully true. I just wish women realized that in the end, dirty rushing just makes the greek system weaker as a whole and ends up hurting everyone.

I know, I know - and a pledge you have to get through some underhanded means - well, really, what does that say about you as a person and your GLO???