[navane]

"Instead of telling you to “stick to your values,” I’m going to tell you how to recruit people who will suck less as members of your chapter. Kay?"

LOL...tell it like it is, Nik!

I do have one discussion point regarding the "initiate before grades come in" concept you mention at the top of your article. My understanding is that pledge periods have been shortened over time, not due to micromanagement from schools or HQs as you claim, but in order to cut down on the amount of hazing. The idea was that, the quicker we can get someone into full member status, the less likely he or she is to be hazed. The trade-off here was that shorter pledge programs means that you may have to initiate a grade risk. We all did that to ourselves.

When I worked in Fraternity and Sorority Life at San Diego State University, I had to collect grade cards from the fraternity pledges. Our NIC had the fraternity pledges take a card around mid-semester to all of their professors to notate the student's current grade in the class.